Bathroom..

GreeBo

Hey, having spent the weekend de-tiling my bathroom (walls and floor) Im left with plasterboard thats still covered in two lots of grout (nice job by the previous owners).
Ive decide to just rip down the plasterboard and redoit (drylining the one exterior wall)
Ive heard that there is some sort of tanking stuff I can get to make the wall waterproof, anyone know any more about it? Is it anymore than a PVA wash?
We are also debating putting new tiles on the floor, or sanding and varnishing the floorboards (the have been covered since Day 1 so are in pretty good condition).
Has anyone got floorboards in the bathroom and what are the snags?
Im assuming I will have to find some way of covering the toilet and sink waste at the floor, but is there anything else?
Cheers.

yop

PVA bonding alright lad.

Rubens

If you always plan to have tiles on these walls then your could put plywood up instead of plasterboard. Then paint on your PVA/water mix. This will give a sturdier and longer-life basewall for the tiles.

As for the floor you need at least half-inch plywood very securely scrwed to the floorboards and again covered with the PVA mix and then tile on to this.

Hope this helps.

RJ

GreeBo

Yeah I was thinking of doing plywood for the walls allright
easier to manage, cut, handle etc but a bit more expensive.
Whats the insulation like versus dry lining? (For the exterior wall)
I didnt think you would use it on the floow aswell?
The tiles that I took up were on a very thin (maybe 5mm) kinda cardboard wood, cant think of the name for it, like the backing in a chipboard press.

Yop, so is Tanking the same as PVA?

gregos

Don't mind the small extra expense for the plywood. It'll be a better job, and the ply is easier to work with. The other option is to use (don't laugh - it's actually a good product) Grosfilex sheeting. It goes up in no time, using only glue, and there's no need for grouting. But it would probably be too much to do all the walls with.

Plasterboard has negligible insulation value: if that's all you have insulating your outside wall it must make for a very cold bathroom. Why don't you consider insulating while you have the lining torn down? The advice about putting ply on the floor is good: it will withstand the inevitable leaks that happen in a bathroom, and you can surface it with whatever you want - tiles, t&g, whatever. Personally, I like having timber flooring in the bathroom and I'm willing to accept that it won't last forever. Think of it this way: you'd probably want to change the tiles eventually anyway, and it would be no greater hassle to replace a wooden floor than it would be to replace the tiles. Less work, if anything.

GreeBo

Thats the kinda plastic sheets of tiles right?
The missus has visions of a spa bathroom so they would be a definite no no.

I was wondering could we just sand/varnish the t&g thats already in place or would we have to ply over that and then put down new stuff ?
(t&g or laminate)

Might even put down the ply and then lino, be nice and warm.

Right now the external wall is a 9" cavity with about 2-3 inches of insulation between the studs, then covered in ploythene sheeting.
We have been told that we should put up dry lining, but Im not sure what advantage it would be.....?


Last night as I was taking down the plasterboard I discovered that (at least) one of the internal walls is not stud partition, it appears to be two sheets of plasterboard with lots or strips of perpendicular cardboard sandwiched between them...Help!

kadman

GreeBo wrote:

so is Tanking the same as PVA?

Hi,

Tanking is not the same as pva application. They are two totally different methods, and are applicable to different situations.

Pva bonding or polybonding , is the application of a waterproof coating on a wall or timber. Its purpose is to improve adhesion of tile, plaster or any additional coating going on to a wall. It does this by slowing down the setting time of plaster ect, by reducing the absorbtion rate of the existing wall surface. This allows the surface coat to dry naturally, instead of the substrata sucking all the moisture out of the surface coat.

Tanking is an entirely different thing all together. Tanking is a term refered to the process of waterproofing cellars and basements. The inside of a cellar or basement is effectively sealed against the ingression of water from the surrounding soil. Water pressure below ground level will have a tendency to try to force its way through the existing structure. Various membranes and chemicals are used to tank a cellar, it used to be completely sealed using lead years ago. I believe newtonite was another product in use.
Unless your bathroom is below ground level, I dont think tanking is required.

No doubt Rooferpete has come across tanking in his day, if he mentions newtonite, he's showing his age.he.he.



kadman

GreeBo

ok cool thx!
Any ideas on the weird "studless" partition wall?
I dont wanna go ripping it off if its gonna be a pain in the arse to fix. Though Im guessing at this stage Im going to have to build the stud bit myself now...?

gregos

GreeBo wrote:

Right now the external wall is a 9" cavity with about 2-3 inches of insulation between the studs, then covered in ploythene sheeting.
We have been told that we should put up dry lining, but Im not sure what advantage it would be.....?


Last night as I was taking down the plasterboard I discovered that (at least) one of the internal walls is not stud partition, it appears to be two sheets of plasterboard with lots or strips of perpendicular cardboard sandwiched between them...Help!

Is this a timber-framed house?

GreeBo

Nope, its a "regular" 9 inch cavity block job
It appears that all the upstairs internal walls are this sandwich board stuff... wish I knew this before I started taking lumps out of it.
Ahwell, guess I'll have to start patching it up, glad Im tiling the walls!

GreeBo

ok, on further inspection and after removing most of the grout/wallpaper/first few layers of plasterboard backing paper the walls are in pretty shoddy condition i.e broken and loose in places.
Taking into account the type of sandwich board it is, does the following seem possible/sensible?
Im thinking of taking down the internal plasterboard (in the bathroom), no more nails-ing studs of the same thickness as the cardboard filler to the inside of the outer plasterboard wall and then finally fixing either plasterboard or plywood to these studs, hopefully leaving me with a nice, clean, firm surface to tile onto...
Make sense or am I mad?
So if this is the current wall with x being the cardboard stiffner
|x|
|x|
|x| bathroom
|x|
|x|

I want to do this where l are studs glued to the plasterboard on each side.
|l|
|l|
|l| bathroom
|l|
|l|