[Closed] ideas , costs , restrictions and living with - wetroom shower room.

We just redid our bathroom and stopped just short of full wetroom - we have a mahoosive shower tray, and a single screen which divides the tray from the door - because the tray is massive it catches the bulk of the splashing, but a quick wipe round after a shower and the floor dries easily too. Have no had problems with mildew even without underfloor heating fitted.

My FIL has a similar set up, but in a much smaller room, with a smaller tray and a smaller screen. You get way more water on the floor at their house than ours and it does take a bit of faff to mop it all up.

Looks like your room is pretty small, so maybe go with underfloor heating and a proper wetroom. We were quoted £650 to fit underfloor heating in ours for a 9m2 bathroom - running cost were quoted as "reasonable" which I took to mean "expensive" so we ditched it in favour of radiator and heated towel rail. I don't really regret leaving it out, and I've never encountered the much quoted breezy-bits problem when showering without an enclosed cubicle.

When we do our kitchen (same size room) later this year - we'll defo either have underfloor heating or a plinth heather fitted to warm the floor up - but it is downstairs and much much colder underfoot.

yeah ive had that option pitched too helios but as you say its a small room - water will end up everywhere.

I have suspended concrete floors and brick walls so shouldnt be too hard to make it into a full wet room and sink the wastes through the floor with a big core drill.

Underfloor heating part gets my goat as i know itll have to be electric and will be expensive but i would keep my wet towel rail in without a doubt and only be trying to warm the floor with the underfloor rather than heat the room - its currently tiled and its currently EFFING cold - as are all the floors in my house except the living room which ive stuck the spaceblanket insulation under a solid oak floor - difference between that and the hall with a similar wooden floor but no insulation is stupid.- are there any insulation products i can use on my floor if i use tiles and/or underfloor heating to save me heating the suspended slab every time - or is that a bad idea due to thermal expansion and contraction cracking the adhesive when the floor doesnt expand the same as the slab ? (or am i doing a molgrips and overthinking this? )

[i]Underfloor heating part gets my goat as i know itll have to be electric and will be expensive[/i]

Maybe expensive to run compared to a gas-powered water fed system, but that would be bloody expensive to install. I'd have thought that an electric fed simple water-pipe system would be pretty cheap to run as you only need it on tick-over to stop the damp?

Or could you use electric mats under the sealed floor, on a timer?

tbh Best thing you could do is strip everything out of the room, and start from there. Get someone in to quote the full job, then that will give you a base cost - and maybe cheap enough to go with.

are there any insulation products i can use on my floor if i use tiles and/or underfloor heating to save me heating the suspended slab every time - or is that a bad idea due to thermal expansion and contraction cracking the adhesive when the floor doesnt expand the same as the slab ? (or am i doing a molgrips and overthinking this? )

You need insulation otherwise the concrete will absorb all the heat, I think we had about 4cm under our heating. Adhesive and air will provide more of a thermal barrier than a big lump of cold concrete :(. The heating pipes were on a plastic mat which just sat on the insulation. The adhesive contained a chemical to make it less prone to cracking than normal and finally we had to limit ourselves to 45cm tiles as larger ones might have cracked.

Toyed with the idea and ruled it out as being >£ prohibitive / completely unnecessary / not a public swimming pool ;-).

Went with 1450 x 900 shower tray (all but) fully flush with FFL, Glass shower screen with 200mm curved return. 3 bar Power shower and nothing gets on the floor. Properly fitted Amtico floor which is all but waterproof anyway and is "warm" underfoot without the need to heat the floor.

think i need to look at this amtico flooring. its popped up a few times but ive dismissed it as its like karndean is my understanding ? and i think that looks awful after a while - in a "am i in a supermarket" kind of way.

a big ass bath sized but flush mounted tray across the left hand side of the room has been suggested but i cant flush mount it into the floor unforutnantly - its reinforced concrete suspended floor which is why wet room has been suggested. Tis a shame my parents have the large flush tray set up in their en suite and its smart.

FWIW the previous occupant of our hoose fitted expensive ceramic tiles in the en suite. Was liking walking across sheet ice if you needed a slash in the middle of the night. I know you can heat them but through the night? That's the one time I don't want to be woken up completely ;-)Now fitted bambooesque Amtico

Amtico is kick ass - take another look. Did a Honister slate in my other bathroom (with grout lines etc) fitted 7 years ago, 3 teenage boys hammering it night and day, not a scratch / still looks like the real McCoy. Recently did my Dining room in Cheery strip and you really do struggle to tell if it's real wood or not from standing height (and I have a furniture background)

Bath width is a good idea - I think my shower tray is 35mm however, I have 10mm ply fitted up to it then then the adhesive / Amtico adds say 4mm so I'm only 21mm proud of the FFL - still looks very good. 20mm threshold strip under the door takes care of the difference between the FFL's in the bathroom / bedroom.

There are trays as low as 25mm (possibly even 20mm) but you may struggle to get them in the width / material you want) Make sure you get a short 90 degree return fin on the glass if you are anything under 1500 / 1600. Particularly if you use a shower pump.

Can't you just have a large shower? I just can't understand this 'Wet Room' concept - it just means everything will need cleaning/maintaining more with all that water everywhere?

For wet rooms, look at schluters kerdi shower and ditra flooring system.
Quite pricey especially if you go for their line drain and pre sloped shower pan form, but its particularly easy to create a robust waterproof system.
Ditra has zero R value so if you're underfloor heating you may want to insulate/reflect heat under your floor joists to increase the efficiency of the heat system. Oops just read concrete... its raised so not cold sinking into the ground.. id still heat as it'll retain heat but take longer to get to heat. You could insulate below your heat/ditra layer but you'll be upping your finished floor height well above the next room.. which looks crappy. I'm not sure if kerdi board gives an r value or if its useable on the floor though.
Expensive or not, if you're doing a bathroom remodel with tile floor then i don't see how you could not install under floor heating without regretting it down the road. Assuming its your main washroom.

Regardless of full wet room, floating cabinets (ikea?) And a raised toilet pan will give you a huge increase in perceived floor area/room size.

Great diy project, have fun!