I have a two fold question:
Is it stipulated in building regs that you have to use water resistant plasterboard in a bathroom?
If ordinary plasterboard is used, sealed correctly and tiled over with waterproof adhesive and grout, what is the proabability of water getting behind the tiles and damaging the plasterboard inside a shower enclosure? What time period would you expect this to happen over?
Thanks for your help.

Firstly, there is no such thing as waterproof adhesive or grout unless it is "epoxy" grout. Standard adhesives and grouts once set,will not break down in the presence of water but water will still soak into them and may damage the plasterboard underneath over a period of time, although the good quality flexible ones will be more effective at slowing the rate of water absorption down.Ordinary plasterboards can be used in a shower area as long as it is tanked before being tiled onto or your other option is to use tile backerboard which is cement based and is impervious to water. You just have to make sure all the joints are waterproofed. Hope this helps

I've worked on site and they don't use moisture resistant plasterboard, If your using plasterboard why not aqua or hardie backer board, making sure the boards are fixed well so no movement. I like superflex grout by bal, If water penetrates into the gypsum board it will happen a time just all depends wether your've got a power shower or standard one, Tank the plasterboard with bal WP1 you should'nt have any problems and silicone well into the area's of the shower enclosure

Also using a water proofing membrane is quicker than a tanking kit and can be tiled on straight away..........

Kerdi mat and homelux membranes are just a couple of them available

Originally Posted by sibs

Firstly, there is no such thing as waterproof adhesive or grout unless it is "epoxy" grout. Standard adhesives and grouts once set,will not break down in the presence of water but water will still soak into them and may damage the plasterboard underneath over a period of time, although the good quality flexible ones will be more effective at slowing the rate of water absorption down.Ordinary plasterboards can be used in a shower area as long as it is tanked before being tiled onto or your other option is to use tile backerboard which is cement based and is impervious to water. You just have to make sure all the joints are waterproofed. Hope this helps

Good answer Sibs!

Grumpy

Thanks Grumps we'll make a tiler out of me yet!

Oh dear i may not win many fans for this but.
Firstly, there is no such thing as waterproof adhesive or grout unless it is "epoxy" grout. Standard adhesives and grouts once set,will not break down in the presence of water but water will still soak into them and may damage the plasterboard underneath over a period of time, although the good quality flexible ones will be more effective at slowing the rate of water absorption down.
I agree.

Ordinary plasterboards can be used in a shower area as long as it is tanked before being tiled onto or your other option is to use tile backerboard which is cement based and is impervious to water. You just have to make sure all the joints are waterproofed. Hope this helps

Not true..Ordinary plasterboard may be used and it is all the time in new builds as there is no building spec to say otherwise (none that i am aware of anyway).
There is nothing to say it should be tanked either.
I know what you are trying to say and yes..if you want to make the shower area waterproof then that is the option but it is only an option.
In all my years of tiling i have only tanked out 2 rooms and used backerboards on a few too.
I would hope in the coming years it will become compulsary but as yet it isnt.

Originally Posted by Sir Ramic

Oh dear i may not win many fans for this but.
Firstly, there is no such thing as waterproof adhesive or grout unless it is "epoxy" grout. Standard adhesives and grouts once set,will not break down in the presence of water but water will still soak into them and may damage the plasterboard underneath over a period of time, although the good quality flexible ones will be more effective at slowing the rate of water absorption down.
I agree.

Ordinary plasterboards can be used in a shower area as long as it is tanked before being tiled onto or your other option is to use tile backerboard which is cement based and is impervious to water. You just have to make sure all the joints are waterproofed. Hope this helps

Not true..Ordinary plasterboard may be used and it is all the time in new builds as there is no building spec to say otherwise (none that i am aware of anyway).
There is nothing to say it should be tanked either.
I know what you are trying to say and yes..if you want to make the shower area waterproof then that is the option but it is only an option.
In all my years of tiling i have only tanked out 2 rooms and used backerboards on a few too.
I would hope in the coming years it will become compulsary but as yet it isnt.

That was the crux of the original question Sir Ramic, he wanted to know if water got behind the tiles how long it would be before he had problems.

Sibs' answer pointed him in the direction to eliminate the problem all together - if done correctly - but i believe you are right there is no regulation that areas need to be waterproofed, maybe it should. She didn't tell him how quickly it might fail, which was actually his question.

I believe, and I was instructed this way, that training schools are now teaching that it is always to suggest to customers that tanking is a good idea in areas where it may be necessary. I know most people are not interested in the additional cost of this but then the onus goes onto them if problems arise in the future.

Out of interest, I will be doing my 2nd tanking job in a couple of weeks and I am just coming up to the end of my first full year in business I have also used Aquapanel on one job. Some people do listen and understand the reasoning, and there are some that are not bothered.

Grumps

I dont disagree with you at all Grumpy. I wish all rooms were tanked after all that would mean more work and money for me ...as you say though some people dont listen and money is the key factor.
If ever i have tried to push the tanking route i have been asked how many of my untanked jobs have had problems... i cant honestly remember one that had issues with what we are talking about here....So if i tell the client that ,they cant see why the tanking and maybe presume i am trying to sell them something they dont need....... What can i do, after all i am only the tiler.

i manage sites as well as having my own tiling company, there are no regs under buiding controls for using standard plasterboards in shower applications.
providing you prime bare plasterboard with acrylic, double seal plaster joints with silicone you wont have a problem.

Hi SirRamic ....
Not sure what you're dissagreeing with.... I didn't say those were the rules more trying to point him in the direction of best practice. I really don't know what building regs state with regard to materials and weather or not wet areas "must" be tanked but I was taught that it is ok to use plasterboard in wet areas as long as you tank it... especially with power showers.Again best practice not regs.... so we seem to be agreeing as far as I can tell.

What i disagree with is a comment you made
"Ordinary plasterboards can be used in a shower area as long as it is tanked before being tiled onto"
Which is not true as ordinary plasterboard can be used and generally it is.
Your comment seems to implies that you can only use plasterboard if its tanked.

Also if you read my posts i do agree with the practice of tanking its just that in a real world the public dont as it costs them money. Bring it on i say.

Well technically I am not wrong so I stand by my post I could've worded it in such a way so as not to imply that showers "have" to be tanked but you don't always think of these things mid- post - as I said I was just trying to guide towards best practice after all it wasn't aparent in the origional post what sort of shower system was going to be in place and the nature of the post implied that maybe this post was made by someone who isn't a tiler - although I may be wrong- so I was playing safe....I take your point about GP not wanting the expense - I have had this too and agree that all showers should be tanked!

Originally Posted by sibs

Well technically I am not wrong so I stand by my post I could've worded it in such a way so as not to imply that showers "have" to be tanked but you don't always think of these things mid- post - as I said I was just trying to guide towards best practice after all it wasn't aparent in the origional post what sort of shower system was going to be in place and the nature of the post implied that maybe this post was made by someone who isn't a tiler - although I may be wrong- so I was playing safe....I take your point about GP not wanting the expense - I have had this too and agree that all showers should be tanked!

Then we agree and we dont need to get divorced?

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I have a two fold question:
Is it stipulated in building regs that you have to use water resistant plasterboard in a bathroom?
If ordinary plasterboard is used, sealed correctly and tiled over with waterproof adhesive and grout, what is the proabability of water getting behind the tiles and damaging the plasterboard inside a shower enclosure? What time period would you expect this to happen over?
Thanks for your help.

Not stipulated in building regs, only stipulation is having to use fireboard which is pink if there is a room above the room your boarding or something like that, but that may only apply to new builds.

Standard plasterboard, tiled and grouted propperly with good adhesive and grout in a standard domestic bathroom with normal use even with a power shower will be fine for as lond as is needed, unless the family tend to have showers through out the day and will end up having a wet areas "wet" for hours and hours on end everyday, which isn't the normal case.
Though if I was looking at a job where the family was man, wife and 4 kid and grandmother and every body used the shower everyday then I would really push for the shower area to be tanked as it all comes down to the amount of time each day the walls are going to be subject to wetting.

No grout is waterproof, grout simply slows down the absorbtion rate of water, so the idea is after the shower has been used generally the area has pleanty of time to fully dry out before it's going to be used again with normal use, but with a large family it's quite possible that the showers going to be used over and over again within a long period of time and the grout won't have time to dry out before the next bout of water hits them.

If something did fail, like a groutline and it was letting water pass through to the board behind, the timescale of failure would all depend on the amount of water passing through to the board before tiles started to fall away from the walls.

A very good statement of the real world Fekin. Well done.

Very interesting debate on waterproofing issues my fellow members and for what it is worth down here waterproofing in wet areas is mandatory and you need a seperate license obtained through the B.S.A (Building Services Authority) to preform this task. Our code stats that a minimum of water penatration protection should include internal corners to a ht of 1.8m and joins extending into the recess the floor of shower cubicles that are to receive tiling and the perimeter walls on slab on ground. The entire floor if dwelling has habitable living space under. Also areas around wall perforations for vanities and toilets etc.

Once this has been done a certificate must be lodged to the BSA and council as well as the home owner. Failing to issue such certificate can negate the on selling of a property until the waterproofing criteria are met.

Waterproofing insurance claims are still one of the greatest causes wet area failures in the state of queensland and cost 100s of millions to rectify each year due to inadequate materials unsatisfactory installation unlicensed aplicators and corrupted council officials.

Waterproofing in the Uk should become mandatory IMHO even though the systems in place are not perfect down here. It still gives the home owner and contractor reasonable amounts of protection should things not go according to plan.

Thats a very interesting post there Mick....Fekin I agree with you 100%. Thats the reason why I didn't give a timescale for water ingress and just said "over a period of time" because there are all sorts of variables like that. SirRamic I could never divorce you!
Bloody hell poor guy only wanted to know what plasterboard to use

Thanks very much for all your input. The reason that I am posing this question is that after tiling onto sealed foil backed plasterboard in a bathroom, a building surveyor has informed me that I have used the incorrect plasterboard (that i should have used mositure resistant plasterboard) and that it all needs to come off and be replaced with the whole bathroom being re-tiled at my expense. I have found nothing to agree with his opinion as to mandatory use of moisture resistant plasterboard and a property developer informs me that he does not use any specialist plasterboard on any of his developments. Who is right? And where can I find a definitive answer?

Maybe the best thing you can do is ask the surveyor to point you in the direction of the regulations backing up his assertion. It is possible that regulations local to your area stipulate the type of materials to be used. Only a guess mind!

Maybe you could go to your local library and see if they have a copy of the building regs. This may give you an idea.

Grumpy

It may help if we knew where abouts in the world you are located
Unregistered, then that way we may be able to point you in the correct direction.

Also, if you joined up on the forum, you can choose to have a funky name too, otherthan "Unregistered"

Cannot see the problem of tiling onto foil backed plasterboard, In loft conversion's foil backed is used all the time and they get tiled onto.

Argh, I just wrote a post, but I didn't notice I wasn't logged on... Could a moderator please remove the unregistered version of my post? Here comes the same post again, but while logged in

Originally Posted by MICK the Tiler

Very interesting debate on waterproofing issues my fellow members and for what it is worth down here waterproofing in wet areas is mandatory and you need a seperate license obtained through the B.S.A (Building Services Authority) to preform this task. Our code stats that a minimum of water penatration protection should include internal corners to a ht of 1.8m and joins extending into the recess the floor of shower cubicles that are to receive tiling and the perimeter walls on slab on ground. The entire floor if dwelling has habitable living space under. Also areas around wall perforations for vanities and toilets etc.

Once this has been done a certificate must be lodged to the BSA and council as well as the home owner. Failing to issue such certificate can negate the on selling of a property until the waterproofing criteria are met.

Waterproofing insurance claims are still one of the greatest causes wet area failures in the state of queensland and cost 100s of millions to rectify each year due to inadequate materials unsatisfactory installation unlicensed aplicators and corrupted council officials.

Waterproofing in the Uk should become mandatory IMHO even though the systems in place are not perfect down here. It still gives the home owner and contractor reasonable amounts of protection should things not go according to plan.

We've got a similar system in Sweden, where you have to get a licence from a central authority. The rules and regulations on water proofing, substrates, and the pure technical aspects of tiling, are pretty strict over here. There's seldom any doubt on how to apply the rules, as they leave little room for interpretation. The rules apply nationwide, and state clearly what's allowed and what's not. You very liable if you haven't followed the regulations and something goes wrong, and surveyors can ask you to redo everything if they deem it necessary, though you can demand a second opinion. On the other hand, if you do follow the regs, you're pretty much covered if something goes awry, as the licence comes with a mandatory insurance.

Regarding substrates: It's mandatory to waterproof pretty much everywhere you can access water through anything more than a single faucet. It's verboten to use plasterboard with cellulose based "skin" in wetrooms (bathrooms are classified as wet rooms over here). That's because if the skin is subjected to even a little moisture, black mold starts growing on it pretty fast, as it feeds off damp cellulose.

Approved substrates in wetrooms include a few select board materials, such as fiber cement boards with pre-applied waterproofing, plaster boards with plastic "skin", or fiber-reinforced polystyrene boards, or solid materials, such as concrete. You always have to seal any and all joints, around pipes etc, no matter what, and any surface which isn't water proof on it's own needs to proofed, except in a few very specific cases.

A problem with most waterproofing systems is that while they don't allow water through, they do allow some steam through. As a result of that, new regulations kicked in 1st of January this year, which make it mandatory for all waterproofing systems to have a certain level of steam resistance. The currently approved systems tend to involve epoxy, water and steam proof membranes, or special fiber cement boards with pre-applied water- and steam proof coating, where you just have to proof the joints.

Deleted as requested sWe mate. Thought it was you that had posted.

Grumpy

If you hear a cricket chirping and you have a watch, you can estimate the temperature where the cricket is. If you can hear more than one, you can tell whether they are experiencing different temperatures. To calculate the "cricket temperature," count the number of chirps in a 14-second period. Add forty to the result, and you have a rough estimate of the Fahrenheit temperature of the cricket.

Well everyone else was talking all grown up so i thought i'd try!

Originally Posted by grumpygrouter

Deleted as requested sWe mate. Thought it was you that had posted.

Grumpy

Hehe, thx, am I that obvious?

Originally Posted by sWe

Hehe, thx, am I that obvious?

Sweden, really good command of english, post the length of a short novel......yes!

Grumpy

Maybe the customers need to see what it could happen if plasterboard are used and no tanking or waterproof membrane is not used.

Also if they are not prepared to pay more for allowing grouting on the next day.

WOW!!! Now that is what you call ingression........

Originally Posted by Dave

WOW!!! Now that is what you call ingression........

Do you think that watever they saved in not doing it right was the best way and most economical about it?

The good thing about this job is.... ...Well... ...More work for us!