The Ultimate Guide To Renovation Course - Module 9: Wet Areas

Bathrooms and wet areas have strict regulations in place which determine things like how a floor is laid, how wall sheets are fixed in place and how waterproofing is carried out. These differ slightly from state to state. In some states, like New South Wales, for instance, it is a requirement to have a dry waste installed in a wet area for which acts as an overflow in the event of a wet area flooding. You need to check your local regulations for more information. Here is the sequence of work in the two bathrooms from our case study. Now take notes on this. Having done many, many bathroom renovations myself and having applied so many different trades to the process of putting a bathroom together, not one person usually can tell you what the entire process looks like. And after a lot of time and effort, we've pulled together this process or this sequence of work so you can see what needs to be done in what order. It's important you need to know this, especially if you're project managing. So let's have a look at that sequence. First of all, you need to rough in the plumbing. Now this includes all the wastes. You then reinstate the floor if it's been removed and apply tile underlay. You reinstate the walls and ceilings if needed. You paint the ceiling, create a step down or recess into the shower. Then do the shower recess. You need to apply sand and cement screed for the correct fall to the waste so the water runs away. Now you need to have time to allow this to dry. Then use paintable silicon to seal all internal and external corners. Then you apply waterproofing membrane, normally three coats to the floor and the walls. You then tile. There's caulking. You then add the vanity, the mirror and then you fit off the plumbing. Leaving concrete aside, you have two options with which to construct your bathroom and wet area. Floor compressed sheet. This is cement based sheeting, 15 or 18 mil thick. It is extremely heavy and must be cut with an angle grinder. Then there's timber flooring and tile underlay. This is the most common preparation method for tiling and is the example that we're going to use. So we've done the floor, we're still in the bathroom. Let's look at the shower recess. Inside a shower recess, the water must fall towards the grate or the drain so it can be drained away. A shower grate or waste can be in the form of a round or square outlet towards the middle of the shower recess. It could alternatively be a strip drain, also known as a strip grate or waste. The easiest and most straightforward way to Deal with the shower recess is by installing a pre manufactured shower base. These come in standard sizes of 900 to 1200 mil for which pre made glass shower screens can be installed. This is the method that I use for lower end structural renovations or cosmetic renovations with the resale value under $500,000. In higher level renovations, I like to use a strip grate. A strip grate allows water to fall in one direction, alleviating the need for cutting tiles diagonally to form a trough in the middle of the shower recess. This is both aesthetically pleasing and easier to carry out than cutting tiles. Strip grates are considerably more expensive than a normal grate. Some fancy ones fetch over $1,000. Both the round or square grate and the strip grate method is achieved by creating a step down or difference in level inside the shower recess. This is then filled with a screed that slopes towards the grate itself, allowing the water to drain away. This is then tiled over. In the strip grate method, the screed will slope or fall in one direction which is normally towards one of the outside walls where the strip grate is located. So now that the floor is nearly completed minus the screed, we can start on the walls. This can be done using either waterproof plasterboard or WB board or VillaBoard cement sheet. It is generally acknowledged that villaboard is superior to WB board for maintaining complete water resistance over very long periods of time. However, both systems do have the same waterproof membrane applied on top of them which should itself be 100% water resistant. WB plasterboard was used in our case study. This choice was made mainly for convenience as the plasterer could install the wet area walls while they were doing the rest of the house instead of having to bring back the carpenter to apply the villaboard. The method for installing WB plasterboard and in a bathroom or wet area for use under tiles is slightly different to how plasterboard is installed in the rest of the house. As always, check the regulations in your state at this stage. Prior to tiling, I like to paint the bathroom ceilings. In a renovation at this level, I tile the walls all the way up to the ceilings for that luxury effect. So in the bathrooms, it's only the ceiling and perhaps some architrave that requires painting. So the choices are paint the ceiling first before the tiling or paint after the tiling is finished and have to do some major covering up and still risk getting paint on the tiles. Even when painting first. Inevitably the ceiling will require some touch ups after the tiler is finished. Now that the Walls are on and the ceiling has been painted, we can turn our attention to waterproofing and screeding in the shower area. But before we can start that, silicone must be applied to all of the internal external corners, sheet joints and any gaps in the wet area. This is done to all of the sheet joins on the floor, so the tile underlay and the walls. After making sure the area is clean and free of dust, paintable silicone can now be applied to all of the internal and external corners in the bathroom. Paintable silicone doesn't mean it is painted on, it means that paint will stick to it. Silicone is applied with a caulking gun. The excess is removed with a finger or a wet soapy rag, or both. In this step, it's important to make sure that the internal corners are not left rounded, that is, when your finger runs through it, preventing the tiles from being able to go all the way into the corners. Be sure to leave at least 24 hours for this to dry again. Check your local regulations. You may find that you do not require silicone applied to every sheet join, particularly on walls away from water points. But when it comes to waterproofing, it's always better to have more than less. Now it's time to lay the screed. The screed can be laid prior to or after the waterproofing has taken place. This seems to be a debatable point amongst builders. The disadvantage of laying it prior is the delay of curing time before waterproofing can take place. On a small area such as a shower recess and with a thickness under 30 mm, tilers will typically screed using a premixed compound, normally called an under tile screed mix. However, some tilers prefer just using a stiff mix of tile adhesive. In both cases, the tile underlay is primed first using the manufacturer's primer or an adhesive such as bondcrete. So now we're left with a continuous surface that runs from the bathroom floor level 19mm, down towards the strip grate. Now, on a shower recess of 1.2 metres, minus the 40mm for the grate size, 19ml drop will give you a 1 in 64. That's the Victorian requirement. As stated, check your local state requirements. Waterproofing wet areas prior to tiling is a legal requirement of all states of Australia. However, the regulations are different in each state. There are several methods of doing this, but they generally tend to fall into two categories. Fiberglass based membrane or acrylic based membrane. Waterproofing is something that needs to be done properly. It is one of the biggest defect causes on builders warranty insurance and it was for one of my renovations. When not done properly it can lead to major problems including structural rot and subsidence. This is a task where careful consideration should be given to using a professional. Most structural renovations, which include several wet areas such as a bathroom and en suite, can generally be done for under $1000 and they will come with a guarantee. Your wet area is now ready for tiling.