Upstairs Bathroom Flooring Recommendations

[divil]

Hello all,

I have recently constructed a new upstairs bathroom by sectioning off part of an existing bedroom and creating a new doorway into the landing. The new bathroom is very small (1800x1350). I am looking for recommendations on the best type of floor to use, and what preparations I need to do for it.

The existing base is old floorboards, 22mm thick nailed to joists. These are quite sound and I replaced a couple of them that had holes for old pipes.

Since the room is very small money is no object. There will be a shower so I was thinking that perhaps moisture would make any kind of wood flooring a risky business. I don't know whether laminate flooring, even Aqualoc, is really suitable for this kind of constant exposure to moisture. I wouldn't mind tiling it, if people think that's more suitable than wood/laminate.

Any ideas?

 

[Richard C]

No question IMO, remove the boards, fit 22mm WPB plywood screwed every 200mm & put some nice non-slip tiles down. Make sure only quality, trade flexible adhesive & grout is used. No prep work usually necessary on the PWB but check the tile adhesive manufacturer’s recommendations.

 

[Symptoms]

div - is the room empty of bog, bath, basin, etc.? If so follow Richard's advice swap the old stuff for ply. If you can try to keep the ply as one piece, otherwise ensure any cuts must be over and along the joists. Failure to support meeting edges will result in movement and cracked tiles (if you decide to tile). Tiles are the way to go.

If you keep the old floorboards down, you could sheet over these with thinner ply, then apply the floor finish. This method will result in differing floor levels ... a pet hate of mine. Check-out some of the Stickys above for more details.

 

[divil]

Thanks both for replies so far.

The room is completely empty at the moment. Since the existing floorboards are sound I'd rather not remove them, instead covering with 12mm ply screwed at 200mm centres. Does this sound ok?

 

[Symptoms]

div - that's a plan but make sure you know where the pipes are below the old boards otherwise careless screwing may cause leaky problems; mark on the old floor pipe/cable routes in felt tipped pen as a reminder when screwing.

But, but ... levels dear boy, levels, and can you live with them?

 

[Richard C]

Agree with Symptoms; its fine if you can live with the increased floor/threshold levels & you could even reduce the over ply thickness down to 9.5 mm. I know one “Pro tiller” who uses 3.6mm as an overboard but, personally, I wouldn’t!

Again, as Symptoms says, get yourself a big red felt tip marker pen & mark the location of any pipes & cables etc. so it’s a visible reminder right up until you tile out the room. It’s so easy to momentarily forget when you’re thinking about fixing other stuff & the last thing you want at that stage is to pop a screw or nail through a pipe/cable; many years ago I actually jig-sawed through a live water pipe I’d put in only the day before!