Bathroom flooring Help, advice, information, answers and tips on all types of flooring from laminate and carpet to timber and vinyl

[CurlyWurly]

We have removed an old bathroom suite (except wc - still in use at present). The floor is timber and we plan to finish with vinyl tiles. Our question is: should we lay hardboard over the entire floor surface (cutting out for pipes, wastes etc) and then fix the bath, pedestal etc onto this, OR fix the bath, pedestal etc first and then lay the hardboard once these are in position?

Your advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

[thedoctor]

Hardboard is too flexible and it will not take long for tyhe joints in the floorboards to show through the vinyl tiles and even start to split. Hard to believe possibly but its true. bathroom floors, because of the humidity, move (expand and contract) considerably and this causes all sorts of trouble with all typoes of floor tiling. The only way to be safe from this problem is to use plywood as a base. With vinyl tiles we suggest a minimum of 6mm plywood, fixed with countersunk screws (see our project on countersinking and pilot holes where you can find everything you need). Paint the plywood with two coats of PVA adhesive ( See our project on PVA) to give maximum adhesion for the tiles.