The subtleties of tiling, or how to “hide” bathroom communications

Anyone who has to make major repairs or reconstruction of a bathroom faces the problem of communications. They have a slender technological look that does not fit into the interior at all. There are, as a rule, two ways out of this situation – a technological cabinet with revisions and meters or a false wall with a hatch. In this article, we will analyze in detail the device and finish of the false wall..

After proper installation of the installation and connection of water supply, sewerage, ventilation and electrical equipment, the stage of decorative finishing follows. We are only interested in the wall opposite the entrance door, so we will not describe the tiling of the walls and floor..

Frame markup. When lining small rooms with ceramic tiles, you should strictly adhere to the geometry and align the walls as accurately as possible. The marking of the future false wall is carried out not from the existing (rough) concrete wall of the building, but from the aligned wall of the bathroom (side with the door). As a rule, the installation has a size of 180-200 mm in thickness, which is several centimeters more than the thickness of the sewer pipes running parallel to it. A simple option is to level the difference with a solid false wall in the thickness of the installation. But, since we are not looking for easy ways and are fighting for every centimeter of usable space, our wall will have a step on which some necessary little things can later be put.

So, we mark and mount the frame from the CD and UD profiles for gypsum plasterboard (GKL) in the usual way.

Attention! All communications must be properly assembled and tested repeatedly!

The position of water meters – meters – should be determined in advance so that they can be easily accessed through the inspection hatch. In our case, for reasons of symmetry, we chose a place above the toilet at eye level.

We mount the moisture-resistant gypsum board on the frame and get a flat surface, ready for tiling, from all sides. GKL, intended for facing with tiles on cement glue, does not need a primer.

Advice.Install the frame in the plane with the installation frame – get additional mounting surfaces. Fasten the gypsum board to the frame with rivets.

Further, the tiling is carried out in full rows, starting from the second, using a temporary guide from the UD profile.

In this case, a row of longitudinal (long) walls should be superimposed on the false wall tiles, overlapping the joint. This will visually hide possible styling defects. Each time, the vertical cladding comes to the horizontal, and the longitudinal (in the direction of travel) – to the transverse.

Question.Why is laying from the second row and not from the first?

Answer.This trick allows you to maintain an even horizon and the dimension of the seam of all subsequent rows, avoiding tile defects or unevenness when facing the floor.

In the future, horizontal seams will become the starting point for cladding. The horizon should be strictly adhered to, since they are seen much better than vertical ones. You should not compromise, saving time for trimming, and violate the harmony of the horizontal row at a “convenient” case – the result will be with you for many years.

The side. First, we lay the horizontal plane. In this case, the factory edges of the tile should converge at the junction..

Then we cut and glue the tiles on the false wall.

Cut in place and glue the side tiles so that they overlap the seams.

Finishing the installation to the ceiling.

And we cover the first row.

This is the end result. It remains to install an inspection hatch and a ventilation grill. Well, the toilet itself, of course.

We will make an estimate for the false wall of a standard bathroom. Our calculation will be approximate, therefore, for convenience, we take a width of 1 m, a height of 2.5 m. Materials are selected from the average price range:

Sometimes anxiety arises: “What if it flows?” At the beginning of the article, it is not for nothing that high-quality editing is mentioned. This should be entrusted to a master with recommendations or a company that gives a guarantee. Practice has shown that assembly (assembly) defects manifest themselves almost immediately, or in the first weeks of active use. The risk of leaks then decreases rapidly. A properly assembled system will last 50 years. Therefore, this option for solving the problem of visible communications is not for economical ones, but for those who value reliability and solid appearance..