What are the Steps to Renovating a Bathroom?

Everyone knows that renovating a bathroom isn’t always a matter of tastes changing. Sometimes, your hand is forced due to the simple fact that thanks to a leaky pipe, condensation, or even just careless bathers, your floor is now full of rot, or the wallpaper has been ruined by black mould.

Basically, the bathroom is a place that is going to sometimes need redoing out of necessity rather than just want, so in this article we are going to talk about not just redoing your bathroom, and the general steps that you should follow, but mention some of the key jobs and steps to take to prevent the likes of condensation or wood rot from forcing a renovation too soon in the future.

Why Do You Need to Renovate Your Bathroom?

For some people, renovating the bathroom is a job that’s brought about by a change in taste -maybe the colours of the tile aren’t to your liking any more, or you might want to change the bath for a stand in shower.

If that’s you, then this section may not apply as heavily – though there will be good advice on how to keep your bathroom in good condition for a long time.

If you are looking to renovate your bathroom because the likes of black mould has ravaged it, or because you have noticed wet or dry rot ruining the timber throughout the room, then you are being forced into action by a property care failing rather than just a simple desire to redecorate.

Black mould is a result of condensation, and condensation is created when there is a lack of ventilation in a room, allowing any warm, moist air that’s created to vent properly.

Once that warm air comes into contact with a cooler surface, like a wall, window, or even just tiles, the moisture in the air is going to revert back to its liquid state. This is what causes the condensation beading that most people recognise as condensation, and over time this process can turn into a form of damp, which provides black mould spores the perfect place to land, grow and spread, allowing for a black mould infestation to spread.

That fungal spread is also how the likes of wet and dry rot spread. If you have a leaky pipe, an improperly affixed drain, or even just someone who gets in and out of the bath carelessly, there is every chance that the timber in your bathroom, or even your floorboards, could be riddled with rot.

Wet and dry rot are actually quite similar – both are fungal, and they both thrive on timber with a higher than normal moisture content. The main difference between wet and dry rot is the actual level of moisture that they prefer.

In simplest terms though, if the timber in your bathroom is exposed to higher than normal levels of moisture, its going to be at risk of developing a rot problem, which can quickly spread, ruining timber in and around your bathroom, forcing a renovation.

Both of these problems are common, and there are steps you can take during the renovation to ensure that you don’t fall victim to them again.

What are the Steps to Renovating a Bathroom?

• Design

First off, you are going to have to decide on a design and style for your bathroom. This will be your vision for the end result, and all your subsequent efforts are going to be working towards this end vision.

• Make a Plan

Once you understand what you want your bathroom to look like when you’re finished, you are going to have to decide what you are comfortable doing yourself, and what you might need help with.

This way you can plan around ordering your materials, and getting people in to help as and when you need. You might want assistance tiling, rerouting pipes, or even an electrician to redo an extractor fan.

All of this is best worked out in advance, so you have a decent idea of what needs doing, and when it needs to be done by.

• Start Taking Apart Your Old Bathroom

This is the point at which you are fully committing to a bathroom redo, and once you get stuck in it’s going to be hard to down tools until the job is done.

It’s often a step you can take yourself as well, bringing down the overall costs of having your bathroom renovated.

Make sure you disconnected the water, electricity, and gas supply (if applicable) before you begin, and then start to take out any of your current fixtures. Baths, showers, sinks, tiles – as much as you want replacing can come out, just make sure it’s disposed of safely (a skip is always a good idea at this point).

Depending on whether you are handling the deconstruction yourself, how good you are at it, and whether you have help, this can be quite a short process.

• Floors and Walls

Hopefully you are sticking to your plan and whatever timeline you set for yourself, and at this point you will be ready to make a start on the flooring and the walls in the bathroom.

Depending on how comfortable you are, you can always do this yourself, or rely on professionals to do it for you – it’s all up to you. However, one thing agreed on by experts is that the floor and the walls should normally be done first before any fittings are installed.

This is a good opportunity to consider whether you need to have your walls drilled into and altered to accommodate the fitting of an extractor fan. If so, it would make sense to have this installed before you make a start on any plastering, tiling, or laying any fresh flooring.

You should also consider at this stage whether you need any electrics or plumbing rerouted, because if so handling that before the walls and flooring are redone is going to be a very good idea. Again, if you are confident enough in your own skills to take this job on you could do it yourself, otherwise we would strongly recommend that you take on a skilled tradesperson to handle these kinds of jobs for you.

• Install Your New Bathroom Fittings and Fixtures

Now comes the big moment, installing of the new bathroom fixtures that, along with your freshly decorated walls and flooring, are going to change how your bathroom looks and feels.

Again, this is going to put your DIY skills to the test. Never mind that you might need some help moving things like baths and toilets into your bathroom (often upstairs), but making sure that they are plumbed in and flush can be a major hassle if it isn’t a job you are familiar with.

Often, hiring in a skilled tradesperson is a good solution, as they are going to not only make sure that the bathroom is all installed completely correctly, but also that the plumbing leading into your bath, shower, toilet, and sink is all correctly plumbed in, so you won’t have any unexpected flooding in the future thanks to poor plumbing (if you aren’t familiar that is!).

• Add Your Finishing Touches

At this point you should be ready to put it any of the finishing touches. Depending on the fit out, this could include touching up areas that might need a new lick of paint after installing your fixtures, or even laying down flooring if it needed to be fitted once the room was filled.

At this point your bathroom will be complete, or at least near finished, and you can take your foot off of the pedal and enjoy your work.

Just make sure before you are finished all of your plumbing is installed correctly, and that ventilation options have been installed correctly.

How Can I Avoid Rot and Condensation in a Bathroom Renovation?

If you have been forced into carrying out a bathroom renovation, then it’s highly probably you will want to avoid it happening again in the future, so here are our top tips to avoid condensation and rot from setting into your bathroom again.

First off, make sure that the bathroom has a decent way to ventilate any warm air created. This normally means the installation of an extractor fan, either in the wall of your bathroom or its ceiling, which draws in all of the warm, dense air, before ventilating it outside the property.

In many instances this will be enough, but if you have been advised to install the likes of a trickle vent or a positive pressure system, then this will be the time to have those different features installed.

As far as timber rot is concerned, managing the moisture level of the bathroom through the likes of ventilation is going to go a long way towards preventing further instances of dry or wet rot from setting in.

Then, make sure that your newly installed bath, sinks, shower, or whatever other features you have had installed all drain correctly, and that their pipes all connect in the way that they should do, and that there are no leaks (however small) which could lead to moisture build up.

Wherever timber is exposed, you may want to consider applying a treatment that renders the exposed timber waterproof, giving it that extra layer of protection against random splashes and sprays that are sometimes unavoidable in a bathroom.

If you are struggling to control the moisture level in your bathroom then get in touch with our team of experts for help. We can help you to control moisture levels in your bathroom, and avoid the resurgence of condensation and timber rot in your bathroom.

Just give us a call on 0800 288 8660, or request a survey online via one of our online contact forms.

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