The fact is that every do-it-yourself job is different because every house has its own personality and every house is different.

There is nothing so much fun as

popping out a few walls and laying down some new tile, or painting a whole house. I’m telling you there is such a feeling of exileration and accomplishment from doing it yourself, and from being able to help your friends or family with one of their weekend projects. 

You probably wouldn’t be surprised to hear that my favorite TV show is This Old House.  Yup, ole Norm Abram is one of my heros.

One there was a local home show exposition and Norm was there as one of the stars of the weekend. Now that was cool!  I actually had to stop working in the workshop on one of my projects to go hear Norm talk about his projects and how things are filmed on the show.  They make it look like the job goes really fast since they are filming over time.  In point of fact their jobs can take quite awhile for two reasons.  The first is because they are dealing with complicated projects.  The other is because they insist on a high quality of craftsmanship.  I guess there is a 3^rd reason too, and that is that they have lots of volunteers and lots of specialized subcontractors so that can slow a project down also.  Ou have to admit, however, that the work that results on the This Old House show is first rate renovation.

This one was prone to subterranean water infiltration generally due to  infrequent weather patterns.

Basement flooding is a serious pain, emergent problem you have to get to pronto.  There are companies that deal with this. Which is what he did, call someone to suck out the water.  They have what are essentially forceful shop vacs, but way bigger and way faster.

The good thing about hiring someone is that these guys he told me came out really fast, and were very professional as they’d done the work before.

Afterwards he installed commercial grade tile glued down directly to the slab. This wears like iron with normal traffic so its perfect for a family with kids.

It turns out he learned that in the northwest where he was the hillside neighborhood flooding had occurred multiple times.  It rains like crazy where he is in Oregon.

Some people in his neighborhood did major excavation, backhoe and front end loader stuff, not typically seen in  an older established neighborhood and certainly not all at once.

Talking to the homeowners revealed the underlying problem.  On the foothills where our neighborhood was built, there was a water impermeable layer of clay about ten or twelve feet underground, as well as several underground springs. When the ground became super-saturated from spring monsoon rains, as it did every five or ten or fifteen years, the water table would raise enough to enter basements six or eight feet below grade . The general cause had now been identified, what’s the solution?

The neighbors who were excavating were digging down to the clay layer on the high side of the houses. They would put in a four inch perforated French drain pipe and slant the pipe out toward the road. This was covered by a couple of feet of one inch stone, landscape cloth the keep dirt out of the rocks and the whole thing was back filled.

My buddy did the same basic thing but routed the drain pipe into a ten foot deep, two foot diameter conduit pipe with a sump pump at the bottom. 

The water was then pumped off harmlessly to a lower area of the property.

Water is something they have in Oregon and you just have to make sure that any house has a “good hat” and “good boots” (good roof, good foundation).  Not really a big deal.

When he moved into a new house, the biggest issue was how to get the pool table transported.  It was his baby.  He loves that pool table. 

 The pool table made the trip A-O-K with about 8 of us guys carrying it.  It was a moving party we still talk about.

Anyway…

He moved to a new town and bought a home in the foothills in an established neighborhood.

The house was generally in good shape. We wanted to do a few things to make it more to our taste but there weren’t any emergent problems.

One of the projects was renovating the basement, containing several bedrooms and a room with a pool table.  That pool table was sweet.

Being a basement the floor was slab.

He had an inexpensive short plush carpet, with pad installed wall to wall in the bedrooms and family room. 

A couple of years later, he experienced, what was reported to be, the wettest spring on record for the town. 

One particular storm system rained almost non- stop for four or five days. 

Outside the bedroom window well there was about three inches of water above the bottom of the window and the bedroom floor was flooded.  The water source for the bedroom flood was easy to figure out, but there were no windows or foundation cracks to let water into the other room, so he was puzzled.

The bedroom was completely flooded so he pulled up and rolled up the carpet and dried it out in a couple days.  Foam pad, that is  saturated, can’t be moved so it was a loss. dealt with the water mess with wet/ dry shop vacuums and fans.  The carpet was laid back and dried out fine, but here too the pad was a loss.

With the bedroom carpet, he had the edges bound and put it back without the pad, like a wall to wall throw rug.

Fortunately the pool table was okay, and we’ve played many a game of pool on it since then. 

That’s where water-proofing comes in. 

I wanted to talk in this post about waterproofing in a bathroom restoration project and tell you, by way of example about a bath rehab my buddy did awhile ago.

This bath was located off a basement office, under a wide set of stairs and next to the heater, mechanical furnace room.  It had no windows and the one window in the adjacent office was down under a deck and never got opened. 

So the bathroom had no ventilation, except for a six inch fan.  The room was seldom used and the shower, about 3ft by 4ft had not been used in years. 

The front shower wall was eaten away by mold and water damage with no tile and sections of drywall missing around the lower 3 feet of wall. 

Being a basement bath, the floor was slab and the wall which was the side of the shower was a foundation wall.

The first major step was to tear out all remaining shower tile, four walls and the ceiling as well as most of the old drywall and installation behind it. 

The sheet vinyl and wood baseboard molding all had to go because of mold.

The floor and walls and framing, were cleaned with Tri Sodium Phosphate and then bleach to  kill all the mold. 

The drywall, which had been removed, was replaced with half inch reinforced cement board, Durarock. Put this up with cement board screws which are coated, won’t rust and will countersink themselves.  Regular drywall screws will rust and frequently snap off if you push it and try to get them flush. 

All of the joints and seams were finished with water resistant drywall compound.

Just a word about Durarock and cement backer boards.  While water resistant gypsum based drywall (referred to as blue board or green board) has been around for decades, it is not waterproof.  While the fiberglass mesh reinforced cement board products can become completely wet and will not deteriorate as is the case with any gypsum drywall product .

He installed a much bigger ventilation fan with a heat lamp to address the ventilation problem.

The shower was retiled with inexpensive four inch white ceramic tile.  The shower floor, or pan, was concrete, raised above the slab floor and was in good shape so it required no extra prep work.

The shower floor was finished with one inch ceramic mosaic tile which is widely available in one foot sheets with reinforced backing.  All tile grout joints were sealed with waterproof grout sealant.

If you like the look of one inch mosaic tiles it’s available in ceramic, a variety of stones and glass. It can be used in sheets to cover large areas, such as countertops, or cut up for accent and border strips. Shop around because prices can be vastly different.

I want to say a final couple of words about the world’s apparent obsession with waterproofing bathrooms and mold prevention. Depending where you live like if it’s you live in a dry climate or a humid climate, mold can be an every day thing or not. When you do run into it, it’s either normal or indicative of neglect or a serious water leak.  You can have replaced the deteriorated walls with standard drywall, or water resistant blue board  and used a regular drywall joint compound (mud). 

The choice to use water proof and resistant materials gives one some assurance the shower won’t fall apart again. 

Additionally, projects requiring replacement of the tile, walls, floor and baseboard in a room with proven ventilation and mold problem. Usually, it only seems obvious to use material which would prevent the reoccurrence of the problem later.

Doing a new floor installation in a bathroom over a plywood sub floor can produce a really beautiful project., but there are details that have to be attended to if you want the result to come out perfect.

Earlier I talked about water and mold damage to the sub floor and how to repair that. So lets assume that the sub floor is all prepared, level, and solid.

Depending on what flooring material you’re going to use, you may want to consider first installing a thin cement underlayment or tile locker board.

Other underlaymenta board materials are available but cement board is unaffected by water or mold and is the wisest choice.

The argument for underlayment is that it provides a perfect flat surface for new flooring. However installation requires alot of careful measuring, of course there is a cost involved and your sub floor may be perfectly flat and undamaged, so there’s no need for it.

Depending on the new flooring you use, you may have some addition prep work on the underlayment.

Cement board screws will speed up the installation and they don’t rust. They are self tapping and have ridges under the head that helps them countersink. Sometimes its easier to just drill a shallow hole at each marked screw location so you’ll be sure they countersink.

If you are putting in sheet vinyl or vinyl tiles you need to fill each screw hole and all seams with leveling compound.

If tile is going in there’s no need for this. The mortar will fill in.

Here’s a couple of other things to keep in mind.

If you’re going to be installing tile.  Stone tile, marble and granite, as well as other thicker tiles, in combination with the mortar and underlayment will elevate the level of the floor significantly.

The toilet waste pipe may need an extension for the flange (the ring around the pipe which the toilet bolts down to). 

Additionally if you removed a sink vanity and tiled under it, the water supply lines may not fit if they are the rigid type. The same may be true for the toilet. 

Another potential problem may be that the bathroom door may not fit and will need to cut something off the bottom.  Finally the edge of the tile at the door may be higher than the flooring or carpet in the next room and may require a transition molding.

None of these are difficult problems, just be aware you may encounter them.

The subfloor structure was what I was attending to. You will have different problems and employ different situations with a slab on grade vs. a standard plywood subfloor.

Let’s look at the bath with the plywood subfloor. I talked about the need to get the old flooring material out of there and remove and/ or cover up any residue of old adhesive.

I think you have to begin your flooring instalation with as mearly perfect a subflooring as you can get.

Now about the plywood subflooring. If you have got prior water damage by the tub, shower, or toilet this has to be fixed!

The subflorring may be moldy and not firm, or more simply the upper layers of the plywood may have begun to delaminate.

If you have gotdeterioration and soft spots due to mold, you’ll need to cut out and replace those subflooring sections. This isn’t as complicated or difficult as it sounds. Get an eletric stud finder to locate the joice under the damaged are.

Cut out the moldy orwater damaged plywood, and finish your cut so that the edge is in the center of the joice.

You will need to install some cross member supports, between the joices at the ends of the cut out area and possible midway. Between for extra support to attch the new plywood.

When you have got the floor open, remove any moldy insulation. If there is mold on the joice and it has not begun to deteriorate then this can be Killed with clorine bleach  in a spray bottle.

Bleach is nasty stuff, so wear a mask gloves and cover up. When you are done, leave the area and ventilate it well.

Make sure the tops of the cros members are perfectly level with the joices so there’s no raised joints or dips. It is a good idea to screw down this plywood patch with galvanized screws.  

Fill in all seams with leveling compound between the new plywood and the existing floor.

In the case of  a water damaged subfloor without mold that is beginning to delaminate you will have to make a judgement, whether the wood can be screwed down, flat or possibly removed the top layer of the plywood.

If you take off a layer of plywood and the affected area is small, you can patch and smooth the area out with leveling compound.

Bathrooms not located in the basement generally will have better ventilation but this does not mean that they are immune from mold and mildew.

This can be a problem anywhere there is a source of water and mold can literally destroy a room.

It can eat up a sub floor and down into the room below. It can eat up drywall and grow on fiberglass insulation behind walls.

When renovating an upstairs bathroom floor the same principle holds true as in the basement bath. 

Getting all the old flooring material removed is the safest and wisest thing to do in order to avoid future problems. Water leaks are frequently found around the tub or shower, especially on the floor at the front and back walls of the tub or around shower doors. 

People often assume water leaked in these areas just dries up. Surely some does, but if any goes down cracks or floor seams, into the sub floor huge problems can result.

Assume you’ve got all the old flooring material pulled up and the old adhesives cleaned up.

By the way, dealing with old adhesive, whether in a basement on a slab floor, or elsewhere on a plywood sub floor you may have residue that you just can’t get removed.

The solution here is to cover it up. There are a couple of ways to do this. The easiest and least expensive is to use a highly pigmented solvent based primer such as Kills or Bulls Eye.

I’m recommending solvent based primer vs latex because the solvent base stuff penetrates both the wood and even concrete as well as the solvent itself.

The latex primers will cover the adhesive but they may bleed through later.

The other product to cover old adhesive are waterproof elastomeric coatings.

These go on like thick paint and leave a thin waterproof coat wherever applied.

At first thought it may seem like a great idea to paint the entire bathroom sub floor with this stuff, providing you can afford it. That’s probably not a good idea. 

Keep in mind that its waterproof going both ways. If water gets underneath whatever you install as new flooring and sits on top of the elastomeric coat, some deal. The water has no where to go.

Another factor to be aware of with an electrometric coating is that although adhesive, and mortar will bond to it, they won’t penetrate it.

So whatever you glue or cement to it, is essentially floating on a very thin plastic film.

In the next post, I will talk about testing and patching  the old sub floor, the use of underlayment products and water resistant bathroom walls.

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.  

My experience is that with houses and their additions that have a few or more years under their belts is that the renovator can often times run into surprises after the project is initiated.  My brother’s house is no exception. We’ve had friends with house renovations, and there’s always some surprise or other.  If you’re really lucky you’ll find some old coins or some kind of history if you are taking down a wall. That makes it really a fun adventure.

I should interject that you need a positive attitude for this kind of work.  You have to be flexible since houses are what they are, and you can’t change them. Just learn to love them.

Some of these occur just because houses, like us, age over time and things happen to the interior and exterior which may impact your renovation project.

The other reason, which should be apparent, is that the original construction and/or subsequent remodels may not have been done in a manner that we’re used to seeing today.

A shorthand way of putting that is “not up to code”.

An awful lot can be said about floors in a renovation project simply because there are so many different options for materials, styles resulting in vastly different looks.

Of course certain materials may by inadvisable for a specific application and others, though the application may be possible, don’t produce the desired style.

For example, expanding an old bath and a bedroom into a bath exercise suite in a dry climate with good room ventilation could allow carpet, hardwood, ceramic, stone or various laminates.

The same floor plan in a humid or freezing climate in a basement or with slightly less ventilation can rule out a number of those floor covering options.

Then again, ventilation and ambient temp and humidity can be altered. It depends how involved you want the project to become and of course the time and budget factors.

So I’ve said two apparently different things. 

First, you may be limited by the structure, climate, time and money regarding the materials you can use and the style outcome they produce.

Secondly, you can do pretty much whatever you want, providing you’ll put in the required time, money and willingness to possibly make radical changes.

Both are true, but the unlimited time money and flexibility option generally isn’t .reasonable. 

So for this discussion lets stay within reason.

Let’s look at a couple of different bathroom flooring sinarios in the nest post.

Bathrooms, though small, can be complex with their old an potential water problems.

Generally they’re crowded rooms and the plumbing fixtures have to be worked around.

Additionally baths most often are the rooms where prior renovations have been done and undoing these can present special challenges.