Any bathroom fitters/experts - opinions on wall panels?

[wallpaperman]

Our bathroom has a real problem with damp/condensation, I think mostly due to having an extremely powerful shower, despite us having an extractor fan.

i know the answer is ventilation but can’t leave the window open all day when we are out, though it’s open for about an hour after we’ve finished showering as is the fan.

We have tiles and the grouting is a mess and really hard to clean, the ceiling gets some mild mould patches, so we need to do something.

My wife has looked at these big wall panels, she has read that they are less prone to condensation. Some of them look quite decent, there seem to be a real mixture of prices, so we would want decent ones.

Anyone got any experience of wall panels, especially compared to traditional tiles?

[JeMeSouviens]

Interested to hear about the wall panels but in the meantime, have you thought about using a dehumidifier?

[Mon Dieu4]

I have wall panels instead of tiles, so much easier to manage than tiles and do seem less prone to condensation, worst case scenario is you will have to re-silicone the edges every few years, I got mine at ceiling2floor at Sighthill industrial estate. If you are based in Edinburgh then pop into the show room, the staff were really good and talk you through the benefits etc

[makaveli1875]

Had these installed in my bathroom couple of months ago. Highly recommend, they look the biz and no more scrubbing grout with a toothbrush every time the bathroom gets cleaned. I was having dampness issues too and it's defo helped

[Ozyhibby]

I know a good bit about this subject unlike every other subject on here where I share my opinions anyway.[emoji6]
I renovate about 6 bathrooms a year usually and always use wall panels these days because they are quick to fit, I don’t need to get a tiler and and they are very low maintenance once fitted.
As far as the panels themselves are concerned, not all panels are equal. The ones supplied by ceiling2floor (recommended by another poster) are of inferior quality to the panels supplied by Grant Westfield at Gorgie. The difference is massive. Ceiling2Floor maybe cheaper but it’s a much inferior product. Their boards are MDF backed where as Grant Westfield are marine ply.
The downside with Grant Westfield is that they no longer deal direct with the public so I use Premier Plumbing in Sighthill to order the board. I’m pretty sure Grant Westfield still have a showroom though so worth going to have a look.
As for your ceiling I would recommend using PVC boards from a company called eurocell at Sighthill (right next door to ceiling2floor). Again it’s because the make a superior board to ceiling2floors. Zero chance of mould.
As far as preventing mould goes, you need two things, heat and ventilation. If you have that then it should not be a problem even if you have a tile bathroom with a plastered ceiling. It’s possible that your existing fan wasn’t powerful enough or that your radiator wasn’t putting out enough heat (the towel rail radiators are bad for this).
Hope this helps.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Future17]

You may already do this, but I use a Karcher window vacuum to take the condensation/water off the tiles/glass after a shower. It takes about 30 secs for a reasonable sized shower cabinet and I've had no problems with mould, having been in house for about 3 years.

[wallpaperman]

Thanks very much everyone for your replies, really helpful.

Ozyhibby - could I ask a further quick question - have seen suggestions that the panels can be fitted over existing tiles to minimise disruption/cost. Do you think this is sensible or should all the tiles be removed, particularly as we have a bit a damp problem already? While we want to minimise the cost, we do want to do this right.

Had a look online and Grant Westfield do have a showroom but it doesn’t open on weekends (guess cause it’s aimed at tradesmen), though we are off work in a couple of weeks so can pop up then, thanks for the tip.

Future17 - thanks for mentioning the Karcher, might give that a try, doesn’t cost too much so worth a go.

[Allant1981]

Thanks very much everyone for your replies, really helpful.

Ozyhibby - could I ask a further quick question - have seen suggestions that the panels can be fitted over existing tiles to minimise disruption/cost. Do you think this is sensible or should all the tiles be removed, particularly as we have a bit a damp problem already? While we want to minimise the cost, we do want to do this right.

Had a look online and Grant Westfield do have a showroom but it doesn’t open on weekends (guess cause it’s aimed at tradesmen), though we are off work in a couple of weeks so can pop up then, thanks for the tip.

Future17 - thanks for mentioning the Karcher, might give that a try, doesn’t cost too much so worth a go.

We got our new bathroom fitted in the summer and we thought about putting it over the tiles but we had a similar issue with damp/crap walls, the fitter said it was better just taking the tiles off incase something happened and it all ended up coming down so we done that