Bathrooms are in this week!

Hi All

I am about to embark on an intensive bathroom project. I need to rip out and replace my entire bathroom in the space of 5 days. My 14 week old is getting too big for the baby bath and if we wait until she moves to the real bath, we will never do the bathroom.

I need some opinions on a couple of things. The plan is to completely gut the room back to studs and floor joists, put in external wall insulation, new walls and floor with tiles, put in a new bath with shower over it (rather than separate shower and stupidly small bath), with new vanity, wall cupboards, dunny etc but basically all in the same place. I need to re-floor as the house settled a long time ago and the floor slopes too much, I will pack it out to get it level(ish).

I am getting everything together to do the job without multiple trips to suppliers. My questions are as follows:

Wet area plasterboard or cement sheet on the wall areas to be tiled?

Thick cement sheet or Particle Board with 6mm cement sheet over it for the floor?

If I go the 18mm cement sheet flooring, what sizes does it come in and how heavy is it (one man job?). Where can I get it from in Melbourne?

How long do the waterproofing products take to cure before they can be tiled over? Any recommendations re. brand or product?

This is my most comprehensive bathroom reno to date, I havent had to go quite so far before, any traps for young players?

Cheers
Ben

Ben, 18mm compressed sheet is manuf. in 900 or 1200 wide sheets, 1500, 1800, 2100, 2400 & 3met long. There is also 15mm which requires closer joist spacings. 18mm comes out at 34kg/m2.
Neither is normally stocked but is readily available.
Personally i'd be looking at sheet flooring either particle board or ply with the 6mm sheet (nailed & not glued) so that down the track if need be the tiling can be removed easier. Also makes for easier installation of 's' traps, vanity wastes etc as the case may be.
With the wall sheeting i'd go for villaboard in preference to plaster. It can be jointed & finished the same as plaster with added waterproofing and long term benefits.

In the middle of one myself.

I have replaced everything (incl bearers & joists) so have gone for 15mm fibre cement sheet on floor and 6mm fibre cement on walls. Check your joist spacings - if 450mm, u can use 15mm, if 600mm you will need 18mm per Peter's reply above.

Floor sheeting is dear, and very heavy if you are using big sheets. Always a 2 man or more lift.

I think fibre cement floor and wall sheeting is the way to go if you are doing the job "properly" although I understand many builders use red tongue and plasterboard and waterproof the lot. Not a great idea I reckon but they are the professionals.

Another thing you might want to do is noggin walls between wall studs to give extra supprt to sheets. In the past I have done this at about bum height in case someone falls into the wall. Reduces chance of flex and subsequent tile breakage.

Probably overkill, but not a massive job. I would definitely noggin at sheet joining height to give a continuous join backing but again, this is probably considered overkill by many people.

Matt

Let just preface this by saying I am a perfectionist!

I told SHMBO it would take two weeks to demolish and rebuild an existing 3.6 x 2.4 x 2.7 bathroom...4 months later it was complete.

In that time all plumbing hot/cold and waste water(black and grey) , power, flooring, plastering, tiling etc etc was done.
Here is a rough time guide of my experience.
demolish existing bathroom- 2 days
replace floor (15mm cement sheet) and rough in under floor plumbing - 2 days
locate and chase through all plumbing include floor - 2 days (pressure tested for 1 week!....dont want the joins to leak!!!)
install shower base and bath & backfill with cement under bath - 3 days (cement took 1 week to dry)
install new window, build partition walls, install new sliding door clad in cement sheet/plaster ceiling and finish joints - 2 weeks...be carefull with wet area base coat
tank all wet areas with Duratite three coats! and wait to dry - 2 weeks
cut and install tile floor - 4 days
cut and install tile walls - 3 weeks (each tile was 7 kilos and there was over 100 of them!)
grout tiles - 1 day
paint non tiled areas - 4 days
install all cabinetry - 1 day
silicon all joins with bathroom silicon - 1 day
finish off all plumbing (taps, toilet etc) - 1 day
Have shower screen installed - 1 day

I think the point here is, I am a perfectionist who had never attempted any of this before...I would put in 4 - 5 hours each night after work and most weekends..for 4 months.

anyway my advice....go CSR 15mm cement sheet flooring, rebated cement sheet for the walls, plaster for the ceiling.
You will have to tank the wet areas anyway so no need for more expensive villaboard. Most of the work you will be doing WILL require 2 people. Each compressed cement sheet weighed approx 90kgs!

Make a temporary bathroom for SHMBO so you will not have the added pressure of getting this finished and probably cutting corners on things like waterproofing, tile setout, plaster jointing etc.

Best of luck

Thanks for all the input.

I do have the luxury of a toilet and shower in the laundry, however it is outside but will do for the time the renovation is in progress. I think the thing that is going to stuff me is the drying time of all the components such as the waterproofer and tile adhesive. I am confident enough in my demolition skills to have it all out in a day and the floor back in. If the sheets are 90KG each then I will definitely need to "phone a friend". I was hoping they would come in something like 300mm wide boards that could be laid like floorboards. We are not moving any of the plumbing but a leak in the wall is my biggest fear. Perhaps I should get a plumber in.....

We are also using large tiles to cut tiling time (300x300 floor and 250x330 wall).
If all goes well, I think it can be done in time, but nothing has gone perfectly in this house yet. If I ever find the guy who originally did the kitchen......

Cheers
Ben

Sorry, it can't be done in five days. The problem is, as you noted, the drying times.

Have you considered hiring a site shed with a bathroom? Given you intend to do all the work yourself you might still come out ahead, financially, and still have a marriage at the end of it.

Having had a bathroom renovated professionally (Ha!!!), I can assure you this is a stressfull process.

I forgot to add that I had not completed the job yet...two more jobs to go.

Realistically, the best effort you will be able to make would be 1 - 1.5 months, taking into account working on it everyday and drying time.

I demolished my bathroom mid november when the weather was heating up, so the outside shower/toilet was not too cold for my pregnent wife.