steam room - Tile Advice

[kilty55]

hi all,okay i have a steam room to price after xmas its ina hotel complex with the possibility of a pool after it if the work is good and if i win the quote of course lol

1st off all i have no experience of doing pools or steam rooms its all domestic work i do so am looking for tips/dos/donts on how to aproach and price this,all to be mosaics i had a look on here but couldnt find too much info so any advice peeps would be great

i will also be looking for someone who has experience of this kind of work to come in on this job with me if i get it as it would be a great learning curve for me and also a good job for someone

 

[Rob Z]

Hi Kilty, any steam room job that we do gets done "by the book", which here means done by the steam room detail in the Tile Council of North America Handbook. Steam showers and steam rooms have legendary failures, so I think it's important to price them with enough to cover quality labor and materials, and if they won't go for it then it's DEFINATELY one to pass on. I can't help you with pricing but I can certainly talk to you about the methods we use here, if that would help you.

 

[The D]

gooner was the man for this sort of thing

 

[Gazzer]

gooner was the man for this sort of thing

You are being too modest Deano.

 

[kilty55]

okay chaps and chappettes,ive been trying to dig out info on this job i have to go and price between xmas and new year,so far ive only really decided that im going to advise epoxy grout for the mosaics and the room to be tanked

another question the customer has is that currently he has benches in the room but would like the curved seats installed that are to be tiled in mosaics,excuse my ignorance but can you buy these pre made? any info on how or what these are made of would be great

 

[The D]

ctd do the seats

 

[kilty55]

belter deano,what are they called mate? steam room seats? lol

 

[MTiler]

For steam rooms I give a day rate, with materials being extra If I have to supply them. Ones Ive worked on the room has been molded by WEDI including the seats, and installed by the company installing the steam room. Quality of installlation is important and it varies. WEDI may have supplied everything nice and square but if its installed Word Removed its a pain. Both epoxy and cement based grouts can be used, but just use what is specified by the designer/architect or even the mosaic supplier. The steam room im in the middle of at the mo is using both types of grout!

 

[kilty55]

hiya miss tiler,thanks for the info,the steam room is currently already there i really need to go see it 1st to see what im looking at tbh

i had a look at the wedi seats deano put me onto and they seem good,are they 1m or 2metre lengths only do you know as i see you need a 1 m base to support each seat say for example my run was 3.5 metres can you cut these or will wedi do a bespoke size if you ask

 

[kilty55]

miss tiler,youre in the middle of a steam room at present?? i know this is a big ask any chance of pics and a thread about your installationonce your finished? it would help me a huge amount and probably benefit the forum as i havent come across anything like that yet on here

 

[Rob Z]

okay chaps and chappettes,ive been trying to dig out info on this job i have to go and price between xmas and new year,so far ive only really decided that im going to advise epoxy grout for the mosaics and the room to be tanked

another question the customer has is that currently he has benches in the room but would like the curved seats installed that are to be tiled in mosaics,excuse my ignorance but can you buy these pre made? any info on how or what these are made of would be great

Kilty, can you get the flexible Kerdi board? It's being sold here now, although when a friend went to buy some for a curved bench he was building the store said Schluter would only sell it in bundles of four sheets.

 

[Rob Z]

miss tiler,youre in the middle of a steam room at present?? i know this is a big ask any chance of pics and a thread about your installationonce your finished? it would help me a huge amount and probably benefit the forum as i havent come across anything like that yet on here

Kilty, I think I posted pics here of a steam room we did several years ago. I don't know where the thread is and the pictures might be gone by now anyway. I can find these pictures on the discs I have here, but the only thing is that the products I used aren't sold in the UK (at least I don't think so, I've never heard anyone mention them).

 

[Rob Z]

A note about Wedi....Wedi (as sold here) says that for steam room installation epoxy thinset must be used to set the tile. Apparently Wedi itself doesn't have a perm rating below 1.0, and the use of epoxy (with a full skim on the panels) is enough to drop the perm rating below 1.0.

Schluter Kerdi has a perm rating of about 0.8.

The membrane I use (Noble CIS) has a perm rating of about 0.15.

These are numbers reported by the manufacturer.

There aren't any liquid membranes that I know of sold here in the US or Canada that have perm ratings below 1.0, and thus can't be used in steam rooms without a poly barrier behind the substrate.

 

[MTiler]

Hi Kilty
Heres a pic of the room installed, including the ceiling. The steam room contractor sent the specs to WEDI and they made it in Germany. Even though two guys from WEDI brought it over they didnt install it, apparently they just watched a guy from the contractors install it and he did a cracking job. One I did for another contractor was totally Word removed ! I was told its not as expensive as you'd think considering what a single sheet of the stuff costs!



missyT

 

[kilty55]

hi rob,yes i asked about kerdiboards on a previous job and schluter only do 4 sheets at a time they wont split