Advice on bathroom wall

[johnnyhamster]

Hi - hoping for some advice here

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• johnnyhamster
• 12 Oct 2008
• 1

See attached pic of my bathroom. A new bath is going right up to the wall and I'm having a shower valve fitted into the marine ply which I'll then tile. The idea is to fit a bath screen, but only tile to where the bath screen attaches to the wall.

Q: can you skim over the marine ply or would it crack and fall off, or would it be better to continue the tiling to cover all the marine ply? It's only held on by a couple of screws at the moment, as I'm having pipework installed tomorrow.

cheers

 

[Richard C]

Q: can you skim over the marine ply

No

or would it crack and fall off,

Yes

or would it be better to continue the tiling to cover all the marine ply?

Personally I wouldn’t have used marine ply; the glue won’t break down if it gets damp but it’s highly absorbent, will swell & may prove unstable as a tile base without tanking. Water proof tile adhesive & grout is only waterproof to the extent it won’t break down if it gets wet, it’s not impervious to water unless you use one of the (very) expensive epoxy products on the market.

I always use a cement tile backer board in wet areas but you can’t use conventional plaster over that either! I usually extend the backer board (& tiles) slightly beyond the shower screen, butt moisture resistant plasterboard up to that & then plaster just over the tile line & then fix the tiles; you need to arrange your studwork to accommodate this.