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Location: Heaton Park, Manchester, Lancs
Date: Jun 2010
Description: We started planning this bathroom for our client two years ago. By removing the old system boiler andd hot water cylinder from the airing cupboard in the bathroom and relocating the boiler from the kitchen to the loft we were able to expand the bathroom giving us enough room to install a seperate shower area. The owner also decided that she wanted a wet room instead of a shower stall so that’s what we built for her.
The original bathroom was installed in the late fifties and well past it’s sell by date. The separate loo, bathroom and airing cupboard sliced up the usable space into tiny little rooms. Our first job was to remove all of the appliances, extra walls, ceiling, wiring and pipe work. We also removed all electrical junction boxes which were feeding other location and all plumbing joints so that there would be nothing left under the soon to be tiled floor that would leak or otherwise require maintenance. You really don’t want to pull up a wet room tile floor with underfloor heating because a pipe leaks or a light switch stops working.
With all of the demoltion and utilities sorted we replaced the old flooring with plywood which was glued and screwed to the joists using three inch screws. The walls and ceiling were damaged from earlier flooding of the loft F&E tank and required replacing. We also had to remove the old bathroom door leaving only one door for access. The entire room was re-lined and skimmed. Once the floor was down we started to build up the shower deck, the cement board, tanking, underfloor heating wire and finally the tiles. It sounds easier than it was with our clients using the bathroom everyday but we muddled through. Once the tile was down on the floor we grouted and started on the walls.
With the walls tiles and grouted we finished up with the shower screen and then the fianl dressing and caulk. Voila! A nice well lit wet room created from a dark and dingy set of small rooms.