My bathroom project

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mr brightside

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Hello, i hope i don't incur any stern glances for posting here, but i had nowhere else to go. DIY forums are packed out with gobby people who don't know how to respond seriously or constructively, it tends to take the wind out of your sails sometimes.

I'm fitting an offset quadrant shower cubicle in my bathroom, but i'm choosing to use timber paneling for the back and side walls of the shower interior. The environmental stresses placed on the timber walls will be similar in nature to those imposed on the hull of a timber boat. Todays bathroom paneling is ghastly to say the least, and expensive. I want to create something bespoke that has the feel of having been envisioned by a craftsperson, not a style consultant.

The simplest way to go about this is to use tongue and groove pine floorboards. So, how can i seal pine against the daily effects of a warm shower? Please note, i'm very patient and don't mind having to take weeks over sealing it properly. The base will be a regular tray, only the sides will be timber.

Many thanks, Luke.
 
Hi & welcome Luke, if I was doing something similar my first inclination would be towards using CT1 (a very effective adhesive/sealant in my experience) to stick the T&G panels together (and possibly also to whatever they're sitting against) with a bead of the same around the main edges/corners. Then several coats of a suitable and good quality epoxy to seal the wood. Hope that helps...
 
CT1 seems to have good reviews, i like the look of it. What would you do about the ooze that escapes from the joints when you push them together? If you try to wipe it off it'll spread all over the panels, is there some solvent i can use?

When you say "suitable and good quality epoxy", what do you mean? Yacht varnish? There is a brand i've found online called International who have a wide range of marine varnishes. Is their standard 'Original' product any good?

Cheers guys.
 
Excess can be wiped off with a damp cloth before it goes off but they also do a product called multisolve which would be the stuff to use should there be any need to remove any after...
 
Long-term, your most satisfactory solution would be to use proper waterproof panels. They are well-established and work well. Or you could use large-format ceramic tiles, again well-established and work well. Your DIY approach might look OK for a year, but will deteriorate rapidly. Unless you like the challenge of repeating projects on a regular basis, why not just use the proper stuff? And, of course, it will be cheaper in the long run.
 
Timber paneling would be the last thing I would use but if you must, "V" groove would look better than floorboards but, remember timber shrinks and expands across the width so, if glued, would most likely crack. Planks, would have to be sealed/varnished before assembly.
 
I agree with pvb. Timber is a natural material and will shrink over time and move with changes of humidity (of which there are a lot in a bathroom). When we did our shower room we used painted t and g on the main walls but proprietary wallboards in the shower area itself. The materials were chosen by Mrs Moron after seeing the same in a hotel we stayed in. The wallboards have none of the discolouration associated with ceramic tiles. So far it's continuing to look good.
 
I'm in the same boat (as it were). My mate just talked me out of varnishing up the pine floorboards as they cup and move over time. You can get very nice wood effect tiles these days.
 
Back in the early seventies we built our house, it was single storey split level on a steep site, the exterior was 'modern vernacular' but the interior was very scandanavian, with maple floors and wood for the sloping ceilings and for wall cladding in the bathrooms. We lived there for thirty plus years. The cladding was whitewood or redwood t&g matchboarding, kiln dried and kept wrapped until fixing. Every summer the joints opened up as humidity went down, I refixed the largest ceiling over one summer, closing up the joints, a few months later, I was awakened in the middle of the night by a tremendous explosion, not unusual in N.I. but this one seemed very close so I got up, could not see anything wrong until I looked up to see that the ceiling boarding had detached under pressure forming a deep curve across the roomabove my head, decided to live with the open joints after that. Strangely, I had less trouble in the bathrooms, probably because the humidity was always quite high and fairly constant, but after my experience trying to look after all that wood, t&g cladding is the last thing I would choose for a shower or wet room. (our shower cubicle was lined with a patterned laminate over birch wbp ply, you had a great choice of laminate designs back then).
You might be able to get suitable timber from a sauna manufacturer, they must have similar issues to deal with, but you will still have to cope with considerable movement cross the grain, the moving joints are bound to hold water and the result will be edge staining and possibly even decay.
There is a good reason why certain materials are not used for certain tasks, wood would be attractive and warm so there must be a snag?

It was a self build so the attraction of avoiding having to wet plaster, a skill I have never really mastered was a factor in our choice and the carpentry and joinery was a slo but enjoyable task.
 
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I would not use timber in a shower for all the reasons already mentioned. I used large tiles, 2' x 1' onto special shower room backing sheet - I can't remember the name but it was not cheap.
 
pvb said:
Long-term, your most satisfactory solution would be to use proper waterproof panels. They are well-established and work well. Or you could use large-format ceramic tiles, again well-established and work well. Your DIY approach might look OK for a year, but will deteriorate rapidly. Unless you like the challenge of repeating projects on a regular basis, why not just use the proper stuff? And, of course, it will be cheaper in the long run.
Click to expand...

I know, but they just look awful! I haven't seen any as yet that meet with my aesthetic approval. I also think there is a lot to be said for the act and process of creation; it does something to your spirit, it's very nurturing, also very blokey.

prof pat pending said:
Start with a low viscosity Epoxy that will soak into the grain

https://www.mbfg.co.uk/eposeal-300-epoxy-primer.html
Click to expand...

Good shout, thanks!

Quandary said:
Back in the early seventies we built our house, it was single storey split level on a steep site, the exterior was 'modern vernacular' but the interior was very scandanavian, with maple floors and wood for the sloping ceilings and for wall cladding in the bathrooms. We lived there for thirty plus years. The cladding was whitewood or redwood t&g matchboarding, kiln dried and kept wrapped until fixing. Every summer the joints opened up as humidity went down, I refixed the largest ceiling over one summer, closing up the joints, a few months later, I was awakened in the middle of the night by a tremendous explosion, not unusual in N.I. but this one seemed very close so I got up, could not see anything wrong until I looked up to see that the ceiling boarding had detached under pressure forming a deep curve across the roomabove my head, decided to live with the open joints after that. Strangely, I had less trouble in the bathrooms, probably because the humidity was always quite high and fairly constant, but after my experience trying to look after all that wood, t&g cladding is the last thing I would choose for a shower or wet room. (our shower cubicle was lined with a patterned laminate over birch wbp ply, you had a great choice of laminate designs back then).
You might be able to get suitable timber from a sauna manufacturer, they must have similar issues to deal with, but you will still have to cope with considerable movement cross the grain, the moving joints are bound to hold water and the result will be edge staining and possibly even decay.
There is a good reason why certain materials are not used for certain tasks, wood would be attractive and warm so there must be a snag?

It was a self build so the attraction of avoiding having to wet plaster, a skill I have never really mastered was a factor in our choice and the carpentry and joinery was a slo but enjoyable task.
Click to expand...

Great feedback, thanks.
 
This reminds me of the time i came up against the problem of 'scavenging' in a 5 port head. People said you couldn't use throttle bodies and injectors because the best software in the world couldn't overcome the mechanical process of scavenging. Carbs meter air volumetrically, so don't really pose a problem for 5 port heads. I went for a mechanical solution and had an inlet manifold made up that biased airflow to 1 and 4, and gasflowed the head to clear out the route into the outer cylinders of metallic obstructions; early indications are that it has worked.

I'm going to press ahead here; the requirements are sealing the grain as much as possible and finding a sealer for the panel grooves that will absorb movement and resist cracking. Maybe i need a point at which to concentrate the movement and absorb it with an alternate material?
 
Some posh people have wooden bath tubs,just as point of order bathrooms on boats are called heads unless you are posing like calling going below as going downstairs,there is no hope!��
 
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