Tanking

[Bill]

How come that the showers that I tile do not fail?

I have probably used a tanking system about 3 times (one job, Media City specified all the shower enclosures to be tanked but not the bath/shower combos) on separate jobs.

None of my showers fail and I have tiled on every substrate and used all types of adhesive.

Discuss.

 

[J Sid]

most, if not all failures I see are down to the the plumber / bathroom fitter not doing there job correctly. Leaking pipe or fittings, shower screen not sealed correctly.
tanking the wall is to save the substrate after follow on trades **** up and give us tilers a chance to repair it without a full strip out 🙂

 

[Old Mod]

Not saying this is relevant to you Tom, but every failed shower/wetroom I've looked at has been someone else's.
When upon asking potential client, where is original installer?
The reply is always the same!
"Wouldn't have him back, messed up first time, what's to say he won't mess up again?"

Consequently, I've never been recalled to one of my wet area either! 😀

So I always promote wet areas being tanked, just to be safe.
Unless I can physically see the whole construction from 1st fix up, I'm not going to put my faith in someone else's prep, I only have faith in mine.
And when all said and done, it's a very cheap insurance policy.

That's how I look at it.

 

[WetSaw]

They've only just started stocking tanking here, it used to be order only. I've never come across any form of tanking in any bathroom I've done here but having said that I've only stripped out ones that have tiles butted and fixed with sand and cement blobs but still have no signs of leaks.

 

[J Sid]

you tank a shower marc and it leaks, you wouldn't know it's failed, as they didn't call you back 🙁 but if you did, you would find the water has gone behind the tiles, run down to the tray and then run to the edge of tray and onto an untanked area outside the shower. Question, how far would you tank outside the shower area? Surely the whole room , including floor should be done!

 

[Old Mod]

If it's a wet floor arrangement I'll tank well outside former, if there are shower screens, if not I'll always advise complete floor. If it's an actual tray I'll tank walls back into tray/bath.
Yeah sure the only completely safe method would be to do whole floor with upstand, which I'll also do quite frequently with Ditra.

 

[Stef]

I've never had a failure, as far as I know, but I insist on tanking showers & above a bath if shower is fitted.
I just don't see the point now in not spending the extra on a tanking kit when the customer is spending a couple of thousand on tiles etc & it's only an extra couple of hundred quid to give a rock solid guarantee.

 

[Italy]

I've never had a failure, as far as I know, but I insist on tanking showers & above a bath if shower is fitted.
I just don't see the point now in not spending the extra on a tanking kit when the customer is spending a couple of thousand on tiles etc & it's only an extra couple of hundred quid to give a rock solid guarantee.

i same

 

[Qwerty]

A fair few countries are now insisting it is done and it is even a licenced trade so cowboys can't hash it up. I would like to see this happen here.

 

[One Day]

A fair few countries are now insisting it is done and it is even a licenced trade so cowboys can't hash it up. I would like to see this happen here.

The corporate greed and short sightedness which is so rife in the uk probably means we'll never see it properly regulated.