Panelling out a shower cubicle (ie not tiling)?

[Lobster]

Will be refurbishing our shower at home shortly. SWMBO has decided that it might be nice to fit it out with flat perspex-type panels rather than conventional tiles, like you often get in hotel rooms etc.

I have no experience of fitting anything like this, and googling has thrown up number of possible suppliers (none of which I've ever heard of, eg

)

Costs appear to vary from about the same as tiling to substantially more. Anyone done this as a viable alternative to tiling? Any tips, experiences, sources of materials etc gratefully received.

David

[dom]

eg

> Costs appear to vary from about the same as tiling to substantially

Hotels use Corian, or its clones - known generically as "solid surface". It's a pretty expensive product. Also used as kitchen worktops - usually positioned between laminates and marble/granite in terms of price and quality.

Corian is made by DuPont, and they are not keen to sell to the public.

LG make HI-MACS, which may be easier to obtain.

They're worked rather like a dense board material - sawn and then trimmed with a router bit. I think the LG product installer guides are available online. Given the cost, it isn't really one you'd dive into unless you're pretty confident of producing excellent results with expensive materials.

The decos-spaceline material you linked to isn't a solid-surface material. The Mermaid Panles product probably is.

[andrew]

eg

> Costs appear to vary from about the same as tiling to substantially

We've used these ones a few times:

look good, are lasting well so far (6 years or so for the first ones we fitted) and are easy to fit. From memory we pay about =A375 + VAT for an 8 x 4 sheet in white, a bit more for the more interesting ones. When we fit them in our house, I'm thinking about adding the concealed speaker system -

[stuart noble]

eg

>>> Costs appear to vary from about the same as tiling to substantially

I was looking at the free standing shower cubicles (Kubex and others) that are delivered assembled. A bit pricey but I guess they would be quick to install.

[Lobster]

Thanks a lot for this - looks very interesting and I may well go down this route.

Seems that you can attach[1] this stuff direct to the battens in the surrounding studwork, ie no need for plasterboard/aquapanel: does that work OK?

I may have some difficulty getting that one past SWMBO!

David

[1] This is officially the last time I'm going to use this word in usenet posts. "Fix" from now on. Fed up with Thunderbird asking me each time "Did you forget to add an attachment?" - "No, send now" Christ - worthy of Micr$oft...

[Lobster]

Thanks but this is a refurb of an existing (leaking, allegedly pro-installed) shower in a 3-walled recess, so I want to replace like with like rather than destroying the whole bathroom!

David

[Andy Burns]

Edit/Preferences (maybe Tools/Options for Windows) Composition/General and untick 'check for missing attachments'

[andrew]

Works fine. The stuff is basically 0.5 inch plywood with a high pressure laminate bonded to the face, so it's pretty rigid. First time we used it was lining a full room - we glued it straight to the studs of the existing 100 year old stud wall.

I think the trade price is a lot less than that, but still not cheap!

A

[Lobster]

Thanks for that: Thunderbird is forgiven!