Building a dream bathroom? Renovating your existing bathroom to make it more up to date, or to make sure it matches the rest of your home’s décor? Don’t let the excitement carry you away. Careful planning is a vital consideration here. Yes, you’ll need to ensure that you choose the right bathroom fixtures, flooring options, light fixtures and the like, but you’ll also need to pay attention to things below the surface. Specifically, we’re talking about waterproofing your bathroom.

Why Does Waterproofing Your Bathroom Matter?

Waterproofing your bathroom is actually a very important consideration. What’s the one element that is common to pretty much every activity that takes place in your bathroom? Water. Everything you do, from flushing the toilet to washing your hands to luxuriating with a hot soak in your new bathtub involves water. The problem is that most of your home’s substructure isn’t designed to withstand water.

In fact, prolonged contact with moisture can cause serious problems, like rot, mould growth, and mildew. You might actually find that water seeping through the floors or walls of your bathroom causes enough damage that you need to rip out your new bathroom fixtures so that you can tackle repairs. Waterproofing ensures that this doesn’t happen. Obviously, waterproofing your bathroom now makes a great deal of sense.

What’s Needed to Waterproof Your Bathroom

So, what do you need to do in order to ensure that your bathroom is waterproofed? Actually, it begins with the substructure. This means you need to waterproof the subfloor and the sheetrock – the process begins before laying the flooring material or painting the walls.

Start with a clean floor. You’ll need to thoroughly sweep the subfloor before you can waterproof them. Dust and dirt should be completely removed. If necessary, use a vacuum to clean up. The next step is to apply waterproofing primer to the walls. You’ll need to start at the base, and work your way up to about 20 centimetres in height. Once this is done, go ahead and apply the primer to the entire bathroom floor and allow it all to dry.

Once the primer is dry enough to support you, apply waterproof silicone caulk to the seam between the floor and walls. Do this around the perimeter of the entire room. Let the caulk dry for at least 24 hours.

When the caulk is completely dry, apply masking tape above the top of the area where you primed the walls, and then apply your chosen waterproofing agent. Apply it to the walls first, and then go back and apply it to the floor, making sure you get roughly a paint roller’s width from the edge of the wall toward the centre of the floor all the way around. Finally, you’ll need to apply the waterproof membrane to the floor itself, and then paint over it with waterproof paint.

The right steps will ensure that water does not penetrate through the floor or the cracks at the base of the walls in your bathroom to damage the substructure of your home.