Installing a shower over a bath?

Question

We need to rip out our current shower (800 x 1420 mm custom made screen with tiled walls and base) as it has been leaking for a while and has rotted the floor. We bought the house a year ago and only discovered the floor situation after moving a bathroom cupboard. We have an extremely limited budget so aren't looking at an entire bathroom makeover. Problem is the space between the wall and door is 810 mm so a standard 900 mm shower base will not work. Walls are concrete so can not move position of door. We are therefore thinking of a shower over a bath as have had that set up in last 4 rented houses and liked it. Very small bathroom so no room for separate bath and shower. What type of bath is suitable and how difficult is it to install? We're thinking of replacing the floor once the bathroom is gutted and retiling the walls. Floor is currently lino over masonite over floorboards. We're thinking a tiled floor (with waterproof membrane) will be more waterproof in future.

Answer 1

If you're still interested in a shower base, you can get sizes other than the standard 900mm, I have installed a number of them and I'm about to install one at my house. If you're in Australia, give Reece Plumbing a ring. They may have to order one in as they're not a common item, but the point is they're available.

If you want to go the bath route, any bath tub will be acceptable. You might even pick up a second hand tub for cheap. Some new modern tubs come with a flat base to make showering more comfortable. A free-standing tub is the easiest to install, but if you're going for a built-in type then it's slightly more complicated.

There are basically two methods for installing tubs:

1) You can build a frame out of treated pine, but it needs to be very strong (consider the weight of the water and the person in it should you decide to have a bath). Try to build it against a wall so you can bolt sections of the frame to brick walls (or s***w it to an existing timber frame inside a wall).

2) If you have double-brick exterior walls, you can 'chase' one side of the bathtub into the wall by cutting a channel into one course of the bricks. You don't want to go right through the brick, you're basically just carving a slot for the bathtub's lip to fit into and sit on, like a shelf. Take measurements of the bathtub's lip and only 'chase' the minimum required. The other side(s) of the tub will be supported by a timber frame (same as above).

For both methods, buy or borrow a spirit level (and a 'straight edge' if you can get one) to make sure your frame is level. Take multiple readings (side-to-side, end-to-end, corner-to-corner etc).

You can then clad any exposed sides with cement sheet and tile over them. Try to build your frames so they fit up inside the tub's lip leaving enough space to fit a tile up inside as well. This is the professional way of fitting and you will end up with a cleaner finish.

Take note of the waste outlet placing - chances are the bathtub waste pipe will be in a different location than the showerbase so you need to make sure the waste pipe can be moved to suit. Make sure you don't have to cut through a floor bearer to push your waste pipe down! If you're replacing the floor then this task should be easy.

Also, while you have the tiles off the wall, it might be a good idea to (very) carefully expose the existing plumbing to check the condition. If you have to replace or repair a leaky breech or outlet it's obviously a lot easier to do it before you tile!

As for replacing the floor, if you're in Australia there's an excellent floor replacement product called Structaflor that is a direct replacement for standard floorboards. It's 19mm thick (same as a standard floorboard) so at the edges when you meet some existing floorboards you won't have a step. One side of the board is darker, that's the top. It's waterproof and you can install cement sheet ready for tiling right over the top without a membrane, but you can always add a membrane if you like.

Good luck!

Answer 2

Hi

To do this yourself you would be taking on quit a task much better to get a plumber. If you cant afford one. Where is the shower leaking is it the base if so get a replacement made would be a lot cheaper. Then when you can afford it get a plumber to install you bath etc