# Wet Room



## dnag (5 Dec 2006)

I'm going to put a wet room in the upstairs of my house. I'm just wondering is there anything I need to put in the floor to stop water/moisture seeping downstairs?


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## Fingalian (5 Dec 2006)

As far as I know you have to 'tank' the room using a flexible rubber type membrane that goes on the floor and up the walls about 6 inches.


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## col (5 Dec 2006)

I think a company called advanced materials in Naas offer this tanking service.


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## moylan1 (5 Dec 2006)

get a highly reputable builder who has  considerable proven experience with wet rooms because they are specialist work. If you tender the project select your contractor on service and not price. Otherwise wet rooms are nothing but trouble.


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## alert (5 Dec 2006)

Hi dnag,

  Be sure to have the "tankers" give you a proper description as to what they actually do, I had one chancer in my house who when this question was put to him seemed to expect a plumber to do most of the work, the quote for his "work", (ie painting some rubber gel onto the floor and walls), was really funny  , as far as I can recall it was over 2 grand for a 4 foot by 4 foot shower area.

ALERT.


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## hayabusa (5 Dec 2006)

Folks, 
If you have a wet room on the groung floor (tiles on concrete) is tanking required of is it ok jus to tile the complete room??


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## Gatherer (5 Dec 2006)

As someone who experienced many problems (and thus much expense) with an upstairs wet room I'd advise you to think again. 
It was the two rooms below that became wet- and two repairs and two re-decorations later the damage is still visible. We have certainly asked ourselves if a wet room (an upstairs one) could ever have been worth it.


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## whackin (6 Dec 2006)

Pardon my ignorance but what exactly is a wet room used for?


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## triona (6 Dec 2006)

You really need professional advice on this. We planned to put in a wet room upstairs as well but following advice from two different plumbers we realised it wouldn't work. This was due to problems with the water drainage and the position of the pipes under the bathroom floor.


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## secman (6 Dec 2006)

Whackin,

its basically an open plan shower area with fully tiled walls and a floor which falls to a central point for waste. No doors or screens or trays .


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## Seans Dad (25 Sep 2007)

Installing a wet room at the moment, and looking for affordable non slip floor tiles for the area. Does any one have anyrecommendations as to brands and where to buy them.
We were looking at the Fired Earth mosaic range, but very expensive.


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## jbchips (25 Sep 2007)

Have a look at this product, wedi boards for wet rooms, there's a supplier in Navan

[broken link removed]


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## Seans Dad (25 Sep 2007)

Thanks Jbchips definetly an option, any other ideas folks


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## pernickety (25 Sep 2007)

we're getting this done at the moment (unfortunately we're in france so i can't recommend anyone for you) but the original quote from the builder for the whole bathroom didn't change when we decided to go for an 'italian' shower (same black membrane under tiles you're talking about). He said the price of the membrane was more or less the same as the price of a shower tray.


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## Hurling Fan (25 Sep 2007)

We have one installed by Advanced Wetrooms from Naas and its guaranteed for ten years.


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## alert (26 Sep 2007)

hi HurlingFan,

Did Advanced Wetrooms do everything or did you have to get a plumber yourselves?

ALERT.


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## NADEISE (15 Sep 2008)

I also spoke to Advance Wetrooms and they only do the tanking and slope and install drain. They offered me a 5 year guarantee though - so if I follow it up I'll defo have to get the extra 5 years added on! They quoted me 1900 +VAT for the tanking. They require you to have a plumber/builder to plumb drain and gut the room (we're doing a renovation), and then a tiler for tiling afterwards.  I would be very interested in hearing from someone who used them and a review of their work.  (Hurling Fan?!)


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## Hurling Fan (15 Sep 2008)

Hi Nadeise

We're in our house since last November and used Advanced Wetrooms in the ensuite in the Master bedroom.  Haven't had any problems with it so far and their service was efficient.  Like other posters my plumber was very nervous about putting a wet room upstairs and recommended that it be done properly.  It cost about the same as your quote and again it only included the tanking and sloping and the drain.  Must say delighted to have a wet room and this bathroom looks fab!  I did have to chase them a bit (several phone calls) for a receipt saying that I had paid and it was guaranteed for 10 ten years.  A five year quarantee wasn't mentioned - wonder why this has changed?  Although I was just musing the other day if the company goes out of business (like some housing related companies are at the moment) a 10 year quarantee isn't worth much is it???  No connection to this company.


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## Bootdog (22 Nov 2008)

Hi folks, 

This might be of interest to anyone considering a wetroom upstairs in their house.

We've just had one installed, and its gone very well. We spoke to Advanced Wetrooms, but found their quote a bit high, and we were worried about the guarantee they offered - if there was a leak, would they just repair the tanking, leaving us to foot the bill for the re-tiling afterwards?

In the end we went with Donabate Bathrooms and Heating www.dbh.ie - they handled it all from start to finish, did the plumbing, tanking, tiling, electrics etc. 
- Very good quality of work, and and they left the house spotless each evening. 
- They've done a lot of wetroom installs, and we were able to go and look at one of their past jobs before we decided to go with them.
- They also have a very good showroom in Donabate with lots of gear on display (very helpful when you're trying to pick out the stuff). 

The clincher for us was that we could hand the job over to them, and not have to worry about organising all the different trades to come in individually, and they'd get all the details right for doing the wetroom properly (for example getting the tiling levels right to meet the floor drain properly). We had a few tricky aspects to our job, but they were handled no problem.

No connection with them, just very impressed by the job they did!


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## onq (12 Sep 2009)

You've had plenty of advice about good installers OP, but the best advice was keeping it downstairs.
However, if you insist on putting a wet room upstairs...

Consider the interface between the wet room and the rest of the house.
Its very difficult to dress in a wet room - its wet!
You have to dress elsewhere usually.
What protects the floor covering just outside the wet room?

You should also consider how to deal with the moist air generated by a wet room so it doesn't migrate around the house.
Evacuation through a heat exchanger is only one part one solution, as is good sealing around the door - perhaps install a glass door with sealed surround, like a sauna.
The real issue is preventing moisture laden air finding its way onto cold surfaces, condensing and causing damp patches and mould.

Also be careful where you site the outlet.
Back in my student days we were nearly run out of an Italian Pensione [small hotel] because one of the lads had fallen asleep after a hard night while taking a restorative shower in the wet room - his butt cheek had blocked the outlet - flooded the whole floor.
This is where wet rooms and showers can fail if they get blocked for some reason - no overflow.

You should consider the foreseeable accident and not site your office with its mission-critical laptop and backup media/external hard drives just below the wet room.

Finally consider your floor - if its timber it may move significantly and any persistent small leaks of condensation will tend to damage the structure through action of damp, rot and fungal attack.
Brace and install Rockwool insulation or similar to reduce the twin risks of movement and condensation respectively.
Also consider installing a suitable substrate to support the tanking and installing vapour checks to all walls and the ceiling to contain the water vapour.

It would be great if people would post their negative experiences to this thread so we could learn what to avoid doing.

FWIW

ONQ


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## BMD (14 Jul 2011)

I am interested in this post on wetrooms. Have there been many adavnces since the last post in 2009?

I am installing wet areas in my upstairs bathroom/ensuites. The first floor is a concrete slab. I have the tanking fairly well covered and I also have all the points described in ONQs post covered.

My main question would be regarding slopes for the wet area. Does anyone have any information/resources on what the minimum slope should be to retain the water from the shower within the wet area?

I was on holidays last year in a house with a wet area and although the floor was sloped, it wasn't sufficient to retain the water within the shower area resulting in the whole bathroom getting wet.

Any advice on this *specific area * would be appreciated


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## feileacan (14 Jul 2011)

hóra bmd1

have installed wet room and dry bathroom too. i decided to treat both floors similarly as wetting floors is a family problem! the shower in the wet room has no partition nor cabinet  - it's simply a shower point in a bathroom. there are also 2 hand sets.

my solution was to put a central drain in both. any water splashed or from the shower flows naturally into this drain. the slope is imperceptible to the eye until there's water on the floor. i got a square drain which is removable for ease of cleaning.


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## BMD (14 Jul 2011)

Thanks feilecan,

I have already plumbed for an outlet in the center of my wet area (ie., shower area) so a drain the middle isn't an option.

Any other views on the pitch of the slope would be appreciated


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## ice (14 Jul 2011)

We were looking at a wet room upstairs but for reasons detailed in this post we decided not to go for it. The majority of people we spoke to (plumbers etc) said it could be done but advised against it. 
Its not quite the same but you could get a slimline shower tray and just a panel instead of a shower unit. Something like this idea:
[broken link removed] You kind of get the same as a wet room but without the worry of something going wrong.


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## RMCF (14 Jul 2011)

Remember that quality of job and watertightness is all important, even with shower enclosures upstairs.

I have had leaks from upstairs shower trays down into the rooms beneath, doesn't need to be a fancy wet room for leaks to occur!!

If the house is new, settling can cause small leaks even in tiled showers. My leak came from a shower enclosure that was tiled half on a solid wall, and half on a stud wall. The house was new, settled over time and there was very minimal movement in the tiling/enclosure etc, but enough to let water downstairs.


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## Thirsty (16 Jul 2011)

I'm look at doing something similar to what Ice posted - a low shower tray along one wall of my ensuite.  It would be around 1.25m in width.  I want just a single fixed glass screen covering most of one side (leaving a walk-in space) the other three walls of the shower would be tiled.  

Is there any reason I can't just get a sheet of (tempered, safety coated, whatever) glass and have that fixed in?


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## Artemis (2 Jan 2012)

I have see a wet room installed with a very thin sheet of steel used under the tiles. Therefore shinkage/movement, crack in grouting is not an issue. The sheet is installed with the edge curved u to form a rounded skirting board with a hole cut in the sheet over the waste pipe. the old possibility for water to escape is around the connection to the waste pipe.


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