How to fix this bad bathroom wall

[Manty]

Would appreciate some helpful advice from you guys. What was meant to be a simple sealant replacement and loose tile repair has turned out to be a bigger problem - isn't it always the case!

The problem is around the bath internal wall at the corner of the house. Had removed the tiles to find that the ingress of water from the shower (which is to the right) had worked its way down the back over the years due to missing and bad grout, and had loosened the tile adhesive and also the plaster had become soft, so the tiles were busting away from the wall.

I scraped what plaster there was left away to reveal rendering which had also failed as a result of 2 things...

- The water from the bad grout
- A bracket from the back of the bath had been tied into a brick beneath the render, therefore I think people getting in and out of the bath, standing where the shower head is, etc, 'pulled' on that brickwork thus also helping to loosen the render... and the bricks themselves!

http://www.valen.co.uk/images/bath

As you can see from the images, it ain't pretty, its dried off a lot now so doesn't look as damp as it does in those pics. The bricks you can see are loose, at least I can wobble them a little with my finger. The bricks aren't even in line with the rest of the wall from what little I could make out. Whoever fitted the bath before me, had pushed it into place, then rendered down to the edge, possibly in an attempt to make water drain back into the bath better.

I didnt get to remove the rest of the render for fear of pulling the wall down and that I also had to get to work.

What's the best way to tackle this? Just need some reassurance and advice...

I'm planning on...

- remove the rest of the render carefully
- chop off that bath bracket from the brick and try to pull the brick back into line
- tuck mortar into the joints around the loose bricks, leave to dry
- re-render back to where its sound

I can't remove the bath unfortunately, so can't get to the brick to pull it out completely, so will have to push motar into the joints I think.

A colleague suggested use of spraycan foam filler is a good alternative, but not what I'd call load-bearing.

if the rest of the wall turns out to be just as bad (or at least I assume there is another of those brick-tied brackets to the left) I will probably end up removing the bath.

Sorry for the big post, thanks for any advice.
Stuart.

 

[Manty]

Anyone?

 

[summo]

I'm only a DIYer myself, currently modernising an old house in the dales and have similar problems.
We have gone the distance though, taken off all the shoddy tile, any plaster that was not 100%, removed the bath.
Then, set the bath(old cast one) on a supporting frame, plastered the walls. left to dry.
Re-tiled right around, leave a small gap for sealant, not grout.
I would go for using a standard building cement for the brick work then plaster if you intend to paint, or cement again if it will be tiled over ( i presume it does not matter so much, but it needs to dry out fully first)

It depends on if you own the property, have the fund etc.. to what scale you go in making right.

 

[Manty]

Thanks mate, that's interesting, so cement render is better to tile over than it would be with plaster on top of render?

 

[Richard C]

Manty
Like summo, I’m a only a DIY’er with an equally mammoth resto but in rural Norfolk. I was anticipating some ‘builder’s’ comments so held off; but I would remove all the old rendering, rake, repair & mesh reinforce where appropriate & then go for either render or bonding coat under a finish skim coat or even dot & dab if it’s that bad!

 

[Manty]

Just to update, I've removed the rest of the weak render and have found that it's 3 bricks loose, and you can see in these images, it's ridiculous what the previous people had done to this.

They'd wedged a peg inbetween the bricks, and use of wire within the render which you can see, I presume to try and hold the render, hiding the loose bricks behind... why didn't they just mortar the bricks back in place?

I think the only positive thing I can get out of this is that I found it before it got worse.

Interestingly, I removed the big brick which lets me into the cavity. Looks like the upper-wall of my house is constructed using end-on bricks every 9 inches. My camera batteries died before I could get a pic of the cavity but will post one before I reset the bricks...

 

[Manty]

Here's the other cavity picture. The mortar and brickwork is really bad, not sure if this is how they threw houses up back in the 1930's. It's a 1935 semi in Stockport.

I'll give the bricks a quick spray of water and squeeze mortar between all the visibile gaps, then set this brick back in the wall.

 

[Richard C]

Isn't that brick in the last picture bridging the cavity or am I mistaken!

 

[Manty]

You're not mistaken, and if you look carefully, the bricks on the next course either side of the hole are also laid the same. Also, the bricks are laid on their edges, rather than flat, if you know what I mean... I think this was an exercise in stretching bricks as far as they could.

Stuck my head in the cavity with a little torch, the entire upper-half of the house (or at least that wall which happens to be the back wall of the house) seems to have been built like that, for whatever reason.


I've refixed the brick now and flicked mortar inbetween all the joints as best I can, can't do much else beyond that. Will probably mesh it like you said and render before finishing with a skim.

 

[Nige F]

Rat-Trap Bond that`s what you`ve got .....usually used for garden walls Have seen some in a house tho` yours is no 2 in 30 years ...upper floor built like it ,you say ....was done to be tile hung then

 

[Manty]

Excellent.

So I presume it was a way of getting the bricks to go further. They probably managed to build another 2 houses on the estate.... I believe these are engineering bricks, they don't have a frog on them.

It also explains the reason why the gable wall where the stairs are kind of 'slopes' away and gets thinner at the top of the stairs.

The top half of all the houses in my area are rendered.

 

[Nige F]

go further,yes engineering bricks ,No........tile hanging/render Tilehanging is a Sussex style so I assumed that old bricks often didn`t have a frog

 

[Moz]

Manty

I have seen far ...far worse on jobs ...lol your pics are nowt to what used to be "Blinded", Ive seen beach pebbles before used an chunks of timber pallets,lol

an this was before the Poles were here ..lol

 

[Nige F]

old flints and chalk spoil in walls down here ...done by the Normans