Is moisture resistance plasterboard a requirement

[Tom Mawson]

Hi, I'm currently building a shower room/en suit. The upstairs walls in my house are made up 2 pieces of plasterboard with cardboard in the middle all glued together and from my experience its a pain when re-tiling them as there is no structure to screw a piece piece of plasterboard to.

To make it easier for the future, and because the walls have been papered multiple times and then painted, I was going to screw another layer of plasterboard to the existing one but they only sell the moisture resistant board locally in massive sheets which don't fit in my car and are a pain to work with in small areas.

So are they really required in a bathroom area? The shower will obviously be tanked out anyway so moisture levels in the rest of the area I'm thinking will be ok and a good high flow extractor will be fitted also.

Thanks in advance

 

[vinn]

You've got options of replacing the partition wall with a stud wall plaster boarded on one side and backer board on the wet side or tanking the Paramount partitioning with a liquid tanking on the wet side.
You could also screw the backer board to the stud inserts in the Paramount.
Moisture resistant plaster board is a rip-off, a waste of time material with no water proofing value at all.
As a bench mark its best never to tile onto plaster board but sometimes circumstances prevail.

 

[Tom Mawson]

Replacing the paramount isn't an option as it would mean redecorating the adjoining bedroom.

I find it strange that you don't recommend tiling straight onto plaster board as I bet that is what happens 99% of the time anyway

You've got options of replacing the partition wall with a stud wall plaster boarded on one side and backer board on the wet side or tanking the Paramount partitioning with a liquid tanking on the wet side.
You could also screw the backer board to the stud inserts in the Paramount.
Moisture resistant plaster board is a rip-off, a waste of time material with no water proofing value at all.
As a bench mark its best never to tile onto plaster board but sometimes circumstances prevail.

So you recommend using tile backer board instead?

There are no studs in the paramount, i thought that was the point of it. There is only a stud wherever 2 pieces have been joined

 

[vinn]

Tiling on plasterboard happens often enough for there to be significant water penetration failures - whether its 99% I wouldn't know.
Why have you even come on here to ask for advice when you appear to be already convinced of the right way to do things?

You ask, do I recommend using backer board? What have I just written?

You say "There are no studs etc" "only a stud etc" Sounds like a stud to me
I used the term "stud inserts" indicating it wasn't a normal stud wall and implying that you could insert studs to suit.

 

[Doggit]

Be brave and strip the wallpaper off. You may have to replaster the wall, but it'll give the tiles a good key. My partners place was plasterboard with cardboard in between, and having only tiled the wall, it's still going strong 13 years on. It's nothing to do with moisture resistant plasterboard, and more to do with adequate sealing of the shower area. I've never worked out how they get the walls in though, as there's a small 2x1 batten on the floor and the ceiling, and a 2x1 batten on the vertical joins. When you smash a wall down, they come out in sections, so there must be a trick to the construction of them.

 

[Tom Mawson]

In the end I bit the bullet and have started stripping one half of the paramount board off and installing some decent sized studs at 400mm centres to give the new plasterboard something strong to screw to and then used some grab adhesive and some smaller off cuts of wood to secure the existing plasterboard to the studs.

Its a pain but i suppose its better doing it right first time.