A Whet Appetite For Wet Rooms
Wet room sales have rocketed in the past five years, from the niche of exclusive and expensive luxury, to the must-have mainstream. The freedom of a wet room creates impact in spacious situations and can be a practical way to fit showering into smaller spaces. The public, it would seem, just can't get enough of this trend.
However, as anyone that has installed a wet room will know, getting the functionality right can be a challenge, firstly in waterproofing the space and then in water routing to effectively manage the waste - getting angles and gradient right to avoid puddles with run off from the shower. Avoiding water seepage is essential and special attention must be paid to vulnerable pressure points, including corners where wall meets floor.
Another challenge can be explaining costs to the customer as they need to understand the work involved in preparatory waterproofing and the essential requirement to finish walls and floors completely in tiling or other suitable material. The wet room look is all about style, so high quality ceramics and glass need to be budgeted for.
Practical attention to design is important for the simplicity of the wet room to work. For example, shower fixtures need to be sited away from the door to avoid unnecessarily walking across the wet floor on route to other fixtures. In smaller spaces shower screening should be included to avoid accidental spray soaking the whole room and ventilation shouldn't be overlooked or your wet room quickly turns into a steam room.
When wet rooms first hit the domestic market they were based on the approach of tanking the whole room and this method is still used today. The volume demand for wet rooms, however, has enticed manufacturers and suppliers to invest in innovation that has brought us other options, such as membrane kits, steel liners, underlay floor formers, preformed trays, decks and gullies. There is now plenty to consider and to choose from.
Wet room demand has also driven the traditional shower enclosure manufacturers to offer alternatives, with trays shrinking from 110mm monsters down to as little as 25mm in height. New lightweight materials make these easier to install and minimalist walk-in enclosure design goes a long way to create the wet room feel without the cost and hassle of waterproofing. It's a B plan option to consider when budgets get squeezed, or when practical difficulty overtakes wet room feasibility.
About the Author:
Wendy Harbutt is PR Office for Lakes Bathrooms, specialists in shower enclosures, wet rooms, frameless showers and high quality shower glass
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