Waterproof panels for boxing in in bathroom

[Tim Watts]

I'm looking for a semi rigid waterproof panel to make a bath panel and a bit of boxing around the rear of a loo.

One possible contender might be the Wickes panels:

9mm WBP core, laminated. Where water is always present, it will be sealed in.

For a top surface to pipe boxing, I'd prefer to loose fit (with some magnets or mirror screws) for easy removal - this will only get exposed to water during a wipe down once a week/fortnight.

9mm is a tad thin for a bath panel, but it can have some batten bonded to the back to assist stiffness. Should be OK as is for boxing.

Does anyone have experience with this - or even know of a comparable or better product? No MDF cores under any circumstances...

A lot of the other panelling seems to be foam cored and designed to bond to a rigid substrate - I'm after something with a bit of integral strength.

Ta

Tim

[newshound]

I'd expect 9 mm ply to be plenty thick enough for a bath panel assuming it is supported at each edge. As you say, trivial to add another batten in the middle.

+1 for loose fixing.

[Tim Watts]

I took a detour to Wickes after a dump run. Fixing the dormer floor means finding all the crap you should have thrown away before!

Anyway, they had some samples at Bexhill and I was well impressed. Foot square ish and I could not bend them, even over my knee. They've laminated front and back and that seems to make them unbendable - whilst remaining light.

These probably won't need secondary battening. What they don't have on sale is any edging (they claim they do, but the bloke couldn't find any) so I need to find maybe some C channel of the right sort of size...

As to boxing things in, no contest. They only downside is they are

****ing expensive - I am hoping to do it all out of one 4x8' panel.