Arkadian
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Hello, this is my first post on here, probably one of many I am sure!
I am looking for some advice on an issue we are facing with our shower enclosures tiling in a circa 1890s mid terrace house.
We recently moved into a house that had recently been refurbished, and fitted with freestanding bath, with an exposed valve shower above. We decided that the bath was impractical, and we couldn't use the shower as there was no shower screen; the bathroom wasn't tanked to the best of our understanding. We decided to replace the bath with a 700 X 1100mm shower tray, which was done by a bathroom fitter as both myself and my partner were fairly busy with work, and couldn't do this ourselves at the time. The tray is raised on a timber frame to accommodate the waste, with goes out the wall into a drain that serves our grey water, and guttering.
We requested the first few courses of tiles to be removed to fit the tray in place, as the tiles were already installed; this unfortunately wasn't done, and was simply butted up to the existing tiled wall, with a noticeable gap on one end as the wall isn't square (fig. 1); a liberal bead of white Silicon was installed, and has remained ok since. The job was finished, and we were fairly happy with the end result, however I still had concerns regarding the potential for a leak with movement of the tray.
Issues started to unfold in the coming weeks, and months. Firstly, we noticed teal/green patches of discolouration on the grout, all fairly proximal to the copper pipes feeding the shower, as well as around the valve plate(fig. 2-3); this plate covering the pipe connection was initially loose, and a plumber doing a separate job, Silicon sealed this. I am thinking that water penetrated here, and caused the copper pipes to become in contact with moisture, hence the discolouration.
The second issue we noticed recently is that the grout has started to crumble, and come away, most noticeable in the first course closest to the tray; also, a small hairline crack on two of the tiles on the other wall. I decided to attempt to regrout this with an epoxy grout in the first instance to remedy this, and replace the cracked tiles, of which were three; this therein lies to my findings that now lead me here. As I tried to remove one of the cracked tiles, it took a whole chunk of what appeared to be gypsum plasterboard with it (fig. 5). Not really what I wanted to see, as this is obviously not waterproof, and did not seem to be tanked in any way. The plasterboards are screwed to 35 x 60mm timber studs, which are spaced with 300 centres; There seems to be an old plaster render that seems to be coming away as seen in fig 5. The hot water pipe runs against one of the studs (fig 6), no idea is this is correct?
It also seems that access was made through the tiles and plaster to chase the waste pipe, therefore the plaster board only goes as far as the bottom of the tray and timber frame; we get a lot of draught from the shower waste (fig 7), not sure if this is properly insulated, doesn't look like it is!
This leads on to our current predicament; we've got into contact with a builder via my partners family, who has suggested patching this up by cutting a larger section of backing board, and attaching this to piece of timber attached to the masonry wall; I am hesitant to do this as it seems this wouldn't really solve the long term problem, bar regrouting with waterproof grout, and replacing a few cracked tiles.
My thoughts were to completely rip this out down to the studs, and replace with something like acquapanel, and retile with waterproof adhesive. We don't have the money to hire anyone to do this currently, and are kind of stuck with what to do. Would this be possible to do myself, I have minimal experience in this area, however understand principally what needs to be done.
Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.
I am looking for some advice on an issue we are facing with our shower enclosures tiling in a circa 1890s mid terrace house.
We recently moved into a house that had recently been refurbished, and fitted with freestanding bath, with an exposed valve shower above. We decided that the bath was impractical, and we couldn't use the shower as there was no shower screen; the bathroom wasn't tanked to the best of our understanding. We decided to replace the bath with a 700 X 1100mm shower tray, which was done by a bathroom fitter as both myself and my partner were fairly busy with work, and couldn't do this ourselves at the time. The tray is raised on a timber frame to accommodate the waste, with goes out the wall into a drain that serves our grey water, and guttering.
We requested the first few courses of tiles to be removed to fit the tray in place, as the tiles were already installed; this unfortunately wasn't done, and was simply butted up to the existing tiled wall, with a noticeable gap on one end as the wall isn't square (fig. 1); a liberal bead of white Silicon was installed, and has remained ok since. The job was finished, and we were fairly happy with the end result, however I still had concerns regarding the potential for a leak with movement of the tray.
Issues started to unfold in the coming weeks, and months. Firstly, we noticed teal/green patches of discolouration on the grout, all fairly proximal to the copper pipes feeding the shower, as well as around the valve plate(fig. 2-3); this plate covering the pipe connection was initially loose, and a plumber doing a separate job, Silicon sealed this. I am thinking that water penetrated here, and caused the copper pipes to become in contact with moisture, hence the discolouration.
The second issue we noticed recently is that the grout has started to crumble, and come away, most noticeable in the first course closest to the tray; also, a small hairline crack on two of the tiles on the other wall. I decided to attempt to regrout this with an epoxy grout in the first instance to remedy this, and replace the cracked tiles, of which were three; this therein lies to my findings that now lead me here. As I tried to remove one of the cracked tiles, it took a whole chunk of what appeared to be gypsum plasterboard with it (fig. 5). Not really what I wanted to see, as this is obviously not waterproof, and did not seem to be tanked in any way. The plasterboards are screwed to 35 x 60mm timber studs, which are spaced with 300 centres; There seems to be an old plaster render that seems to be coming away as seen in fig 5. The hot water pipe runs against one of the studs (fig 6), no idea is this is correct?
It also seems that access was made through the tiles and plaster to chase the waste pipe, therefore the plaster board only goes as far as the bottom of the tray and timber frame; we get a lot of draught from the shower waste (fig 7), not sure if this is properly insulated, doesn't look like it is!
This leads on to our current predicament; we've got into contact with a builder via my partners family, who has suggested patching this up by cutting a larger section of backing board, and attaching this to piece of timber attached to the masonry wall; I am hesitant to do this as it seems this wouldn't really solve the long term problem, bar regrouting with waterproof grout, and replacing a few cracked tiles.
My thoughts were to completely rip this out down to the studs, and replace with something like acquapanel, and retile with waterproof adhesive. We don't have the money to hire anyone to do this currently, and are kind of stuck with what to do. Would this be possible to do myself, I have minimal experience in this area, however understand principally what needs to be done.
Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.
