Making The Most Of Your Wet Room: Everything You Need To Know

Whenever mobility becomes an issue, however slight the problem might seem at first, it’s surprising how much your day to day life becomes affected, and you realise how much you took your mobility for granted in the past.

It could be simple things like realising you can’t do the gardening or carry heavy shopping anymore, or it could be more serious things like not being able to walk for more than a short distance or struggling with stairs.

However mobility problems affect your day to day life, one area that can be particularly difficult is in the bathroom – trying to get in and out of a bath, or even just a shower unit, can be incredibly dangerous as well as frustratingly difficult. Wet rooms are an ideal solution to this problem, and can provide you with safety as well as convenience – this blog post will run through common questions and key things you need to know about installing a wet room in your home.

1. Can I Have A Wet Room Installed Upstairs?

In the past, wet rooms have usually be specifically designed for ground floor bathrooms in mind, but modern drainage and design options mean that wet rooms can be installed in upper levels as well if required. This means that if you live in an apartment or you only have an existing bathroom on the first floor of your home you can still have one installed; while preferable, it’s not absolutely necessary to have a wet room installed on a solid concrete floor.

Just as you can tile on timber floors with the appropriate preparation and sub-floor additions, the same is true for wet rooms – you just have to let whoever is designing and installing your wet room know, and they can take this into consideration when deciding on parts and installation.

2. Are Wet Room Shower Trays Strong Enough To Support Wheelchairs?

Since many modern wet rooms are not necessarily designed with disabilities in mind (instead designed around style and convenience) you cannot assume that all trays will be wheelchair-friendly, though specialist wet rooms will have options designed with disabilities in mind. As the weight from the chair is concentrated on four points, you need to ensure that the tray is designed to carry heavier loads – choosing a specialist supplier is the best option to ensure you have suitable fixtures and fittings.

3. How Can I Keep My Wet Room’s Floor Dry?

Understandably, if you suffer with mobility problems, the last thing you’re going to be doing is getting down on your hands and knees and mopping up water with a towel – however, keeping it dry is important as it eliminates a potential slipping hazard. It’s quite common for modern wet rooms to have underfloor heating installed, if only underneath the section of flooring specifically covering the shower area.

Not only does it help to dry the floor when heating, but it provides some extra comfort and saves on space by ridding your bathroom of a large radiator (though you may still want a heated towel rail!).

4. What About Cleaning My Wet Room?

The main thing to be concerned about with maintaining a wet room is keeping the floor dry – build-up of damp in tile grouting can cause degradation in the grouting, leading to water soaking into the concrete base which can result in cracks. Opting for underfloor heating, which is suitable for virtually all wet room designs, will take care of this for you – keeping the floor dry, and eliminating the risk of damp issues in the floor.

– This guest post was written by Tom McShane on behalf of mobility-aid specialists The Mobility Store. Providing wet rooms in and around the Aylesbury area, they can advise you on everything you need to know about having a disabled-access bathroom or wet room installed.

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