How to Prepare your Walls for Shower Panels

Aug 6, '20

Shower Panels are very versatile and can be applied to various surfaces while still creating a smooth professional finish. In this post we will go over how to prepare your walls for installing your shower panelling. Outlined are three of the most common surfaces which wall panels are applied to, ensuring you get a waterproof finish that is free of damp and mould.

1| Plasterboard/Plastered Walls:

This is the most common surface usually found on a new bathroom installation rather than a refurbishment. Minimal effort is required to apply the Shower Panels to plasterboard, only a few steps are required.

If your walls have just been plastered, you will want to ensure that the plaster is completely dry. Plasterboard on average takes around 2-3 days to dry. This step will ensure you do not get damp or mould behind your bathroom panels

You will also want to check that the walls are flat using a spirit level. Due to the panel’s high quality, and robustness they are not very flexible therefore the walls must be as flat as possible

Ensure any bumps or uneven patches are eliminated, this can be achieved by using extra adhesive in the problem areas. Sand down rough spots and ensure screw holes are filled and then sanded, as well as any cracks or holes. Although our shower panels are high quality and strong, they rely on the strength of the wall they are applied to. By doing this step you can ensure that you have the best insulation and avoid any weak spots in the panel that may cause it to flex or crack

2| Applying the panels over existing tiles:

This is an option you may use if you are refurbishing your bathroom or giving it a

new lease of life. To save time and mess the panels can be installed directly on top of ceramic tiles using silicone as the adhesive. We will go through a couple of steps on how you can ensure that you get the best finish possible when applying panels to tiled walls.

Ensure the tiles are intact and free of any cracks or missing tiles, walls with badly damaged tiles or missing tiles will need to be plastered to get a suitable surface to work with

Ensure that your existing tiles are properly cleaned prior to installing the wall panels, we recommend using sugar soap to fully clean the tiles, this will ensure that the tiles are clear of any residue. Taking time to fully clean down the existing tiles gives an excellent surface to install panels onto - this ensures that the panels can get a full grip as the adhesive can bond together with the two elements - allow to dry for 48 hours

3| Installing panels using a wooden batten structure:

You can build a wooden batten structure to apply your bathroom wall panels to a wall where the surface may not be ideal to apply them directly (for example extremely rough surfaces or cracks that cannot be filled). This method is more commonly used outside the shower cubicle area, in the bathrooms surrounding walls.

Once the wooden batten structure is built and in place you can pin, screw or staple the panels at either side of the shower boarding where the tongue and groove interlocking system is located (pins will be hidden once another panel is slotted into place). Prior to slotting the next panel in, we always recommend a tiny bead of silicone inside the join to ensure extra water tightness.