Running a French Holiday Gite in Rural Brittany

Tuesday, May 09, 2017

New shower tray and starting to tile the shower

Having stripped out the old shower, next job was to start fitting the new shower tray.

As I mentioned in the previous post, the original shower tray and cubicle was quite restrictive as it was a standard 800mm square size.  Measuring carefully I worked out that I could fit a 900mm deep tray with enough clearance before the existing wall radiator, and looking around I could get 1200mm wide tray, so 1200x900mm wide it was.

Slight aside, I have discovered that you can buy most bathroom things like shower trays, glass screens, toilets, sinks and bathroom cupboards at very reasonable prices on eBay. Plenty of suppliers so the prices are keen and the quality is fine.  So eBay it was for this shower tray and cubicle and I brought it all over to France in Liz's Ford Galaxy.

As a result of putting in a larger tray this meant that the floor tiles had to be cut back to accommodate the new tray size, so out with the angle grinder - made a lot of dust in the process !

Of course the trap on the new tray was in a different position to the old one, so more cutting with the angle grinder and chiselling out with my big SDS hammer drill. And yet more dust.

I made several dry runs at assembling the waste and trap before applying pipe solvent glue to the pipework. The trap was then screwed on, a bed of mortar under the tray, and silicone around the trap to seal it to the tray. Fitted the tray and left it all overnight to set.


Then I started on tiling the walls. The tiles again came from the UK, B&Q in fact, as I had some left over from tiling our utility room at home! I did have buy several boxes more and bring them over to France, but as we liked them already it was easier to keep with this style.

One challenge I had was the shower bar that was in the middle of the wall. Unlike in the UK, French regulations don't seem to require you to have shut-off valves before water outlets so I had to turn the whole house water off when I removed the shower bar. I didn't have any stop ends that would fit the pipe, so made an impromptu loop with a washing machine filler hose which did the job a treat!
 
 
 

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