DIY bathroom floor repair

It is believed that renovating a bathroom and toilet is the most time consuming and key step in renovating an apartment. It is especially difficult if the bathroom, as it often happens today, is accompanied by redevelopment: the demolition of the partition between the bathroom and the toilet, the expansion of the bathroom into the corridor, or even creating it in the place of the former room. More details of redevelopment issues - what should be taken into account when planning repairs, where you should not rely blindly on the will of the masters, we have already partially considered in other materials. In this article, we will highlight interesting points of repairing a bathroom and toilet, which must be considered before, not after.

Preparing your floor is the beginning of your bathroom renovation. As a rule, a floor cake in wet rooms consists of a floor slab (subfloor, particle board sheet), double or triple waterproofing, a primer, a leveling screed, an adhesive layer and the actual tile, porcelain stoneware or other moisture-resistant material (for example, marble or granite). It is very important to remember that there is an increased load on the bathroom floors - the weight of the tiles is greater than, for example, the weight of the laminate, to say nothing of plumbing fixtures. If you live in a house with wooden floors, it is strictly not recommended in this regard to take out the old logs, and also fill them (or the space remaining after cutting them off) with a deep screed. The weight of such a structure will easily break through the lower level of the wooden floor and collapse on the neighbors' heads. In this case, place base plates (for example, DSP sheets) on the joists and lay only a light leveling screed over them.

When preparing the subfloor, consider whether your bathroom will have an additional bottom floor drain. This barred hole is usually located in one of the corners of the bathtub, with the floor being laid and leveled so that it runs at an inconspicuous angle to this hole. An additional drain pipe runs from it, leading to a common sewer pipe. Pipes laid in the floor cake must be additionally waterproofed.

If the base for the floor cake is not concrete, but wood, then before proceeding, be sure to saturate the subfloor with a special stain that protects against decay, mold and bacteria.

The most important stage of renovation in a bathroom is waterproofing. In some Soviet-built houses, the issue of waterproofing was solved very simply: both the bathroom and the toilet were solid "blocks" - cubes, where there were no seams between the floor and walls, solid concrete. Today, new owners ruthlessly break down old partitions, after which they are surprised when water, at the very first pipe break or blockage, quickly seeps out to the neighbors.

So, waterproofing is done right before the stage of placing tiles or porcelain stoneware on the floor and walls - right after you have prepared the base for the tile. The simplest and most modern option is coating waterproofing, and it must be done with a 10-20 cm approach to the walls, and applied in two layers. Some contractors recommend waterproofing the rest of the apartment at the same time, that is, applying waterproofing to all subfloors. Of course, this will protect you from the claims of your neighbors if, for example, a pipe break occurs in your absence. However, one should not underestimate the advantages of modern materials: if you waterproof the entire floor with the entrance to the walls, then when flooding your apartment will be a single bowl for liquid, which will have nowhere to drain.The overlap may simply not withstand such a load, and if there are pets in the house, then it is simply dangerous.

Airing wet areas of an apartment is no less important and acute issue than waterproofing. Initially, the design of any apartment building implies ventilation boxes and ventilation grilles in kitchens and in bathrooms and toilets. The ventilation boxes of the old design, which is no secret, are extremely cumbersome, and due to them, the wall between the toilet and the room may not be 15 cm, but, for example, 65 cm.

But what if this wall also interferes with the ingenious design idea? After all, old apartments cannot boast of a convenient layout. So it turns out that ventilation boxes usually suffer first - they are mercilessly cut or simply removed. This not only blocks the air flow to the apartments from below - but also badly affects the climate regime in your own apartment. Unfortunately, without ventilation in the bathroom, mold and fungus quickly begin to appear, during water procedures, steam accumulates in the room, not finding a way out, making it difficult for the bather to breathe and well-being. If possible, try to leave the ventilation grilles in place; if you are creating a bathroom in place of a residential one, stretch from the bathroom to the existing ventilation hole a sleeve in which the fan is placed. Unfortunately, the draft in the ventilation ducts is low, so if you need to ventilate a remote room, additional mechanical effort is required, reminiscent of an exhaust hood.

An interesting point is the heating of the bathroom. Towel dryers made of bent pipes, into which hot water from the heating system is run, are very convenient - they not only dry the air, preventing the formation of steam, but also warm the room, which, due to the material of the walls and floor decoration, is quite cold.

Electric heated towel rails are not an alternative - they consume too much electricity, which is why they are not intended for permanent use, which means that in the morning you will enter a cold room. As for the warm floor - a fashionable solution - it is far from suitable for all apartments: both the material of the floors and the permissible load of the electrical network matter. An electric underfloor heating requires a large amount of electricity, which in houses of old structures can lead to the collapse of the general house system. Water floor heating in apartment buildings is prohibited by law. Thus, modern reality makes it extremely difficult to heat a bathroom - that's why, if your old bathroom already had a heated towel rail powered by a common pipe, in no case should you lose the opportunity to get a legal source of heat and dryness in the bathroom.

If you nevertheless decide to create a warm floor, there are also some tricks here. For example, despite the fact that in the usual pictures of laying the floor, all the space is occupied by a cable, in fact, you should not lay a warm floor where heavy pieces of furniture or plumbing fixtures will stand. No air pockets and voids are left around the heating part of the cable in the layer of tile adhesive, and the cable itself cannot be cut "along the way" - it should not have breaks. Be sure to take a photo of the installed cable before covering it with tiles - this is useful if you need to drill holes in the floor or rearrange furniture and appliances.

Drain pipes are those details that few of the owners prefer to think about. In the end, the master can take care of this. However, there are also rules here that you can and should think about - it depends on the quality of the installation of sewer pipes whether you will have the pleasure of regularly “filling” neighbors or fixing blockages. These are the rules:

• The diameter of the new drain pipe must match the diameter of the outlet to the overlap.Narrowing of pipes, the use of inappropriate sections, "caught under the arm", leads to the formation of blockages
• Drain pipes should have a slope from top to bottom and a minimum number of "elbows", that is, corner joints. If you find that after the repair, the drain will go upwards at an angle, ask the workers to create a small plinth. Be wary of suggestions to lower the floor level in the bathroom - first calculate whether this will lead to a change in the angle of inclination of the drain.

The availability of water meters, pipe shut-off taps, floor heating sensors at the end of the repair are important details that are surprisingly often forgotten. And it is not surprising, because other masters will deal with them. Please note that although the meter can be installed anywhere in the pipe, it must be at the appropriate height, and so that it is possible not only to take readings without hindrance, but also to change or repair the meter without breaking the wall or removing the plumbing fixtures. It's the same story with stopcocks. Discuss these questions with the master in advance - there are often cases when, having installed all the devices, the builders do not hesitate to put a toilet bowl in front of the hole or close it with a stand under the sink. By the way, the space under the bathroom is a bad place for any regulating devices: accessibility will be very difficult.

As much as you would not want to shift all the technical problems onto the shoulders of the masters, control of the fundamental points of the repair on your part is obligatory, since, first of all, your comfort and safety depends on the correctness of the work performed.

When renovating a bathroom, the importance of the correct implementation of the floor screed is not always taken into account. Often, this stage is carefully carried out only during the arrangement of an apartment in a new building. However, in old houses it is sometimes simply impossible to carry out a high-quality renovation of premises without laying a new sub-floor.

The screed contributes to the correct distribution of the load on the floor from furniture and household appliances, and will also reduce the negative consequences of small leaks in the bathroom. It is important to know the technology of such work and their features. Let's take a closer look at how to make a floor screed in the bathroom.

It should be noted that the process of arranging the base screed is quite laborious. It is, of course, necessary to start with dismantling the old floor.

After the old screed is removed, you will have to tinker with cleaning the room. As a rule, you need to collect and take out a large amount of construction waste, clean and prepare the surface well.

Before making a bathroom floor, a thorough preparation is recommended. Laying a new screed is accompanied by many additional works that necessarily precede installation.

This is the first thing you need to take care of when finishing your bathroom floor. It should be noted that standard polyethylene as a waterproofing material is not the best choice. The cement screed eats away at it, and a few years after the repair, the insulation deck simply won't be there.

In the bathroom, you cannot do without reliable waterproofing. If even minor flooding occurs, you can fill the ceilings in the apartment from below. This will entail high repair costs for neighbors. Consequently, the materials for laying on the floor should be chosen the most durable. It is better to purchase bituminous mastic or special material in rolls for insulation.

A layer of bitumen is applied to the prepared clean floor surface. Then waterproofing flooring is made on top. Better to choose rubberized rolls. The material is heated with a gas burner and glued to the base with bitumen mastic.

Do not forget to cover the bottom sections of the walls with waterproofing at a height of about 150-200 millimeters.

It is also advisable to cover with insulating material those sections of the floor in which the risers are placed.

When making repairs to the bathroom floor with your own hands, you also need to take care of thermal insulation. Insulation of the screed itself is an important stage of work, but the effect of this procedure will seem insignificant, if you do not additionally provide for a floor heating system. By equipping your bathroom with a warm floor, you can immediately feel all the advantages of these modern designs.

Underfloor heating systems save energy and create a cozy and comfortable atmosphere in the room. Warm floors allow you to walk barefoot on tiles without fear of catching a cold.

Today, a large assortment of various underfloor heating systems is on sale. Some of them consume very little electricity, so this design will not "eat up" the entire family budget. There are cable models that only need 500 watts to heat the floor in a small bathroom. If you opt for a water-heated floor, you will save even more.

In order to properly insulate the floor screed, a sheet of foam plastic is laid on the waterproofing, having a thickness of about 50 millimeters. A special screen is placed on top of it, which will conduct heat into the room from heating devices.

The next step involves the laying of a reinforcing steel mesh with a honeycomb structure. The size of the holes in it is 100X100 millimeters, and the thickness of the wire is 2 - 3 millimeters.

In the case of installing a floor with a water circuit, a pipeline must be laid down after the mesh. An electric underfloor heating is laid differently - the heating elements of the structure are installed on the finished screed.

Since standard bathrooms and toilets are relatively small, the process of working on the screed or pouring the floor in the bathroom with your own hands is easier and faster. The small area of ​​the room also makes it possible to simplify the installation of beacons.

In work, it is necessary to use a long rack level (about two meters). Lighthouses are laid on slides of cement mortar, laid out in a line with gaps between them equal to 0.5 m. The function of the lighthouses is performed by guide profiles for drywall ud. They are inserted into the solution, and then the position of the beacon is checked using a level. Then, having measured the desired width from the first, a second beacon is set up.

Now the level needs to be set on two beacons at once, but the general installation principle remains the same. Remember to check for clear horizontal alignment when installing the guides. You need to pay attention to the second beacon itself, and to the distance between the first and the second. Then, following the above technique, place the remaining screed profiles.

In cases where the floor is poured on top of the foam, it must be cut off at the installation points of the beacons. These are places with located "mounds" of cement. If the styrofoam is left on, the beacons may move. Before pouring the floor in the bathroom with your own hands under the tiles, you must take this nuance into account. The "playing" beacons will make the screed uneven, and this, in turn, will complicate the process of finishing with tiles and will require a large amount of tile adhesive.

The screed in the bathroom under the tiles should not be too thin. Otherwise, cracks may appear in it. The fill thickness is usually at least 50 mm. This is important to remember when installing beacons. To install them, the height is marked from the floor itself or from the foam sheet.

First of all, in order to make high-quality floors in the bathroom with your own hands, you need to properly prepare the solution. Cement and sand are prepared.

In this case, it is important to determine the proportions. The answer to the question of what mixture to fill the bathroom floor with depends on the type of foundation for the fill. If you need to pour the concrete base immediately, a solution in a ratio of 1: 4 is suitable. This is 1 part cement and 4 parts sand. The foam screed involves using a mixture in a ratio of 1: 3.In this case, you need to take three pieces of sand.

The mixed pouring compound is poured onto the floor surface between the beacons and leveled using a building rule. The tool is placed with both ends on the beacons located next to each other.

Thus, the entire screed is gradually poured into the bathroom. During work, it is necessary to ensure that the solution is laid strictly at the level of the beacons.

After a day, the fill will harden a little. Then you can remove the guides, and cover the grooves left from them with cement.

The next step is to level the surface, smooth out all the protrusions and irregularities. This is done with the pointed end of the rule. After that, the rough jellied floor in the bathroom is covered with a thin plastic wrap and left to dry.

Polyethylene reduces water evaporation and makes the concrete screed more durable.

As a rule, floor leveling mortars are made from gypsum or cement. The latter are preferable for toilets and bathrooms. Pouring mixtures are produced in special paper bags with a polyethylene backing. It protects the material from moisture penetration.

Do not allow water to enter the package, since damp solutions are absolutely not suitable for creating a strong and even screed.

It is also important to check the expiration date of the products. Each mixture is designed for a specific period of use. Settled material can impair the quality of the ready-to-fill floor mortar.

Manufacturers often include various modifying components in the leveling mixtures. Such additives can make the coating better, as well as make the finished solution more plastic, which is important during the repair process.

For example, special synthetic fibers reduce the chance of cracking when the screed hardens. A screed based on a solution with such substances can even be used as a finishing floor covering.

There are these types of mixtures:

1. Leveling.
2. Self-leveling.

The first type of mortar is used as an external surface finish. They allow you to get rid of defects and protrusions in the coating. The mixture must be applied in a thick layer, which makes it possible to get a smooth base in the end.

The screed itself is also classified in a certain way according to the property and state of the material:

1. Dry screeds.
2. Semi-dry.
3. Wet.

So, a wet screed is considered the easiest to perform. It is composed of concrete and sand. The composition prepared in this way is poured onto the rough floor and distributed over its surface.

However, this fill takes a long time to dry.

A wet screed is made on thermal insulation or waterproofing material. The heat-insulating layer is used for decoration in country houses and in apartments on the first floors of buildings. A wet screed with two leveling layers is also used. This option is necessary if you plan to finish with linoleum or parquet. The so-called knitted tie is suitable for living quarters.

Semi-dry screed also includes sand and cement. However, unlike wet pouring, plasticizing agents and other components are added to these mixtures. Thanks to the presence of these additives, the semi-dry screed dries faster and with its help you can easily level the base, removing all bumps and protrusions.

It also requires less water to mix. This will make the outdoor structure lighter and more durable.

A dry type of screed is a composite product of several layers. Crushed stone or expanded clay is placed on the lower level, and gypsum fiber is placed on top. It is not difficult to install such a floor without leaving a lot of dirt. However, the dry finish of the substrate has a significant disadvantage: it cannot withstand heavy loads.

When performing repair work, it is necessary that the air temperature in the room where the floor is poured does not fall below +5 degrees and does not exceed +25. Humidity should be no more than 90%.

Drafts should be avoided during work, as they impair the quality of the screed. It is necessary to calculate in advance the time for drying the poured base, sometimes with a margin, since some types of compounds will "set" for a long time.

When preparing the mixture for pouring, it is necessary to observe the proportions and all the instructions that the manufacturers list in the instructions on the package.

For some time after the end of the work, while the floor is still freshly filled, it is better not to walk on it. Especially this advice should be heeded by those owners who decided to make the base screed on foam. To remove the beacons, you can put wide sheets of OSB on the surface after processing. This protection will prevent damage to the newly flooded floor.

The floor level must be taken into account when installing the beacons. The bathroom floor should be slightly lower than in the rest of the apartment. This threshold avoids flooding.

Thus, the process of self-pouring the floor in the bathroom is a type of repair work that is quite accessible to every owner. It is only necessary to use high-quality materials for the screed and observe the technology and all stages of the filling.

The article is addressed to those who are going to repair the toilet with their own hands, but have no experience. I will tell you about the most popular and affordable finishes and offer a step-by-step algorithm for working. You just need to follow my recommendations to get a quality result.

The photo shows an example of how you can carry out the work yourself

Even in a small area, you can create a comfortable and attractive environment.

Repairing a toilet is both simple and complex. Simple because the volume of work is small due to the small area, and difficult for the reason that, due to lack of space, you need to think carefully about everything.

All work can be broken down into 10 stages:

1. Development of the future interior;
2. Purchase of the necessary materials and tools;
3. Dismantling of old plumbing and decoration;
4. Replacement of communications and laying of new ones (if necessary);
5. Construction of a box for masking pipes;
6. Floor covering device;
7. Wall decoration;
8. Ceiling decoration;
9. Installation of plumbing and other equipment;
10. Door installation.

To get a neat bathroom, you will have to carry out a number of works

You do not need to think about where to start work, since first of all you need to think over the layout and decoration.

To do this, you need to do the following:

• Measure the area at your disposal. This is the main aspect that determines what you can deliver and how to arrange the elements.... Unfortunately, most often there is very little space and you have to adapt to the circumstances, and not come up with interesting solutions;
• Determine what equipment will be installed. If there is very little space, then most often only the toilet is placed. If there is more space, then you can add a washbasin, bidet or even a urinal, it all depends on your wishes;

Equipment installation standards: from the center of the toilet bowl to the wall should be at least 40 cm, the sink should be located at a distance of at least 30 cm;

It is important to position the plumbing correctly

• A wall-hung toilet can be an excellent solution. It does not take up space on the floor, but a metal frame will have to be attached to the wall, which will take about 10 cm of space. This option looks very attractive, but in installation it is much more difficult, this also needs to be taken into account;

Wall hung toilet - an interesting solution for small spaces

• The color scheme should be in soothing colors. You should not use bright colors and variegated finishes, it does not look the best in the bathroom. You can look at design ideas on the Internet, there are a lot of examples, and anyone will find an option to their liking.

There are many options, find the one that you like and which you can implement

After you have decided on an approximate design, you can proceed to the selection and purchase of materials. You must measure the area of ​​the floor, ceiling and walls in advance in order to quickly calculate the approximate costs for one or another finishing option.

First, let's figure out what you can put on the floor:

• Ceramic tiles are the most popular solution. There are a huge number of types on sale, so there will be no problems with the choice. If you need a cheap option, then I will give you a little advice: look for substandard in stores, it is inexpensive, and due to the small volume, you can choose good ceramics. Most often, the marriage is not visible, but you can save very well;

The tile is a great solution, the material looks good and is not afraid of moisture and cleaning agents

• Self-leveling floor is a relatively new solution that is great for a bathroom. The coating is not cheap, but due to the fact that the area of ​​the room is small, the cost of installing it will be only slightly higher than when using ceramics. In addition, this option can be implemented with your own hands, which is also important.

Such coatings can simulate a wide variety of images.

For walls, you can use the following options:

• Ceramic tile. You can create patterns or even ceramic paintings on the walls. For the most discerning, a mosaic is suitable, a very effective, but also quite expensive coating;

Tiles are great for walls too

• Budget finishing option - PVC panels. They cost a little, but they also look much worse than the same tile. But if you need to do it cheaply and reliably, then this decision will come in handy;

PVC panels are good for toilets

• You can even stick wallpaper on the walls. You need to choose moisture resistant options. I would recommend using glass fiber as it can be repainted. That is, you can easily carry out cosmetic repairs and refresh the room in the future, simply by changing the color of the walls.

Wallpaper allows you to create a very original setting.

As for the ceiling, it is easiest to implement one of two options with your own hands:

• Fastening of plastic panels. They look good on the ceiling and are inexpensive. You can choose a more expensive option - rack metal ceilings. They look presentable and are almost indistinguishable from plastic in installation;

This option looks good.

• You can just putty the surface and paint it. If the ceiling is curved, then it is easier to build a frame and fix moisture-resistant drywall... So you get an even base, which must be putty with a thin layer and painted.

The color of the ceiling is matched to the rest of the finish

As for the tool, its list depends on the selected materials for finishing. Below I will provide a list of fixtures where necessary.

It is worth starting work by removing everything unnecessary. The process is simple, but it requires a lot of effort and a significant investment of time.

The sequence of work is as follows:

• First of all, old plumbing is removed. Most often, you just need to remove the corrugation from the toilet. If you have old equipment, you will have to break up the cement that used to strengthen the joints;

You can temporarily put a new toilet in order to use the bathroom

• The floor is usually covered with old tiles, which are very firmly in place. You can knock it down with a hammer and chisel, or with a puncher. The process is dusty and noisy, so it is better to work during the day;

Removing old tiles is a tedious job

• If there are tiles on the walls, then they are removed in the same way as from the floor. If the surface is covered with wallpaper, they need to be soaked and removed. Painted surfaces do not need to be cleaned if the paint adheres to them firmly. The exception is oil formulations, they must be removed, it is best to use a special wash for work;

Everything that does not hold well is removed from the walls

• If there is whitewash on the ceiling, then it must be soaked with water and removed with a spatula. Painted surfaces are inspected, only damaged areas can be removed.

At this stage, the following works are performed:

• If the old riser does not inspire confidence, then it is advisable to replace it with a new plastic one. Most often, you have to change the section from floor to ceiling, adapters are placed on the connections, and the structure itself is easily assembled from the constituent parts of the configuration you need;

The riser is attached to special clamps

• If you need to lay pipes around the room, then it is best to hide them in the grooves.... Communication may be needed if you put a sink and bidet or bought a toilet with a bidet. It is important to think about the correct pin layout so that everything is convenient. Even if it is not necessary to lay pipes in new places, it is advisable to replace the old steel communications with new plastic ones;

It is better to hide the pipes in the wall

• Do not forget about laying the wiring to the fixtures and the fan, if any. It is also better to hide them in grooves.

To hide the sewer pipes, you need to build a box. If the riser goes in the corner, then only this part of the room is closed, and if in the middle, then it is easier to make a partition and sew up the entire space behind the toilet.

The instructions for carrying out the work are simple:

• For the frame, we will use metal plasterboard profiles. Guiding elements are attached along the walls, and the structure is formed by the main profile;
• First, the structure is marked, vertical lines are drawn along the walls using a level or plumb line, the outlines of the future box are drawn on the floor and ceiling;

For accurate marking, you can use a square.

• A wall profile is fixed along the perimeter of the future structure. To do this, holes are drilled in the walls for fast mounting dowels with a diameter of 6 mm;

Guiding elements define the outline of the future structure

• Then the frame is attached, for this, the main profiles are used. To give the structure rigidity, it is reinforced with ribs, which are located every 40-50 cm;

The frame must be rigid

• The last step is to mount the moisture-resistant drywall. It is cut into pieces of the required size and fixed with special self-tapping screws with a fine pitch.

When carrying out the cladding, do not forget to leave an opening for the installation of the door to check the condition of the equipment and take readings from the meters.

The hatch will be inserted after finishing

We will start from this part of the room. First, let's figure out how a ceramic floor is made. To work, we need a certain set of materials and tools, listed in the table.

It is believed that renovating a bathroom and toilet is the most time consuming and key step in renovating an apartment. It is especially difficult if the bathroom, as it often happens today, is accompanied by redevelopment: the demolition of the partition between the bathroom and the toilet, the expansion of the bathroom into the corridor, or even creating it in the place of the former room. More details of redevelopment issues - what should be taken into account when planning repairs, where you should not rely blindly on the will of the masters, we have already partially considered in other materials. In this article, we will highlight interesting points of repairing a bathroom and toilet, which must be considered before, not after.

Preparing your floor is the beginning of your bathroom renovation. As a rule, a floor cake in wet rooms consists of a floor slab (subfloor, particle board sheet), double or triple waterproofing, a primer, a leveling screed, an adhesive layer and the actual tile, porcelain stoneware or other moisture-resistant material (for example, marble or granite). It is very important to remember that there is an increased load on the bathroom floors - the weight of the tiles is greater than, for example, the weight of the laminate, to say nothing of plumbing fixtures. If you live in a house with wooden floors, it is strictly not recommended in this regard to take out the old logs, and also fill them (or the space remaining after cutting them off) with a deep screed.The weight of such a structure will easily break through the lower level of the wooden floor and collapse on the neighbors' heads. In this case, place base plates (for example, DSP sheets) on the joists and lay only a light leveling screed over them.

When preparing the subfloor, consider whether your bathroom will have an additional bottom floor drain. This barred hole is usually located in one of the corners of the bathtub, with the floor being laid and leveled so that it runs at an inconspicuous angle to this hole. An additional drain pipe runs from it, leading to a common sewer pipe. Pipes laid in the floor cake must be additionally waterproofed.

If the base for the floor cake is not concrete, but wood, then before proceeding, be sure to saturate the subfloor with a special stain that protects against decay, mold and bacteria.

The most important stage of renovation in a bathroom is waterproofing. In some Soviet-built houses, the issue of waterproofing was solved very simply: both the bathroom and the toilet were solid "blocks" - cubes, where there were no seams between the floor and walls, solid concrete. Today, new owners ruthlessly break down old partitions, after which they are surprised when water, at the very first pipe break or blockage, quickly seeps out to the neighbors.

So, waterproofing is done right before the stage of placing tiles or porcelain stoneware on the floor and walls - right after you have prepared the base for the tile. The simplest and most modern option is coating waterproofing, and it must be done with a 10-20 cm approach to the walls, and applied in two layers. Some contractors recommend waterproofing the rest of the apartment at the same time, that is, applying waterproofing to all subfloors. Of course, this will protect you from the claims of your neighbors if, for example, a pipe break occurs in your absence. However, one should not underestimate the advantages of modern materials: if you waterproof the entire floor with the entrance to the walls, then when flooding your apartment will be a single bowl for liquid, which will have nowhere to drain. The overlap may simply not withstand such a load, and if there are pets in the house, then it is simply dangerous.

Airing wet areas of an apartment is no less important and acute issue than waterproofing. Initially, the design of any apartment building implies ventilation boxes and ventilation grilles in kitchens and in bathrooms and toilets. The ventilation boxes of the old design, which is no secret, are extremely cumbersome, and due to them, the wall between the toilet and the room may not be 15 cm, but, for example, 65 cm.

But what if this wall also interferes with the ingenious design idea? After all, old apartments cannot boast of a convenient layout. So it turns out that ventilation boxes usually suffer first - they are mercilessly cut or simply removed. This not only blocks the air flow to the apartments from below - but also badly affects the climate regime in your own apartment. Unfortunately, without ventilation in the bathroom, mold and fungus quickly begin to appear, during water procedures, steam accumulates in the room, not finding a way out, making it difficult for the bather to breathe and well-being. If possible, try to leave the ventilation grilles in place; if you are creating a bathroom in place of a residential one, stretch from the bathroom to the existing ventilation hole a sleeve in which the fan is placed. Unfortunately, the draft in the ventilation ducts is low, so if you need to ventilate a remote room, additional mechanical effort is required, reminiscent of an exhaust hood.

An interesting point is the heating of the bathroom. Towel dryers made of bent pipes, into which hot water from the heating system is fed, are very convenient - they not only dry the air, preventing the formation of steam, but also warm the room,which, due to the material of wall and floor decoration, is quite cold.

Electric heated towel rails are not an alternative - they consume too much electricity, which is why they are not intended for permanent use, which means that in the morning you will enter a cold room. As for the warm floor - a fashionable solution - it is far from suitable for all apartments: both the material of the floors and the permissible load of the electrical network matter. An electric underfloor heating requires a large amount of electricity, which in houses of old structures can lead to the collapse of the general house system. Water floor heating in apartment buildings is prohibited by law. Thus, modern reality makes it extremely difficult to heat a bathroom - that's why, if your old bathroom already had a heated towel rail powered by a common pipe, in no case should you lose the opportunity to get a legal source of heat and dryness in the bathroom.

If you nevertheless decide to create a warm floor, there are also some tricks here. For example, despite the fact that in the usual pictures of laying the floor, all the space is occupied by a cable, in fact, you should not lay a warm floor where heavy pieces of furniture or plumbing fixtures will stand. No air pockets and voids are left around the heating part of the cable in the layer of tile adhesive, and the cable itself cannot be cut "along the way" - it should not have breaks. Be sure to take a photo of the installed cable before covering it with tiles - this is useful if you need to drill holes in the floor or rearrange furniture and appliances.

Drain pipes are those details that few of the owners prefer to think about. In the end, the master can take care of this. However, there are also rules here that you can and should think about - it depends on the quality of the installation of sewer pipes whether you will have the pleasure of regularly “filling” neighbors or fixing blockages. These are the rules:

• The diameter of the new drain pipe must match the diameter of the outlet to the overlap. Narrowing of pipes, the use of inappropriate sections, "caught under the arm", leads to the formation of blockages
• Drain pipes should have a slope from top to bottom and a minimum number of "elbows", that is, corner joints. If you find that after the repair, the drain will go upwards at an angle, ask the workers to create a small plinth. Be wary of suggestions to lower the floor level in the bathroom - first calculate whether this will lead to a change in the angle of inclination of the drain.

The availability of water meters, pipe shut-off taps, floor heating sensors at the end of the repair are important details that are surprisingly often forgotten. And it is not surprising, because other masters will deal with them. Please note that although the meter can be installed anywhere in the pipe, it must be at the appropriate height, and so that it is possible not only to take readings without hindrance, but also to change or repair the meter without breaking the wall or removing the plumbing fixtures. It's the same story with stopcocks. Discuss these questions with the master in advance - there are often cases when, having installed all the devices, the builders do not hesitate to put a toilet bowl in front of the hole or close it with a stand under the sink. By the way, the space under the bathroom is a bad place for any regulating devices: accessibility will be very difficult.

As much as you would not want to shift all the technical problems onto the shoulders of the masters, control of the fundamental points of the repair on your part is obligatory, since, first of all, your comfort and safety depends on the correctness of the work performed.