render/plaster/aquapanel?

[andyf]

I've just removed the tiles from around my bath which is bordered by brick walls on two sides and a plywood partition with shower on the third. I plan to replace the plywood with Aquapanel but am not sure what to do with the wall which runs the length of the bath and takes the brunt of the shower spray.
The top half of this wall is plaster which is in pretty good condition other than having lost it's finishing coat when the tiles came off.
The bottom half is a patchy mixture of original 1950's tile cement (thick, hard, well attached and flush with the plaster layer above), what I think is a layer of render where the old tile cement has come off and bare brick.
If I just patch this up what will be the best stuff to use, mortar/render/plaster? I the intend to tank it and re tile it.
Or should I take the whole wall back to brick and re plaster the lot before tiling?
Or would it be best to take the lot off and Aquapanel it all?

 

[Nestor_Kelebay]

In my building I had plastic tiles stuck onto plaster with a mastic, and even though each bath had a shower, the top portions of the walls never had any water damage to them. The water damaged plaster was always in the bottom 2 to 3 feet or so of the wall above the tub. Rarely was there any water damage at all to the plaster 4 feet or higher above the tub.

So, if it were me, I'd leave that plaster there for the upper part of the wall.

And, I'd find out if you have a waterproofing membrane you can just paint on similar to a product called "Redguard" which we use over here. If not, then I'd trowel a Type 1 tile mastic over that plaster with a V notched trowel, allow that to dry, then fill in the trowel ridges with more mastic to cover that plaster with a highly water resistant layer.

Still, from what I saw in my bathrooms, any water damage that occurs when you set tile over plaster generally occurs near the bottom portion of the wall where the shower spray actually impinges directly on the tiling, so I'd not be too concerned about tiling over plaster higher up on the wall.

 

[andyf]

Thanks. I think I will just leave the top section of plaster ( it's more like the top two thirds of the wall). Got a BAL tanking kit to tank the area once i've sorted the damaged bottom bit.