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Recently, wooden houses are becoming more and more popular – from a bar, a log. They are beautiful and cozy, but decorating such a house is a serious matter. There are too many features that simply need to be taken into account. Particular attention should be paid to wet areas. Only a properly made bathroom in a wooden house will not become a source of problems.
How to make a floor
The floor in the bathroom in a wooden house can be made of any waterproof material. Traditionally, this is ceramic tile or porcelain stoneware, but you can put linoleum (economy option), PVC tile (the coating is similar in quality and characteristics to commercial grade linoleum), glue plug (it is 100% tight, as it is covered with several layers of varnish). You can even make a wooden floor, but the board will need to be treated with special compounds and take care of the ventilation of the underground space.
All coatings except wooden boards are compatible with underfloor heating. It can be water or electric heating. Only when choosing a floor covering, pay attention to its compatibility with a warm floor. In this case, it is better to take ceramic tiles that are not very thick – in order to speed up the heating of the array, but in principle any one is suitable. In the characteristics of other materials, there should be a mark on compatibility with a warm floor.
The bathroom in a wooden house is most often tiled. In any case, the floor is made mainly from this material. It is practical and easy to maintain. Ceramic floor tiles or porcelain stoneware can be laid on a cement or “dry” screed. As a base for a dry screed, moisture-resistant plywood, GVL, chipboard are used. There is also a new material that can be used in a dry screed – Aquapanels from Knauf.
If necessary, a film warm floor can be laid on a dry screed, and the selected finishing material on top. In cement, you can lay a water-heated floor or cable mats (you can just use a heating cable). It is undesirable to use a film floor in a screed, since the film in concrete quickly collapses and the heating simply stops working.
Under all other types of bases, these two types of bases can also be used. Only there is an additional requirement for the screed: for linoleum, PVC tiles and cork, the base must be strong and even. Permissible deviation – 2 mm per 2 meters. Therefore, the usual screed is poured with a self-leveling mixture. Otherwise
Cement screed on wooden floor
Usually, bathroom finishing is started after the subfloor is ready. If you decide to make a cement screed, the procedure is as follows:
- A waterproofing roll material is laid on the base. It can be rolled Hydroisol, other similar materials. As an economical option, a dense polyethylene film (density of 250 g / m and more) is suitable. Waterproofing is laid according to all the rules: with overlaps of one sheet to another, careful gluing of the joints with mastic. In addition, the walls turn us on by about 20 cm (they are also smeared with mastic).
Waterproofing laid on the subfloor and screed poured over it - A reinforcing mesh is laid on top of the waterproofing. Since the room is small, a ready-made reinforcing mesh made of a bar 5-8 mm in diameter is sufficient. It is possible to tie pipes of a water heat-insulated floor or a heating cable to this grid.
- The grid is placed on special stands (pebbles about 3 cm high can be used). The bottom line is that the reinforcing mesh is in the thickness of the concrete and does not rust, and a layer of concrete of 3 cm can protect it.
- Fill with concrete and level. The minimum thickness of the concrete screed is 5 cm.
Once the concrete has cured (one to two weeks depending on the temperature), you can tile the floor or install a suitable floor covering of another type.
There are some more points. To avoid water leakage between the screed and the wall, it is advisable to first glue the joint with a waterproofing tape along the perimeter (available from Knauf), or you can coat it with liquid waterproofing. The next moment: before laying the tiles, the surface is dedusted (well cleaned with a vacuum cleaner), then primed (for cement bases under the tiles). The soil reduces the absorbency, which allows the adhesive to gain its strength, and not dry out due to the fact that all the water has gone into the concrete. In this case, the bathroom in a wooden house will not create problems for its owners – the tiles on the floor will lie for years and will not bounce.
Dry screed
To make a tile floor in a bathroom in a wooden house, it is not necessary to use cement. You can do the so-called dry screed. Moisture-resistant sheet material is laid on the subfloor. It can be plywood, chipboard or GVL. The best option is plywood with a thickness of at least 14 mm. Chipboard can also be used, but it is more prone to warping with increasing humidity. GVL did not show itself very well in operation – it does not tolerate shock loads (it can crack on impact). Therefore, it is desirable to lay all the same plywood.
It is laid apart – so that the seams do not match. Between the sheets leave a gap of 3-4 mm. It is needed to compensate for thermal expansion with increasing temperature. They fasten the plywood around the perimeter with nails to the subfloor, then in the middle in a checkerboard pattern (the distance between the fasteners is about 15 cm). The seams are sealed with a moisture-resistant sealant, which does not become rigid after drying.
Since tiles require a rigid base, a second layer of the same plywood is often installed. They lay it on the same principle – with a run, but so that the seams of the first and second layers do not match. The rules are the same, only the second row is attached to the first, and not to the subfloor.
A waterproofing tape is glued around the perimeter of the base made (Knauf has it). In addition, even though plywood is moisture resistant, it is desirable to cover it with a layer of liquid waterproofing. Just choose the composition on which you can lay the tiles. After drying, you can immediately start laying tiles.
Preparing walls for finishing
A bathroom in a wooden house, like in any other, is usually tiled. If the house is made of timber, logs or made using frame technology, you can’t immediately stick tiles on the walls – the surface does not allow it. Under the tile, the walls are sheathed with moisture-resistant sheet material:
- Moisture-resistant GVL.
- Aquapanel by Knauf.
- Moisture resistant plywood.
Finishing the bathroom in a wooden house
Fiberboard and GVL are also used, but for the same reasons (warping and fragility) it is undesirable to use them. The sheet material is attached to the crate, which can be made of a galvanized metal profile for drywall or wooden bars. When using bars, they must be treated with antiseptic compounds.
A crate of wooden bars is usually made for wood lining (a bathroom in a wooden house can be sheathed with wood, and then impregnated with protective compounds). Under the tile they try to make a frame from a galvanized profile. But this is not the rule. It’s just that wood is easier to attach to a tree, and it’s easier to mount GVL and other sheet materials to galvanization.
How to make a crate
When making a crate in a wooden house, it is worth remembering that it is constantly changing dimensions. A few years after the erection, it actively shrinks – it takes on operational dimensions. But even then, throughout the entire period of operation, it slightly changes dimensions. This phenomenon is called seasonal fluctuations. Therefore, it is not worth fixing the crate rigidly – it can break and the whole finish will fall off. If you do the finishing without taking into account this feature, the bathroom in a wooden house will be a source of problems – the tiles from the walls will crumble or burst.
Therefore, the laths of the crate are made a little shorter – so that they do not reach the floor and ceiling. The second point is that they are not attached directly to the wall, but through special devices. For fastening wooden bars there are metal corners with slots on one of the shelves. These are the fasteners for the device of the floating crate (pictured on the left). They are rigidly attached to the crate bar, and to the wall of a wooden house – through a slot with a self-tapping screw with a large flat head or a bolt with a washer. It turns out that with vertical movements of a wooden wall, the crate on it will be in one position.
The second way to make a floating crate in a wooden house is to make several through cuts about 10 cm long in a bar using a manual milling cutter. Through this cut, fix the beam to the wall using the same capercaillie with a washer. To prevent the bolt head from sticking out, make a recess with a milling cutter. Its depth is equal (or slightly more) to the height of the bolt head, and its width is the size of the washer (in the photo on the right). For a newly built house, fasteners are installed in the upper quarter of the cut, for an established house – approximately in the middle.
As for galvanized profiles, they are mounted on the same corners for floating crates. The second option is perforated suspensions. This type of fastening is not so reliable, but still gives some freedom of movement. Perforated suspensions can be used in a well-established wooden house where the movements are already small.
Base for tiles
Moisture-resistant sheet material is attached to the crate. The priority here is moisture-resistant drywall. Sometimes it is fixed in two layers – to increase the bearing capacity and for better heat and vapor insulation. Before laying the sheets of the second row, the joints of the first are puttied, and the plasterboard itself is positioned so that the seams of the two rows do not match.
But this is still GKL – an imperfect base, since both cardboard and gypsum are hygroscopic, and their absorbency is reduced with the help of impregnations. Therefore, for greater reliability, moisture-resistant GKL is also impregnated with a protective compound. For example, FLACHENDICHT (Flehendicht). This is a waterproofing, which is just designed for waterproofing GVL and other gypsum bases.
You can also use Aquapanels from Knauf. They are made according to the same principle as GKL, but the core is cement with filler, and the “wrapper” is glass fiber. Both materials are not afraid of moisture without pre-treatment. Their difference is that they are made absolutely even, without notches along the edges that the GKL has. They are joined end-to-end, a special adhesive composition is applied to the joined edges. Immediately after installation, the surface is smooth, ready for further finishing. It doesn’t even need to be sanded. Moreover, one side of the aquapanel is made even – for wallpapering or painting, and the second side is rough – for laying tiles.
Also, as a base for tiles on walls in a log or log house, you can use moisture-resistant plywood, GVL. They are also attached to the frame, leaving gaps in the seams, which are filled with silicone non-drying sealant.
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The ceiling in the bathroom of a wooden house is usually made suspended – from moisture-resistant GVL, which is puttied and then painted. Another option is to make a stretch, aluminum rack, from PVC panels, hem with a beautifully crafted board. The problem is not in this, but in how to prevent steam from entering the overlap. For this, vapor-tight membranes are used. They are usually attached to the ceiling with staples from a construction stapler.
The main task when installing a vapor barrier is to ensure tightness. To do this, the material is placed on the walls, the membrane strips are overlapped and double-sided glued with double-sided tape. All fasteners are also glued with adhesive tape. Everything is done carefully.
The second component that provides a normal microclimate is good ventilation. In the bathroom of a wooden house, it should be both natural and forced – with a fan. With this approach, the fan in the bathroom will turn on at those moments when natural ventilation cannot cope.
How to decorate a bathroom in a wooden house
In this chapter, we will talk about finishing methods, selection of materials and design techniques. The traditional way of finishing – walls and floors in tiles or porcelain stoneware – has already become a little bit on edge. And not everyone wants to cover wooden walls with such a “cold” material. If earlier there were almost no alternatives, today they are, and in sufficient quantities.
We have already written about moisture-resistant materials for the floor – these are PVC tiles, linoleum, adhesive cork. All of them are normally used in bathrooms. Another option is to make a plank floor and varnish or oil it. The second option does not create a hard film on the surface, but protects no worse.
Bathroom walls do not need to be tiled. Even such an option as a mosaic is used mainly fragmentarily – they prefer to tile the walls in the area of direct splashes – near the bath, in the shower, near the washbasin. Another option is to make the panels with tiles to a height of 120-150 cm, and finish all the space free from ceramics with wood. Pine is not very suitable for these purposes – it is too resinous. More often use larch or more expensive species. Most often they put an imitation of a bar, but this is a matter of taste. In any case, the wood on the walls in the bathroom is also subject to processing and varnish or oil-based impregnation can also be used.
In general, you can use any finishing materials suitable for bathrooms. It’s just that this is not practiced much – natural wood has become too rare a finishing material to use the usual wallpaper or paint in a wooden house.