Loft Conversion

DIpY Loft Conversion*
(*Do It Partly Yourself!)

The Shower Not a hugely interesting topic it has to be said, however there are a few things to keep on top of when doing a shower tray if one is to avoid the problems of leaks.
Mounting the Tray The tray selected is a cast stone one with a resin cap. This is heavy but nice and solid. It should also be easy to clean. To allow the waste water to drain, a small plinth was needed under the tray to raise the level a little. This way there is enough height to introduce a slight fall to the waste pipe. Building the frame Rather than use plasterboard for the walls of the shower, the panels for the shower are also made from 19mm shuttering ply. This is just in case they ever get wet! (Aquapanel would have done just as well, but since we were planning to render the surface anyway, seemed like overkill) It was also decided that rather than place the shower right in the corner of the room we would leave a small (300mm wide) cupboard space behind it. This will make for a small "overspill" airing cupboard, and also maintain some access to the pipe work that feeds the bathroom and the shower. Hence one panel is mounted on a 2x2" studwork frame.	The plinth was made from four 4x2"s laid across the floor joists and screwed to them. This was covered in 19mm ply which was then well screwed down. The tray must be fully supported over the full area of the base, and hence it is bedded into a mortar screed about 1.5cm deep. In order to allow the waste fitting to be connected a small amount of the underside of the ply base needed to be routed away near the waste to give an extra few mm of clearance. A generous application silicone sealant was squidged down between the tray and the panels just in case!
The next trick is to fix expanded metal lath over the ply. This is stapled in place every 10cm or so. The wood battens will not form a part of the final result but are there it assist in getting the render reasonably level!
First half rendered and smoothed out. Alas It was getting late and I was knackered, so there was no chance to do the second side. This is a shame since it would have been nice to get the whole envelope of render done in one hit so it was a single lump.	Once the render was up the wood strip was removed.
Last side and the corner done. The two sides were rendered first and then the corner was done using one remaining wood strip on the left, and the hardened render on the right for alignment. Once that was in place the last wood strip way carefully pulled out and the gap left filled.	The plastic protective film is still on most of the tray, so the mess will peel off it!
Jump forward a few weeks, and the tiling is done, the lighting in, ceiling plastered and painted, plumbing all done, and the shower enclosure built and siliconed all over the place.