Bathroom - render walls or not

[mallony2k]

Hi, i have just joined this forum and look forward in spending so many hours learning new stuff from you guys especially as we have just bought our first house (1930's house)!!! so please excuse my stupidness...

As there is so much work to be done and trying to carry out as much as it myself, i have started one of many projects which is the bathroom. i have taken all the old tiles off (3 layers of tiles!!) around the room and taken it back to bare brick. I was wondering if i should plasterboard the whole room with aqua board or similar as my partner likes hot baths and has the room like a steam room and i don't want the plasterboards to start blowing and the tiles coming off etc.

However i am a great believer in prepping and not making any short cuts.. do i need to render the walls and if so or not what should i do for putting the aqua boards up etc?

Any help on the above would be greatly appreciated and also any hints and tips/advice as i am new to all this....

many thanks

 

[Norcon]

Aqua boards + tiles is a labour intensive method imo.

Far better with pvc panels and look far superior.
Also easier kept clean.

 

[Blagard]

What is the construction of the walls? If 9" brickwork now would be a good time to consider using an insulation backed plasterboard like kingspan's K17 /K18. Alternatively any insulation behind the board of your choice.

If you are planning to tile the room then you really don't need any sort of special plaster if you do the job right. I did my own house a few decades back and simply used bonding and plaster skim or wallboard and board finish before half tiling most areas except the fully tiled shower area. It is all still in excellent condition.

If you chose to plaster you could do it the same way I did as I am not a plasterer and need help to control flatness, so I fitted vertical battens to the wall at around 1.5m centres plumbed and lined them in before doing the undercoat levelled off to the battens which were then pulled out and filled with more undercoat. Skim was easy and the wall perfectly flat for really easy tiling.

If you need to replace the window do it before you plaster.

 

[loply]

I guess it's subjective, personally I think bathrooms clad with plastic panels look cheap and plastic, I guess because that's what they are.

Well tiled looks a lot higher quality and like more effort went into it, in my oppinion.

To answer the OP's question I couldn't imagine why you would need to render the walls - just batten them then attach your boards to the battens.

If you are going to tile it, make sure to check the battens/walls are square to one another and shim the battens as required if not, else you'll have weird gaps in your tiles.

 

[mallony2k]

Many thanks for the all the replies... It is greatly appreciated. I think i might go down the route of using battens to put the boards up. What size battens would you recommend in using?

Also what plasterboards would you recommend using too for the bathroom? Blagard mentioned using kingspan k17/18 would that be ok around the whole bathroom (except the shower and bath area).

I need to put a false ceiling in too so again not to sure on the plasterboard etc.