Wet rooms have many important considerations. Its usually most
practical to site wet rooms on ground floor bathrooms or in a basement.
The entire room must be made waterproof and the floor must be entirely
rigid, while having a slight slope in the direction of the waste
outlet. In older bathrooms with wooden floors, this can be difficult
as timber is flexible. Check with a builder whether the floor will
need to be strengthened before considering wet rooms. The floor will need to be raised by about
5cm to allow for the waste fittings. Ideally the whole room should
be tanked (the floors and walls waterproofed before
tiling). Most wet rooms are clad entirely in ceramic or stone tiles.
Wet rooms make good use of limited space in bathrooms, but the layout needs to be
carefully planned. If you are incorporating a suite in bathrooms, look for
compact designs and make
sure you position your fittings so they wont get soaked each time
you use the shower. You can use a glass screen or glass blocks to
protect the rest of the room. If you
are looking for a new ideas when it comes to vogue
bathroom designs, wet rooms reigns supreme. More people are enjoying
the liberating experience of showering under flowing water that cascades
across the floor free from restrictions of doors and trays.
Wet rooms carry a premium
cost for transforming a bathrooms interior into a wet
space but this has not hampered the enthusiasm. This is because the benefits
outweigh the cons. Wet rooms create a streamlined space that is
easy to clean but more importantly the inclusion of wet rooms in
the home has few boundaries when it comes to space. Space
can be taken from a small bedroom or unwanted toilet room to accomodate
an extra shower. Wet rooms create a spa like bathrooms ambience that fits very
neatly into the wellness trend in bathroom design. This
is created by more luxurious shower fittings and the addition of features
such as body jets and removeable shower handsets as well as a fixed
head.
 The appeal of wet rooms is lost if your
are standing under a dribble of water rather than a powerfull flow.
The importance of powerfull showering equipment cannot be stresssed
enough. Shower columns are an ideal way to combine all the requirements
in one easy to install unit.
Wet rooms design in bathrooms is a
complicated process and it is important that our designers
are used to create wet rooms to ensure the process is effective.
It is advised to divide the space into sections with half walls that
denote dry and wet areas to prevent bathrooms looking like it has been
hosed down after every shower. Different materials can be used to
denote wet and dry areas. The combination of limestone and mosaic
is popular. Wetrooms design is best fitted with wall hung sanitary ware
and furniture which are perfect for streamlined wet areas.
The term wet rooms means a totally waterproof area, (walls and floor) prior to commencement of tiling. Ideally, it should be able to withstand any water ingress to the building substrate if used as a showering area prior to fixing tiles. Think of it as a tileable shower tray with a 2400mm upstand.
A bathrooms wet floor
Often confused with the term wet rooms, a bathrooms wet floor is basically a tileable shower tray often called a former. Set into the floor, the remaining floor area is then waterproofed with either the same material as the former or a waterproof membrane bonded to the existing floor. If walls, within the showering area, are not 'tanked out' (i.e. waterproofed prior to tiling walls), any grout lines cracking, due to movement or shrinkage, will allow water and moisture to the building substrate and cause damage.
How many shower cubicles have been removed from bathrooms during refurbishment and found no damage to plaster/plasterboard or timber floor, due to water ingress? Therefore,the best wet rooms practice is to fully tank out the floor and the very least all walls within the immediate showering area. A skirting upstand will suffice in other areas where water is unlikely but possible to penetrate. Depending on the product used, this method of installation will stop grout lines cracking in vertical wall abutments and where the wall tiles meet the floor tiles around the perimeter of bathrooms.
Advantages of wet rooms
Most shower rooms are quite small and usually consist of the four main items: The WC, basin, shower cubical and the radiator. Nobody really wants a 760 x 760mm tray and cubical but the only available space dictates the size of the shower that can be installed. Choice of a larger more useful shower and access to the basin, WC and towel rail radiator is severely hindered in some bathrooms .
A wet rooms environment removes these obstacles. The bathrooms effectively becomes your shower area, with a WC, basin and towel rail radiator installed into it.
Wet rooms allow the available bathrooms floor space to be used for different functions, i.e. access to the basin from the WC is unrestricted, as is from the basin to the towel rail radiator and there is much more drying space. Removing the tray and cubical will give a much larger showering area. Using wall hung sanitary ware to compliment wet rooms minimise any cleaning down required after showering.
Many people question "won't the water go everywhere?" In a small shower room you can install a 1200 x 1200mm floor former for wet rooms, and 99% of the water used, when showering, will go down the drain because you have a larger catchment area. Any over splashing is easily trained back to the drain by means of a squeegee.
Wet rooms have the advantage of being able to shower in such a large area, in small bathrooms and still have unrestricted access to the sanitaryware fittings. This greatly outweighs a quick wipe of the WC seat and basin.
Remember standing in a 760 x 760mm cubical with silicone around the top edge of the tray going black? And after dropping the soap, you have to open the shower door to bend down and pick it
up because there isnt enough room to bend down.
Are wet rooms expensive?
Most products manufactured for wet rooms construction require specialist knowledge and skills, and are installation labour intensive. If you add this to the fact that most builders and plumbers shy away from installing wet rooms in first floor bathrooms, which is above a lovely lounge with a plasma TV, a Stanway grand piano and ornate plastered ceilings, so the few that will install them charge a premium. But things are changing, as the wet rooms concept is becoming more and more popular with new products, new materials and new installation techniques coming on to the market. These greatly reduce the installation time, and eliminate specialist skills required to carry out such projects.Then deduct the cost of a decent quality tray and cubical from the project cost, wet rooms now comes within your budget. Especially now that we can provide all the products you require at our usual low prices.
Installing wet rooms in any type of property undoubtedly adds the wow factor and also adds more value to the property than just a traditional shower room. This also gives the bathrooms designers and specifiers much more scope with product layout. E.g. by removing the tray and cubical, you have additional wall space which can be used to add features like a bidet or a urinal that wouldn't be possible with a cubical.
Wet rooms Safety advantages
All shower trays can be slippery underfoot when showering, and a wet rooms shower is no different in that respect. The safety issues such as having to step in and out of the tray are when most accidents happen in bathrooms. By removing the step you are removing that risk element, especially for the elderly or less able. And with more space available, free standing or wall mounted shower seats and hand rails etc can be incorporated into the design.
Finally:
If the whole concept of wet rooms doesn't really float your boat, or tick the right boxes, then at least consider tanking the walls and floor before installing a traditional tray. After all, some day soon, all showers will have to be installed this way not only wet rooms. |
