Bathroom refit materials

[Guest]

Lots of questions this weekend from me it seems.. Here's another one. Excuse the wall of text.

 

Long and short of it is I've removed my pump out tank which used to be in the bathroom and on top of which the toilet and sink were all built upon. The reason being is I have a composting toilet and have no further need for a second toilet.

 

Upon removing the tank, it appears that there was a leak that caused a fair bit of wood to rot, including the bathroom walls and the flooring.

 

So I'm currently in the process of stripping bathroom down and finding a chippie to rebuild my bathroom.

 

My question is related to the materials I should be using. The floorboard was/is a sheet of ply, half of which is fine, the other half which sat under the pump out tank fell apart in my hand.

 

I just found the source of the leak, which is coming from the shower - the pipe going into the shower doesn't look to have been fitted properly or perhaps some how got knocked and so there's a slow but regular drip that ran through the plastic casing that the 12v wiring was in. The water then ran down there, behind the wall and drip drip drip for probably years and caused lots of wood to rot.

 

So there's going to be some work to be done.

 

The material that lines the bathroom is this stuff

 

It's a kind of plastic or vinyl coated fibre board of some description. Wondered if anyone has a. an opinion of the stuff and b. knows where I can get some more of it from if the answer to a. is "it's pretty good stuff".

 

What hasn't rotted seems to have held up well so wouldn't mind replacing it with the same stuff so I can keep the bathroom looking the same.

 

The alternative is to replace it all with marine ply (£££) and eventually tile it. If I did that, what could I coat it with in the meantime to keep it dry from water?

[cuthound]

Many new boats are fitted with shower panel systems, such as this cheap one from Wickes. Better quality ones are available at a price.

 

https://www.wickes.co.uk/shower-panels

[Guest]

On 21/05/2018 at 13:52, cuthound said:

Many new boats are fitted with shower panel systems, such as this cheap one from Wickes. Better quality ones are available at a price.

 

https://www.wickes.co.uk/shower-panels

I'll have to go and check them out in person at Wickes. I got some samples of these PVC bathroom wall cladding panels which seemed to be popular. Got to say, they looked utterly naff. I'm glad I ordered the samples before ordering the actual items. They looked badly printed. I don't think a full wall of them would look anything other than crap.

 

So I'm going to look at other options - I'll see what these Wickes panels are like otherwise I may go for the tiling option. The fitters have replaced the old panels with 18mm marine ply, so wondering if they'll hold up tiles well enough? Is tiling a reasonable option on narrowboats because I've read thoughts to the contrary!

[Neil2]

You could just epoxy coat the ply that would waterproof it.  Or epoxy then paint it.   Vinyl flooring/cladding seems to be quite popular as well.

 

Tiles are ok provided you like cleaning grout.

[Guest]

Just now, Neil2 said:

You could just epoxy coat the ply that would waterproof it.  Or epoxy then paint it.   Vinyl flooring/cladding seems to be quite popular as well.

 

Tiles are ok provided you like cleaning grout.

I think unless paint is applied well, it doesn't always look very good. And I'm not very good at applying paint! I'll be putting vinyl flooring sheets down and the ones I've got do look pretty good, I'm pleased with those but the wall cladding samples I got through were terrible. Which is why I'm probably going to go back to my original idea of tiles. 

[Robbo]

19 minutes ago, welly said:

So I'm going to look at other options - I'll see what these Wickes panels are like otherwise I may go for the tiling option. The fitters have replaced the old panels with 18mm marine ply, so wondering if they'll hold up tiles well enough? Is tiling a reasonable option on narrowboats because I've read thoughts to the contrary!

Use flexible grout.

Edited May 31, 2018 by Robbo

[cuthound]

38 minutes ago, welly said:

I'll have to go and check them out in person at Wickes. I got some samples of these PVC bathroom wall cladding panels which seemed to be popular. Got to say, they looked utterly naff. I'm glad I ordered the samples before ordering the actual items. They looked badly printed. I don't think a full wall of them would look anything other than crap.

 

So I'm going to look at other options - I'll see what these Wickes panels are like otherwise I may go for the tiling option. The fitters have replaced the old panels with 18mm marine ply, so wondering if they'll hold up tiles well enough? Is tiling a reasonable option on narrowboats because I've read thoughts to the contrary!

 

On our first shareboat the bathroom was tiled on 18mm ply. The tiles were stuck and grouted with white silicon.

 

They were still up and looking good 10 years later when we as the share.

 

The second shareboat had a similar arrangement, but the tiles were fixed with normal time adhesive and grout. Whilst the tiles were get up adequately, the grout kept cracking, which ultimately led to the ply rotting.

[Guest]

On 21/05/2018 at 13:52, cuthound said:

Many new boats are fitted with shower panel systems, such as this cheap one from Wickes. Better quality ones are available at a price.

 

https://www.wickes.co.uk/shower-panels

Our shower was fitted with Aquamura,  http://www.aquamura.co.uk     which I assume is similar.  I don't know how expensive the panels are, but they are as good as new 11 years later and really easy to keep clean, so perhaps worth a look by the OP.