OT building a wet room
Mr Whippy - 6/4/09 at 01:11 PM
Anyone ever built one?
I have an upstairs bathroom we were thinking of turning into a wet room. To do this I was considering sheathing the whole floor and about a foot of
the lower wall in 5mm of GRP then tiling over that, especially if I stippled the surface before the resin cured to give the tiling grout a good key.
To me that would be the best and easiest way to guarantee it would never leak and I could easily mould in a drain for the shower. The floor is large
chipboard panels rather than floorboards and the walls are plasterboard.
Any suggestion or tips?
oh I've already been told car parts are banned 
blakep82 - 6/4/09 at 01:14 PM
they normally do it with some sort of a vinyl floor don't they? its not vinyl, i can't remember exactly what it is, but some sort of pastic
Mr Whippy - 6/4/09 at 01:21 PM
I've seen the stuff and it looks like some sort of tanking as used on basements
I like the idea of using GRP as it's easy to apply, cheap and can't ever leak
blakep82 - 6/4/09 at 01:23 PM
can't leak, unless it cracks... as long as your floor's solid it should be fine i'd think, although i've never built one! 
spdpug98 - 6/4/09 at 01:29 PM
I would recomend changing the flooring to a marine ply, then laying either an Altro Marine or Polyfloor Suprtech vinyl with coved skirtings.
Ensure floor is laid by an approved installer and you will get a manufuacture approved warraty against leakage - drawn and specified hundreds of these
in the old days
Mr Whippy - 6/4/09 at 01:42 PM
quote:
Originally posted by spdpug98
I would recomend changing the flooring to a marine ply, then laying either an Altro Marine or Polyfloor Suprtech vinyl with coved skirtings.
Ensure floor is laid by an approved installer and you will get a manufuacture approved warraty against leakage - drawn and specified hundreds of these
in the old days
hmm mayby if I hadn't nailed the floor down and built the room. I'm going to do all the work myself you see as I've already built the
rest of the house. Looked at the price of those tanking materials, you'd think they were for covering the spaceshuttle at the price they're
asking
If I used GRP over the floor then should it matter what the floors made of underneath? as its then just a room sized plastic shower cabinet
[Edited on 6/4/09 by Mr Whippy]
hughpinder - 6/4/09 at 02:01 PM
If you sheet out the whole floor, how do you access the waste trap, or other underfloor plumbing fittings?
I don't think the sub floor material will matter at all if you are laying 5mm of fibreglass - it will have enough structural strength to avoid
cracking anyway.
Regards
Hugh
A1 - 6/4/09 at 02:36 PM
we got one recently, they use a kinda resin stuff first then tile on that...
iank - 6/4/09 at 02:38 PM
AFAIK Fibreglass isn't waterproof, it's the gelcoat that does that trick. I know old fibreglass boats can have horrible de-lamination
problems due to water having got into the structure.
spdpug98 - 6/4/09 at 02:57 PM
quote:
Originally posted by hughpinder
If you sheet out the whole floor, how do you access the waste trap, or other underfloor plumbing fittings?
Level floor drains have a removable top which allows you to remove the inner trap, that doesn't help with the rest of the subfloor pipework
though
iiyama - 6/4/09 at 03:20 PM
I do it for a living, (bathroom, shower and wetroom installations).
Like anything else, do it on the cheap and youll cost yourself a fortune in the longrun. There is only one way to do it and thats the right way and
fibreglass aint it! 
zilspeed - 6/4/09 at 04:26 PM
As mentioned above
Altro marine / Polysafe or similar forms the floor finish with a cove former to bring it up the wall to meet with the tiling.
A Harmer floor drain takes care of the waste.
You can also buy a GRP shower tray which is 19mm or 22mm thick around its perimeter. This replaces the floorboards and has a falll to the centre. The
harmer drain goes into this and the altro marine goes on top.
This is all on the basis that you have a nice deep joist running in the right direction to allow the waste to get away.
Otherwise you're into pumps and all that nonsense.
(Yes, I'm involved in this line of work too.)