Bathroom Floors
In earlier posts we discussed problems and surprises that may be encountered in renovations of older homes.
Bathrooms are frequently where such problems arise for a couple of reasons.
First, they’ve often been remodeled before and to do a new project the old work may have to be torn out, worked around or covered up in some way.
Secondly, bathrooms, being water rooms are subject to a host of problems not found elsewhere in homes.
Let’s look at a couple of different baths, flooring options and problems you may run into.
First is the basement bath.
Ventilation and lack of water evaporation are generally the problem here. You’re likely to encounter existing flooring, sheet vinyl, vinyl tiles or linoleum on top of concrete slab on grade.
While it’s possible to install other flooring over the top of these, assuming the old flooring still adheres well to the slab, it’s not a lot easier and in the long run you’re just asking for problems.
Water from the tub or shower can and will get into any crack and under any sub layer.
It can eventually lead to mildew and mold and will deteriorate any new flooring no matter what the material.
Be safe and save yourself the headache and expense of redoing your project in a couple years. Tear stuff out, down to the slab or sub floor.
Once you’re down to the sub floor or slab you’re likely to have residue from the old adhesive or glue. You want to get as much of this off as possible for two reasons. It’s probably dark colored and if so will bleed through and discolor the new flooring. Also the new adhesives or mortar will adhere better to the slab the less of the old glue remains.
Now that the slab is reasonably clean, check for cracks or anywhere the surface is deteriorated, not smooth and level.
You’ve certainly seen all this when you were down there scraping off the old glue. It’s time to patch. If spots like this exist you’ll need to smooth them over with leveling compound. This material is basically high priced, quick drying cement.
Other quick dry cement will do just fine but unless you’ve got another job requiring cement in the near future, you’re going to have a 49+ pound bag of open cement in you’re garage taking up space. Leveling compound comes both premixed, not recommended, and dry in a box or bag. Get this.
You’re going to be putting this on very very thin, which will dry very quickly. You are very limited as to the working time you’ll have. So work with multiple small batches.
A large drywall knife works best and overlay onto the smooth sections a lot.
A thin cement based underlayment or tile backer board will also cover any imperfections and gives you a smooth beautiful working surface but, it involves a lot of cutting in bathrooms and if it’s being layed over slab it has to be glued down and any seams must be filled and leveled and. Oh yah, it costs more.
Judge for your own project, but unless your slab is in really bad shape, doing a good careful job with the leveling compound. As you can tell I’m all in favor of less work and less expense, providing you can get just as good a result.
In the next post we’ll move upstairs to a first floor or upper floor bath and look at ways to deal with a plywood sub floor.