How Is a Bathroom Renovation Done?

In what order is a bathroom renovated?

The sequence runs like this, survey and measuring, strip-out and debris removal, plumbing for clean and waste water, floor falls and waterproofing, a check on the waterproofing, tiling, sanitaryware and taps, cabinets, mirrors and lighting, then silicone, grout and the final clean.

That order is not arbitrary. Waterproofing goes under the tiles, so once tiles are laid the only way to correct it is to take them up again. Floor falls are formed before tiling for the same reason, if the fall is wrong, water does not reach the drain and stands in the shower area.

How long does a bathroom renovation take?

It depends on the size of the bathroom and whether the plumbing is being renewed. A job that only renews tiling and sanitaryware is short. A full renovation, with plumbing and waterproofing rebuilt from scratch, takes noticeably longer.

What usually stretches the schedule is waiting rather than labour, screed and waterproofing products have to cure, grout has to set, and those stages cannot be rushed. Work that tries to shorten them shows itself in the first year as lifting grout and damp patches.

For a realistic timetable a survey is essential, any estimate given without seeing the current state of the bathroom is bound to change once work starts.

Which stage is the most expensive to get wrong?

The costliest mistake is in the waterproofing. If it is incomplete or badly applied, water reaches the neighbouring walls and the flat below. At that point the repair covers not only your bathroom but also the ceiling downstairs, and putting it right means lifting finishes that were only just installed.

Second comes the floor fall. If the slope does not run to the drain, water stands in the shower area, which brings both a slip risk and grout that stays permanently wet and fails early.

This is why tiling should never start before the waterproofing has been checked. That check takes a few hours and saves years of trouble.

Can we stay in the home during the work?

If there is only one bathroom, you will need an alternative for the duration. In a home with two bathrooms, staying put is usually workable.

The dusty, noisy stages are the strip-out and breaking days. They are short and can be scheduled back to back. With a dust barrier between the work area and the rest of the home, the remainder of the house stays largely usable.

Can a bathtub be replaced with a shower?

It can, and it is one of the most requested changes. The tub comes out and a shower tray, or a level-access shower area with no tray at all, takes its place.

Two details decide the outcome, the floor fall and the waterproofing. In a level-access shower there is no lip to hold water back, so only the slope directs it. Get the slope wrong and water spreads across the bathroom floor. A tray-free solution therefore asks for more careful groundwork than one with a tray.

How is bathroom waterproofing done?

Waterproofing means covering the floor and the walls with a layer that water cannot pass through. It goes on in two coats, and the second is pulled in the opposite direction once the first has dried. A single coat can look flawless and still leave the film too thin where it has been drawn out.

It is not left at floor level. In the shower area it is carried up the wall to the height of the shower head, and across the rest of the bathroom it is taken 15 to 20 centimetres up from the floor. Every surface that gets splashed needs to sit inside that layer.

The critical places are the junction between floor and wall, around the drain and where pipes come through. The compound is not assumed to be enough on its own at those points, and a flexible banding is set into it. Where waterproofing cracks years later, it is almost always at one of those junctions.

How is the floor fall set?

The floor fall is the slight slope that lets water find the drain under its own weight. It is formed in the screed and the tiling follows it. It has to be gentle enough not to notice standing on it and pronounced enough to carry the water.

The direction is planned around where the drain sits. In the shower area the drain should be the only place water gathers, and across the rest of the floor water should run towards the drain rather than towards the door. Fall taken towards the threshold pushes water into the hallway and damages the finish at the door in time.

Checking it is simple. Before the tiles go down, water is poured onto the floor and you watch where it collects. If it stands anywhere instead of running to the drain, the fall is corrected that day. The same check after tiling lets you see the problem but not fix it.

How do you make a small bathroom feel larger?

In a small bathroom the sense of space comes less from square metres than from surfaces that read as continuous. Using the same finish on floor and wall delays the eye finding the boundary, and the room reads larger than it is.

Choosing a level-access shower area instead of a bath lets the same floor run through without interruption. A step and a tray are the two things that most obviously cut a small bathroom in half visually.

A wall hung WC and a basin with clear space beneath it work the same way, since the floor stays visible underneath. In lighting, replacing a single ceiling fitting with light spread around the mirror softens shadow on the face and opens the room out.

How do you deal with damp in a bathroom with no window?

In a bathroom with no window, mechanical extraction is the only thing carrying moisture out. If the moisture left after a shower is not removed it comes back as darkened grout, mould on the silicone and blistering on a painted ceiling.

As important as the power of the fan is where the replacement air comes from. In a bathroom with a door that meets the floor tightly, the fan runs but almost nothing moves, because no air can get in. That is why a gap under the door for airflow is needed.

Switching the fan off the moment the shower ends is a common mistake. Pulling moisture out of the air takes time, and the minutes the fan runs after the shower are when it does the real work.

What turns up in an older building?

A good part of the housing stock in Kemalpasa and the surrounding area dates back some years. In those buildings the most common find when a bathroom is opened is supply pipework in the galvanised pipe of the period. The bore narrows over time and the pressure at the tap drops.

The second common find is a floor structure of a different depth from current practice. Moving a drain to a new position needs enough depth beneath the floor. Where that depth is not there, the WC or the shower area stays where it is and the layout is planned around the existing outlets.

The third is the shared riser. In an apartment building the water and waste risers are common, and work on them concerns the flats above and below as well as your own. If work is needed there, the management and the neighbours are told in advance.

How are the days distributed?

A full bathroom renovation runs 7 to 10 days. That is calendar time, the total from the first day on site to handover.

The first part goes on stripping out and removing waste, which is the noisiest and dustiest stage. Plumbing and screed follow, then waterproofing. The drying time for the waterproofing is the one stage that has to be waited out and cannot be compressed.

The remaining days cover tiling, fitting sanitaryware and finishing. Grout and silicone are left to the end, and the bathroom is not used heavily before they have set. What decides where a job falls between the lower and upper end is usually whether the plumbing is being renewed.