During the fifties and the begining of the sixties in Sweden, there was a SEVERE shortage of housing. The solution came in the form of what came to be called "the million program", which aimed to create a million homes. It ran from the mid sixties to the mid seventies. Due to the pace and the scale of the program, the cheapest possible materials and methods were often chosen. Before the seventies, bathing in tubs was the norm. During the seventies, the hygiene habits of people changed, and showering became the norm. Bathrooms, especially in the million program homes, weren't designed for that; they lacked proper waterproofing. We're talking concrete structures with mostly atleast partially tiled bathrooms. Water damage became so common and so expensive that something had to be done. It became law that all bathrooms had to be waterproofed etc etc.
Anyways. Nowadays, all tilers in Sweden need a licence to work in bathrooms. To recieve the licence, you have to have done a certain number of hours as an apprentice, followed by a course in waterproofing held by the swedish tiling org, BKR. Having the licence gives you a certain amount of legal protection in case of waterdamage, as long as you applied the waterproofing according to manufacturer instructions. Working in bathrooms without a licence, can result in a fine.
Every bathroom is treated as a wetroom over here, and all the walls and the entire floor has to be waterproofed. The
rules are quite strict on what waterproofing systems you can use in any given situation. All waterproofing systems are tested by a government lab, at the manufacturer's expense. The minimum performance levels are decided by the government construction authority, together with BKR.
Here are a couple of pdf's displaying a couple of waterproofing systems which are common over here. They're in swedish, but there are pictures.
broken link removed
http://www.maxit.se/media/22/pdf/fas...ine_Liquid.pdf
http://www.cascose.dk/_upl/pdf/07121...%20Klinker.pdf
We can't use any wood based materials in the substrate at all. Regular plasterboards have been banned in bathrooms, so we have to use fiberglassfaced plasterboards, or fibercementboards, unless the substrate is massive concrete or brick.
All bathroom floors are given a gradient towards the drain.
The rules got even more strict last year. Any substrate made from board materials have to be waterproofed with a steam proof membrane; the roll on dispersions aren't enough according the the new rules.
