Hi all,

Thought I would see if anyone here can help me (and misses) out with some information regarding concrete rendering and in specific a rendered concrete bathroom/showertray

It's been a long time coming and we're finally ready to get our new bathroom on the way. We would both really like a rendered concrete bathroom floor and shower enclosure area (including tray) and I'm finding it particularly hard to get any information about this online. I've spoken with Lafarge with regards to their products and they say that it's perfectly suitable for this, but they couldn't advise me on waterproofing or any other things that I should add to the cement in order to give us a strong hard wearing, non cracking, waterproof floor and tray.

Firstly, being a tiler, I understand that when your'e working on suspended floors you need to make sure the floors are rigid in order to avoid cracking etc, so I'm a little concerned that having one whole rendered concrete floor on a suspended floor would inevitably crack - am I right in being worried about this or are there ways to avoid this with using wedi boards, ditra or flexible additives?

We're also thinking of colouring the floor and i reckon some level of polishing too. I've some concrete polishing pads and some basic information about this, but as of yet feeling a little vulnerable about the whole thing.

The floor dimensions are 1500x 2500 and the shower tray would be 1500 x 900.

Any information would be great guys and I know if there is any information out there it will be found here.

Thanks again.

Joe

HI Joe..

The main thing is the thickness that would be required to do this.. IMO it would be adding megga weight and is not feasible.

Personally i would go the Marmox route, with a showerstone tray and boards to suit heights.. a lot easier and no megga weights.

When you say you'd go the marmox route, do you mean that you'd lay the marmox and then render the boards with cement to keep the thickness at a minimum? I was thinking about that, but wasn't sure how well the cement would adhere to the marmox boards.

No!.. i just mean use marmox and tile..

My concern is to get the thickness required to prevent cracking would be crazy..and then you want to polish it..?

HAHA - thought it would be too good to be true.

well, I've been looking into GFRC so was actually thinking first layer being a a cement mix with the glass fibres and mesh and letting it cure then on top of this putting a slurry mix and letting that dry then polishing it. nothing too shiny, just enough to give a texture feel and not to slip.

Thing is, we've seen this sort of thing done in a lot of Mediterranean places and really like the look - perhaps we're biting too much off.

appreciate the help though Dave - dyou think that GFRC has any potential?

I do but having not used it then cannot say 100%.. but on timber floors that the joists have to hold the weight etc that concerns me.


Glass fibre reinforced screeds are spray'able if i recall correct.