Help!: Advice plz! First DIY tiling job messed up!

[yzyz]

Hi,

I am a first time DIYer and I think I've just made a terrible mistake.

The bathtub in our family bathroom is surrounded by three walls, two 0.7m and one 1.7m. They are tiled half way up. We want to tile them to the full height so we or our guests can occasionally shower in it. The tiles we are using are ceramic, 20X33cm with a 9mm thickness.

The upper half of the walls were painted, so we tried to remove the paint as it doesn't seem solid enough. When doing that, we wettened the paint, which removed some paint and revealed some paper underneath. We then decided to remove all the paper because we didn't believe tiles can be attached to paper, and finished that in a few hours. Now the walls are barely the core of the plasterboard. On the 0.7m walls the gypsum is grey and can resolve when wettened, the 1.7m wall is white, and seems stronger.

After some googling we realised how important the paper layer is to the plasterboard, and how wrong it is to have removed all the paper. In most cases people's advice is the plasterboard should be replaced if the paper is damaged (leaving along completely removed). However as we want to keep the existing tiles, we are not sure if replacing the plasterboard is possible. Plus the bathtub/shower will not actually be used very much, and now we only what the bathroom to look nice. This may sound silly, but we actually plan to primer the wall with Bal APD, then tile with Bal Whitestar. Would this be ok?

Many thanks for any advice. We know we've messed up but this is probably the price we need to pay for learning DIY.

YZ

[philipb]

Hi there,Dont panic,but you need to bite the bullet and remove the damaged plasterboard
Cut the plaster board just above the line of existing tiles and remove it,put some timber in
between the the two layers of plasterboard
at the point where the cut is to give the wall as much support as possible,then replace with new
plasterboard and get a plasterer to skim it over.when dry pva then continue the tiles
up to the top.Its important to make the wall as solid as possible to tile onto
or you will have big trouble later.

[jay]

Hi there,Dont panic,but you need to bite the bullet and remove the damaged plasterboard
Cut the plaster board just above the line of existing tiles and remove it,put some timber in
between the the two layers of plasterboard
at the point where the cut is to give the wall as much support as possible,then replace with new
plasterboard and get a plasterer to skim it over.when dry pva then continue the tiles
up to the top.Its important to make the wall as solid as possible to tile onto
or you will have big trouble later.

the timber you mention is called noggins sometimes needed to help support the join not a must and please do not use PVA you need to use an acrylic primer or sbr

[widler]

yes,you need to cut the damaged plasterboard out,replace with new,if noggins or any timber is needed put some in or if its drylined,re dryline.you shouldent need to skim it,maybe tank it 1st though.
and i think philipb means SBR not PVA

ps,how in the gods did you get the paper off the plasterboard,must of taken you a lifetime

[charlie1]

Hi yzyz,

If it was me then i would be inclided to just rip the whole lot out and retile all! From what you describe, it will be pretty straight forward!

If you have new tiles next to old tiles then there will be a difference in the grout colour as well as different tile size from what is currently installed!....could give you a right headache!!!!

here is how it would go:

1, Cover up your bath with many dustsheets and towels
2, Rip off tiles
3, Rip off old plaster board
4, Re sheet with new plaster board and tank (OR) re sheet with aqua panel
5, Now you have a perfect surface for tiling, so tile it all with same tile, will look MUCH better and you will be well pleased!!

[yzyz]

Hi guys,
Many thanks for your reply; much appreciated.

Just wondering do we still have any chance to get away without replacing the plasterboard? Is there anyway to 'repair' the plasterboard so tiles can stay on it? As I've mentioned, we are not expecting the bath/shower to be used very often (in fact it's not used at all in the past year), so moisture may be, hopefully, less a problem. So the weight of the tiles is more of a problem? How likely the wall is going to fall off due to the weight of the tiles in our case?

If replacing the plasterboard is STRICTLY THE ONLY option, we may have to get a pro to do it.

ps,how in the gods did you get the paper off the plasterboard,must of taken you a lifetime

Once slightly wettened the paper is actually very easy to take off. It only took me 2-3 hours. This is also what made me wonder why it is more secure to tile on the paper than on the gypsum. Can anyone explain please?

YZ

[yzyz]

Hi yzyz,

If it was me then i would be inclided to just rip the whole lot out and retile all! From what you describe, it will be pretty straight forward!

If you have new tiles next to old tiles then there will be a difference in the grout colour as well as different tile size from what is currently installed!....could give you a right headache!!!!

here is how it would go:

1, Cover up your bath with many dustsheets and towels
2, Rip off tiles
3, Rip off old plaster board
4, Re sheet with new plaster board and tank (OR) re sheet with aqua panel
5, Now you have a perfect surface for tiling, so tile it all with same tile, will look MUCH better and you will be well pleased!!

Thanks for detailed reply charlie1.

I am sure what you suggested is the ultimate solution and will give us the perfect result. If we were to replace the whole plasterboard, do we need to take out the bathtub and refit it? Or just replace the area above the bathtub? Either sounds quite involving (at least to us). All we wanted was to lay some 50 tiles, and we are a bit reluctant to see this job turn into a monstrous project.

In our case we are not concerned too much about matching the new and old tiles because they are the same, and if grout colour is an issue we can always re-grout.

Cheers,
YZ

[russ1980]

Under no circumstances tile onto the plaster board no you've removed the paper.If you do as the people above have said you'll have no problems.But if you try and cut corners and tile straight on top its quite likely the tiles will fall off and damage your bath or even worse injure somebody.Also i'd be more inclined to use a cement based adhesive that you mix up yourself as it will give you alot longer working life if your not used to tiling.Good luck

[RichieRich]

Yep same as Charlie1 said. It may be a pain initially and cost a little more than you anticipated but in the long run it will be well worth it. Do it properly then it shall last a lifetime. And NO PVA to prime the walls, use a proper priming product available from all good tile suppliers. Good luck.

[yzyz]

Well...we have decided to replace the damaged plasterboards. In fact we have made some holes on the boards to look behind, so no way back now. We will however only replace the area above the existing tiles, just to reduce the cost and also the amount of work.

The 1.7m plasterboard is 12.5mm thick, and is dot and dabbed onto a concrete wall; the 0.7m sections are are 15mm, one fixed to metal stub, the other wood;

We will probably have to use the green 'moisture resistent' board rather than aquaboards, mainly because the aquaboards are only available in 12.5 mm, and I heard it is not suitable for dot and dabbing.

We know the so-called greenboards are not the best to use in wet areas, but again the over-bath shower will not be heavily used, so hope it will be ok.

Cheers,
YZ

[northstar]

any pictures, what area are you from ?

[yzyz]

any pictures, what area are you from ?

We are in cambridgeshire. Why?

[northstar]

might be somone on here local could have look at it.

[yzyz]

might be somone on here local could have look at it.

That's thoughtful. I may take some pics when I climb out of the dust in our bathroom.

[Dave]

Pics would be good.