Hi all,

I'm installing a new bathroom at our house at the moment and had a question regarding walls (specifically walls that aren't at 90 degrees to each other). I have installed an 1800x800 bath and whilst it sits flush with the wall along the long edge and the right hand edge, the left hand wall isn't square. The back left of the bath sits on the wall but the wall moves out as you follow it towards the front left of the bath (hope this makes sense). The gap between wall and bath at the front left is about 15mm.

All the walls are solid breezeblock walls. My plan is to board the wall with 9mm plywood and masonry nails. I'm then going to use BAL adhesive to tile onto this with an 8mm thick tile thus bringing the tiles down onto the edge of the bath all the way along.

Can anyone see any problems with doing this or suggest a better way to do this? I'm on a fairly tight budget so don't want to spend a fortune on backer boards if I can avoid it.

The old tiles were just directly on the plaster wall and there was no water seepage through, even with a mixer shower operating at mains pressure. As they had been ok for years I figure I'm ok without tanking.

Any thoughts greatly appreciated before I go and buy plywood tomorrow!

Keiran.

Hi keiran.

I would not recommend the plywood..

It will be easier and a better surface to tile to , too dot and dab plasterboard to square the wall up..

Sorry mate but I woulodnt recommend using 9mm ply, there are many posts on here explaining the problems with tiling onto ply so I wont go into it to much. I would definitely use a backer board. You should be fine with out tanking as long as the tiling and grouting is done properly but only if your going to use a backer. Ply will warp and swell with the smallest amount of moisture where as a backer will not. I know its not what you wanted to hear but it really is worth the pennies.

Sorry, I should have mentioned, we have a plaster skim on the wall so I'm worried about weights, hence nailing boards into the wall itself. Also as the door is on the out of true wall I can't see an easy way to do that without making the doorframe look really large? - should have mentioned this prior!

Just read the 2nd post, can I nail the backerboards onto the wall with masonry nails? I know they come with there own screws? If I can I'll go with that for the difference in cost.

as above ,hito the forum,

You could sink the bath into the wall slightly to even the difference out..

Your right with wanting to overboard but just not with ply, use a backer or as Dave said above, plasterboard.

Hmm, the bath literally fits from one wall to the other, the room is 1.8m wide along the bath wall, rather lucky in the respect that the bath is the same. If I sunk it in (which I can't sadly as there are concealed shower pipes chased into the wall too) I would have a similar issue on the window wall (the right hand one).

Hope this makes sense!

Hmm, the bath literally fits from one wall to the other, the room is 1.8m wide along the bath wall, rather lucky in the respect that the bath is the same. If I sunk it in (which I can't sadly as there are concealed shower pipes chased into the wall too) I would have a similar issue on the window wall (the right hand one).

Hope this makes sense!

Folks,

Can I nail these backerboards into the wall with masonry nails? Don't want to drill rawlplugs and screw them if I can avoid it!

It does yes..#

What tiles are you intending to use and how thick are they.?

The tiles I have are 250x330mm by 8mm thick ceramic tiles. If I use a 12mm backer board (ideally 9mm if I can get one but Topps seems to do 6 or 12 only) then this should be ok. I'm not sure if I can use masonry nails to nail them directly to the wall though.

Those tiles are pretty light.. so the option is to square the wall up with a patching one coat plaster..