Wall hung toilet and plasterboard

[PerpetualLeakingRoof]

Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to put tiles on the floor in this bathroom, shall we just say the floor has a bit of a bend in it. To make the shower tray level is perfectly level but that means it's flush at the back and has a 50mm step at the front over just 900mm! That's the joy of living in an old house though I suppose. It's a pity it slopes towards the door (away from any possible drain) really otherwise I could probably have made it a wetroom.

... rushes off to take some photos ...

Thought you might like to see some photos. Every last piece of this bathroom is my own work, plumbing, floor, framework for the shower tray, stud wall, boarding, plastering, lights, extractor etc etc. It's taken me a while but I think it's getting there now.

Still need to drill the holes for the support bolts - a little thing called work got in the way this morning. Wen't for ply as per advice, feels like the right thing.

It's not an optical illusion the floor does drop that much from the back to the front of the shower tray. It's all plumbed and had the first edge sealing -drains a treat too. Probably overkill but I've sealed all the joints in the hardibacker too.

A cabinet I'm building which will be encased in oak and support a washbowl type sink. All the plumbing is still behind the wall but there is no boarding on the other side yet

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Oh, this is my first bathroom so if you spot any mistakes don't be afraid to say...

 

[DeltaT]

Oh it's never a good thing posting up a load of photos!!!!!

Looks good, but just a couple of things;
Do you not tape & fill hardibacker board?
What's with the T&G flooring, the joints are a bit wide???!!!

Otherwise it's all good.

 

[PerpetualLeakingRoof]

Just looked up the hardibacker instructions, you're right the joints should be filled and taped . Oh well they have mould resistant silicon in them now so I think they should be water tight. I'll run some tape along them anyway just to make sure.

The joints in the flooring are tighter than they look in the photos, no more than a few mm. The boards are 20mm straight grained square cut pine rather than T&G. This is in order to match the rest of the house and because when I tried regular T&G I wasn't happy it would be strong enough. The joist centres range from 16 upto a whopping 20 inches, the T&G I tried flexed quite a bit on a 20 inch span. I'm going to lay either 4mm ply or maybe hardboard over the top as well before laying whatever the boss (SWMBO) chooses as the final floor covering.

 

[DeltaT]

Just looked up the hardibacker instructions, you're right the joints should be filled and taped . Oh well they have mould resistant silicon in them now so I think they should be water tight. I'll run some tape along them anyway just to make sure.

The joints in the flooring are tighter than they look in the photos, no more than a few mm. The boards are 20mm straight grained square cut pine rather than T&G. This is in order to match the rest of the house and because when I tried regular T&G I wasn't happy it would be strong enough. The joist centres range from 16 upto a whopping 20 inches, the T&G I tried flexed quite a bit on a 20 inch span. I'm going to lay either 4mm ply or maybe hardboard over the top as well before laying whatever the boss (SWMBO) chooses as the final floor covering.

With an overlay on the floor, that'll be fine mate. As for the hardibacker, we have never taped & filled it either, only just sealed the joints & never had a problem. So all is well.

Please post up a photo here when it's all finished.
Regards
Tricky Dicky

 

[PerpetualLeakingRoof]

That's good to know, thanks for the help. I hope to get the toilet in this weekend and make a good start on the tiling around the shower area. We are expecting our first born any day now so there is a real rush on to get it as finished as possible.

 

[DeltaT]

That's good to know, thanks for the help. I hope to get the toilet in this weekend and make a good start on the tiling around the shower area. We are expecting our first born any day now so there is a real rush on to get it as finished as possible.

Oh that's fantastic mate, I hope 'erindoors is doing OK? Oh well, you are under starters orders then eh!! It's a pity you're not nearer me or I'd come & give you a hand to get it finished.

Tell your missus Big Dick Puller sends his love & I hope everything goes well.....................Oh & don't forget a photo of the wee yin.

 

[PerpetualLeakingRoof]

Righty ho, bit of a delay getting back onto this job but my partner and I have just had this little (noisy) bundle of joy very early Sunday morning.

As you can probably imagine she slowed the work down a bit . Anyway, I got back too it this weekend and cut and fitted the tiles to go round the waste, flush and support bolts.

and fitted the toilet

As far as I can tell everything is spot on. One thing the instructions don't given any guidance on is how tight to do up the support bolts that hold the toilet to the wall. I used a socket wrench on them and have done them up till the metal washers have pulled nicely into the rubber sleaves that line the outside of the bolt. I've sat on it and there is no movement as far as I can tell so I'm guessing it's about right but I thought it would be best to check - last thing I want to do it tighten them so much I pull the back off the toilet!

As for the tiling, I know it will be murder to tile around the toilet but for the sake of getting the toilet in now I'll put up with hell later

 

[daneski88]

Looking good - and congratulations on the new arrival.

I take it that the washbasin frame has been built out of square to make sure that the top surface is level (clearly the floor being off with the fairies makes it impossible to make the frame a perfect cuboid and more a trapezoidal prism)

Out of interest what floor covering do you intend to put down?

Apart from that, then only thing I may have been tempted to do would be to level the floor out using furing strips or timbers bolted to the existing joists, depending on which way they run; and live with there being a step at the doorway. By doing that, it would have been possible to make the shower tray nearly flush with the floor surface. Just down to personal preference I suppose.

 

[DeltaT]

What a wee smasher Wobbly!! I hope Mum & Baby are well??
Try to get some sleep!!

 

[PerpetualLeakingRoof]

Cheers, sleep is a distant memory at the moment!

I did consider leveling the floor. I even got to the point of laying out lengths of CLS to gauge the size of the problem (e.g. rest it on the high point and shim it at one end till level). I found that the slope wasn't even across the floor, in fact imagine the floor was a sheet of rubber with a ball in the middle over lay that with a general slope front to back. I figured I'd be cutting shims till the cows came home so decided to live with it.

Anyway, as for floor finishes the current plan it overboard with 4 or 6mm ply then carpet. I realize carpet and bathrooms don't really mix but it's such a small area I'll just re-carpet with a cheap end of roll every so often.

The wash basin frame is bang on square and has been installed with shims galore so that the top is level. When I come to make the face frame for it I'll scribe in the bottom board with the floor. Will be good to getting back to doing some of the jobs I enjoy

P.S. since my first post today I've fitted the seat and flushed the toilet - to my great joy all the water seems to have gone where it's supposed to go

 

[Driver23]

Hope it's ok to join in on this -

about to install my 3rd Geberit loo (this time plus basin and bidet), used ply outside before but going for Fermacell this time - cheaper, dimensionally stable, resists damp and used by one company in their hanging system who also provide pre-cut boarding so should be fine.

Anyway, what I never quite got was what sort of screws can I use to connect the boards/timber struts to the metal Geberit frame? The self tapping screws I tried didn't self tap into the thick frames, so I had to pre drill pilot holes into the metal slightly smaller than the screws to get a tight connection. Would Gripfill be better, am I missing something? In the end I did the box framing in wood rather than the Geberit metal struts (which are mind-blowingly expensive- about £40 for a 1m strut!!)

Geberit instructions are great if you like diagrams. I think there's a reason they have to run training courses...

While I'm here, does a Durgo in Geberit framing/boxing need a vent to outside or do I just assume the boxing won't be that airtight?


Thx.

 

[Driver23]

Think self tap means 'cuts its own thread' not 'cuts its own hole' right? Thought it might be the same as screws cutting straight into metal framing for plasterboard walls - but then I only ever use timber framing.

Live and learn.

 

[PerpetualLeakingRoof]

I agree, self tap to me would mean it could cut it's own thread given a starting hole. There are screws that can make their own hole through sheet metal that you use for putting up corrugated steel on barns etc but the metal is a lot thinner than the toilet framework.

Like you I ended up making my own framework of wood around the toilet frame. Not ideal but it's worked really well. I did consider using adhesive as well but I didn't like the idea of never having the option to remove the board if something goes wrong. I also considered using HardiBacker over the toilet pretty sure it would have worked and it's not too expensive.

In answer to my earlier question about how tight to do the support bolts up - really quite tight and they need to be visited after a few "usages" and tweaked up tight.