Tiling a bathroom

[Lisci]

I'll be grateful for some advice on re-tiling a bathroom prior to fitting a new bathroom suite.

Current, the wall at the back and foot of the bath is tiled right up to the ceiling; that at the head of the bath and behind the WC and hand basin to a height of 1.2m, as is the "return" on the side of the hand basin. Most of the existing tiles are sound but there's a large area behind the bath, roughly corresponding to the area where the spray from the power shower hits, where they appear to be blown - they have a hollow ring when tapped. My intention is to put the new bathroom fittings in the same position as the existing ones and to tile roughly the same area of each wall.

I propose to lever off all the lose/blown tiles. If the underlying plaster is sound the plan is to re-fix them using a waterproof tile adhesive. If it is not, then I'll hack off the old plaster and skim up to the level of the existing tiles. But I want to try to avoid re-plastering the whole wall if possible.

Questions are:

1. Does the above plan of action above seem about right?
2. If re-plastering part of the wall behind the bath is found to be necessary what is the best medium to use?
3. Where the existing tiles are sound, what is the best way to prepare them as a base for the new ones?
4. Is it necessary or desirable to use a special adhesive and/or grout in the area that will take the spray from the power shower, other than the normal waterproof stuff. If so, what?
5. What is the best way of dealing with the "double thickness" of tiles the I will end up with on the exposed edges of the splash back (e.g. behind the loo and basin) given that the standard edging strip is designed for a single tile thickness. Do I use this and pack the gap behind with grout?

When it comes to fitting the new bath, what are people's thoughts on whether it is better to fit the bath first and tile around it, or tile first and fit the bath to the tiles?

Many thanks for your help.

Ververka

Cheltenham, Glos

[David M]

yep, it all sounds pretty reasonable

nothing special, just standard plaster/finishing plaster will be OK

personally I'd take off all the tiles, I've never seen a good all round finish where this bodge is applied. Especially if the tiles come up to window or door frames.

Any decent waterproof tile adhesive, with a similar quality grout is adequate, I've not had any problems using them over a 10 year period. If you have nay doubts then the belt and braces approach is to use an adhesive that is recommended for swimming pool use.

As above, I'm not a fan of tiles over tiles. Get an SDS drill and remove the lot, it's far more fun.

Conventional wisdom says to put in the bath in first and then tile down to it, so that you make sure there is minimal chance of any leaks down the side of the bath.

Having said that I recently refitted the bathroom and did exactly the opposite. Tiling the wall first and then putting in the bath later. In this case the tiles were relatively think, about 12mm, and tiling down would have looked terrible, in my opinion, with only a narrow strip of the bath top remaining visible. Copious quantities of silicon were used when the bath was butted up against the wall and the bath was screwed securely in place to ensure no movement. Then it was finished off with silicone around the edge. This certainly requires a little more effort and care to be taken, but the result looks a lot better than tiling down would have down. The bath gets fairly heavy usage with a couple of showers every morning and bathing three kids in the evenings, and has stood up to this happily for the last 9 months.

cheers

David

[Paul Barker]

Take the lot off it only takes 1/2 a day.

if the rottenm bit is plas board renew it, if it's plaster on brick o block bring up level with sand and cement or bonding. In wet areas prefer sand and cement.

If wall are really bad dot and dab with plastreboard and tile ove that.

Put bath in first, chase out wall where it will sit, put and glue it i with expanding foam. Cut it back 2 days later. Tile over top of bath.

BAsin and wc tile wall first, bed basin against it with white silico sealer, and trim it with silicon also. Modern close coupled wc sit quite well just resting against tiles.

I can't answer tthe questions relating how to deal with tile over til part as I've never done it

-- Paul Barker