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Wet room without mosaic tiles?


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Hi all, 

 

After another meeting with our architect yesterday, he has brought up the idea of wet rooms instead of shower trays. I would prefer a wet/slightly damp room - we're planning a glass screen open at both ends for splashing, so not sure if it qualifies as a full "wet room", however, i dislike mosaic tiles on the floor and really don't like the way larger tiles are sometimes cut in a union jack flag type pattern to get the fall correct. 

 

However, my architect has just done a job where large format tiles were used, uncut, meeting in the centre at a linear drain. Is this possible to do? If so, would I just buy a normal former or do I need something different? Like the picture below, where the tiles are seamless. I have a horrid feeling that this is going to be hideously expensive ...

 

Thanks for any guidance - oh and just to make it more difficult, I'd like to have this on the ground floor of an MBC passive slab :)

cleanline shower drain.jpg

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I ve used the same with large format tiles but I ve still got Union Jack cuts as the water needs to still flow from the sides into the channel. It's possible you could et away without it if only that room is being tiled and you can set the tiles based on that channel. In my instance the wet room is downstairs and as the whole of the ground floor has been tiled, the shower channel had to fit in with tiles.

 

Cant remember what I paid for the channel and drain something like £3-400? from memory.

 

 

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I like the look :) Think I might have seen similar in some hotels I stayed in over in France recently, not sure if I took a pic though but I'm sure I remember thinking at the time how does it deal with the water as it seemed pretty flat. My only thoughts are the tiles are placed at a very slight angle to get rid of the majority of the water, i.e so the water does not end up flowing the other way. Then any slight puddles or droplets left are not worried about but left to the ventilation fan, MHVR or whatever to finish the job over next few hours.

 

The slab tiles in the picture at the sides could be placed at a slight angle so as not to be that obvious but look flat, quite possibly the whole floor area might follow on from these angles also. Just my thoughts, maybe You -tube or googling might also throw up some stuff on it. 

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Mine aren't in yet, but hopefully will be in the next week or so, I got my linear gullies from a polish manufacturer for +/- 150 EUR (depending on length), Delivery took a week.

 

 http://www.kratkisci...w-wody,641.html

 

They're relatively good quality, with an  integral stainless steel trap and vertical, Dia 50mm, drain connection:

 

Gully01.JPG

Gully02.JPG

 

Mine are going into a passive slab. I've run 110mm pipe vertically up through the EPS and have terminated this with a 110 to 50mm offset adapter. It's difficult to get the drainage pipe perfectly accurately positioned without any walls up so the offset adapter allows the position to be fine tuned to where you need it.

 

We had hoped to put formers in for the leave gaps for the sloping floors, before the concrete pour but the ground workers ran out of time so ended up cutting the floors in after which was a lot of work. We're not using a tray but will put a local screed in to accurately get a 1.5 degree slope on the floor and get the linear gullies correctly positioned, and will then fully tank the whole area before tiling.

 

There was a big ol' discussion on different options on eBuild, but unfortunately the pictures aren't accessible any longer.

 

http://www.ebuild.co.uk/topic/16356-wetroom-or-shower-tray/

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  • 5 months later...

Linear gully above now tiled in to my ground floor, passive slab wet rooms. Slope formed in the slab and without a tray.

 

Happy with the result, but met some resistance along the way from trades that "don't normally do it like that". (Not from the tiler, he liked it)

 

Capture.thumb.JPG.43c981b859076eed6bafa7f7aa8f50b7.JPG

 

Biggest issue for me was position of foul drains in the slab needing to align to an off-site cut frame. 3 out of 4 were close enough to not notice. 1 needed a shorter gully than planned as it was too far out to fit the original.

 

Still went with mosaics on the sloped floor though, even though we could have done it in large format tiles. That was more for the perceived "gripier" floor.

 

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  • 4 months later...

Hi all, 

 

Sorry to dig up an old zombie thread of mine, but some questions have come up on-site now that we are close to pouring the slab. 

 

So, we have 2 bathrooms on the ground floor of an MBC passive slab, final floor finish throughout the rest of the house will be the polished slab, so no wood/tiles or anything. In order to have a level threshold between the tiled bathroom floor and the rest of the house, MBC has offered to just pour the concrete to 50mm, leaving us to pour the final screed, create the fall, tank and tile to meet the rest of the slab. 

 

However, we've now discovered that 50mm is not enough depth to cover the UFH pipes and Hilliard is not happy wth our solution from an engineering perspective. 

 

So - questions: 

 

- Our plan now is to use a block of EPS to cover the drainage area - unfortunately, the pop out is at the opposite end of the shower area (close to an external wall) to where the shower head will be (against an internal wall for future maintenance). Can we leave the pop up where it is and run a connection from the shower waste to the actual drain? 

 

- How much outside of the shower area should be sloped? It is not a true wet room - we will have a glass screen, but floor tiled all over the large format tiles. No mosaics. 

 

- Do we actually need to tank the whole floor or just the shower area? It is ground floor concrete. 

 

- What depth should we leave for the shower waste? Should we block this out from the concrete or cut it out afterwards? 

 

- Finally - has anyone done this with MBC before? Do you have pics? Pretty please?! 

 

Cheers, 

dj 

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Here's a couple of photos of our MBC slab where we're having a shower former in the downstairs cloakroom. 

We didn't apply a fall to the rest of the floor just simply positioned the waste and created a former with a sheet of polystyrene. We're having a glass screen and it will only get occasional use.20170608_100017395_iOS.thumb.jpg.9a723f5fb480eb9a7df097bedbc0e8ab.jpg20170608_100025417_iOS.thumb.jpg.12d92ffa2ef3e0e2755a07b277272136.jpg

The boxed section is to allow for the trap.

 

 

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22 minutes ago, divorcingjack said:

against an internal wall for future maintenance

Maintenance of what ? Almost all modern mixers are serviced from the front ;). Spend a little extra and go for something Mira / Vado / HansGrohe and you'll be guaranteed future service / parts availability too. 

Your question kind of answers itself. If you pour a bucket of water on the floor, it needs to all go down the drain. If you have a wet floor / former in the middle of the room, and no glass sides, then you need the entire room tanked all the way to the door. You need a bloody good tiler to pull this off, but it is doable. Basically you fit the shower glass to hide the fact that the tiles drop.

 

Now you see it

image.thumb.jpeg.5fa3ddafe56703753301333118937377.jpeg

 

Now you don't. ;)  

IMG_6184.thumb.JPG.cf49756657f618b9fd3a20f3764dd221.JPG

 

Thats basically how you'll need to do yours, with a linear drain in the middle exactly like that is. Yours will look the same, but instead of walking into the wall, where the shower is in that pic, you'll walk out the other side. So basically you'll be doing the same as I did there but mirrored. 

Get the wet area the same distance as the linear drains come supplied at so you have a full width drain, save for 50mm or so each end so your wall tile has a bit of floor tile to land on. Say 1000mm wide and a 900mm drain. 

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14 minutes ago, divorcingjack said:

However, we've now discovered that 50mm is not enough depth to cover the UFH pipes and Hilliard is not happy wth our solution from an engineering perspective. 

 

While you could put the UFH pipes under the mesh I agree with the SE's judgement on the Engineering perspective. Reducing the pour thickness locally under the shower is OK, but not across the whole floor.

 

18 minutes ago, divorcingjack said:

- Our plan now is to use a block of EPS to cover the drainage area - unfortunately, the pop out is at the opposite end of the shower area (close to an external wall) to where the shower head will be (against an internal wall for future maintenance). Can we leave the pop up where it is and run a connection from the shower waste to the actual drain? 

 

Not sure I'm understanding 100% but sounds like you wish to run some 40mm/50mm waste from the shower gully to a foul drain (through/under the EPS?). Should be fine if the gully you're using allows rodding access.

 

29 minutes ago, divorcingjack said:

- How much outside of the shower area should be sloped? It is not a true wet room - we will have a glass screen, but floor tiled all over the large format tiles. No mosaics. 

 

If it's an open shower with a screen to the side then 1200mm of sloped shower shower floor should be more than enough. You shouldn't need to slope the floor that isn't part of the shower. You may need a bit more if you plan a drencher head.

 

Have you thought how your sloped floor will meet the adjacent unsloped floor, if you plan to use large format tiles. I assume the screen will run along the side of the slope so at one end they're the same height and at the other maybe 20mm different. It's a tricky junction.

 

37 minutes ago, divorcingjack said:

- Do we actually need to tank the whole floor or just the shower area? It is ground floor concrete. 

 

I did... belt'n'braces... Tiler thought it was over kill. We used Ditra matting also which acts like tanking itself.

 

Pretty sure you could do away with it, but it's quick and cheap to add so why not. 

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Forgot to address the Ufh issue. Simply don't put pipes under the reduced thickness wet area. Ask Hillard to spec for a second ring of thicker re-bar around its perimeter and you should be good to go. 

Regarding the Ditra mat, the thicker ones won't lend themselves to be formed and terminated into the sloped drain 'receiver' of most formers ( which is essential ) so I'd recommend the Impey water guard as that is a thin decoupling membrane AND tanking sheet in one. Not the cheapest but it's bloody good.

Oh, and as I said maintence of the shower won't be a problem so move the shower head close to the soil and do away with the long internal waste run, if practicable. 

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In work chaps, so can't reply in detail, but you lot are bloody invaluable. 

 

@Nickfromwales the showers are all hansgrohe or grohe, should be ok from the front? Using an ibox type arrangement. If we could move the shower, that would help a lot. Also, I LOVE the pic that you put up, it's just the look I'm after :)

 

Also - how much depth should I leave for the water guard tanking? We're thinking of stopping the pour at 75mm, leaving 25mm for fall, tanking, adhesive and tiles. Sound reasonable? 

Edited by divorcingjack
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Are you using a stand alone gulley / drain and forming the fall yourself? Eg no former ? If so 25mm will be ample for the fall, but you'll need a uniform perfect floor to apply primer and the membrane to. 

You could add fibres to the medium you use to form the area, and then simply leather it with liquid tanking membrane. 

As it's not timber I so no real need for any decoupling medium TBH, but if you use a grp former then you'll have no choice. 

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56 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

A former to mould the screed to yea? Then remove?

 

I was debating leaving it in actually. Fabrication tonight delayed: After a day up to my armpits in hydraulic oil I'd just come out of the shower and had a Fosters in hand. A delivery driver turns up with a "parcel" for my neighbour. No problem, I said I'd take it. "I don't think so!" said the driver. He's in a 7.5T lorry and it's a 400KG sawmill! :)

 

Unloaded and back indoors now. Beers warm though! :(

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1 hour ago, Onoff said:

 

I was debating leaving it in actually. Fabrication tonight delayed: After a day up to my armpits in hydraulic oil I'd just come out of the shower and had a Fosters in hand. A delivery driver turns up with a "parcel" for my neighbour. No problem, I said I'd take it. "I don't think so!" said the driver. He's in a 7.5T lorry and it's a 400KG sawmill! :)

 

Unloaded and back indoors now. Beers warm though! :(

 

Sounds like a neighbour worth having!

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5 hours ago, divorcingjack said:

Yeah, was thinking no former, as we have a good screed guy and you know, money.... 

 

Just reinforcing fibres? By perfect, do you mean flat or smooth, or both?  

If your going to prime it and apply a self adhesive membrane, then both and then some. 

If your going to paint on a liquid membrane then it can be rough as toast without any worry. Seeing as your doing a hand cast screed then the latter is your weapon of choice. Very forgiving too, so no need for it to be a complete work of art. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

OK lads, as expected, this has not gone 100% to plan during the concrete pour as I was not on site. The pop up drain points are not exactly where we wanted then to be, so we're going to have to chase out a bit of the concrete to go from the shower waste to the drain. 

 

So, given that we wanted to use a linear drain - any recommendations for suppliers? Are the attached wastes normally ok (50mm)? I've been looking at the mcalpine channel drain, given that we were planning on a mcalpine top access trap previously. 

 

This one - http://www.plumbers-mate-sales.co.uk/mcalpine-shower-drain-gully-brushed-stainless-steel-4944-p.asp

 

Any other suggestions? 

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