Looking for someone who can give me advice on repairing my bathroom floor

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**Ouze**

Hello Dakka,

OK, I know this is pretty OT for Dakka, but there are an awful lot of people who have an awful lot of esoteric skills up in here, and I don't know where else I can go with this.

My bathroom floor is an utter catastrophe, and my wife has been on me to fix it for years despite the fact I have absolutely no skills at home repair. Next week I have taken off from work to play Mass Effect 3, but also, to try and fix the bathroom floor. I am wondering if there is anyone here who can give me advice on how I might go about this.

MY floor is wood, and a small section of it (near the tub) has rotted and so there is a small hole. At one point I added some waterproof sheets to the floor (they're made of an unknown, rocky yet flexible substance, about 1/4" thick), and tried adding tiles atop there. I quit about halfway through because I didn't correctly gauge how many tiles I needed, and also because it turned out the tiles were slippery as hell when you got out of the shower; those will need to be removed (and I don't know how to do that, either).

I'll post some pics when I get home, presuming this doesn't get locked for being too OT. Thanks for looking.

**WarOne**

Do you want to replace the floor or fix the hole?

**KingCracker**

Talk about a small world, I too have to repair my bathroom floor (read, remodel the bathroom) I have some skills in this matter, but the real champion of this crap is my father. The man, literally, knows how to fix everything on this planet

My floor has a small hole in it as well a few inches away from my sink, the previous owners of my house, had no clue how to fix anything correctly, and made repairs to the toilet that has since cause said hole. So I get the job of taking everything out, and replacing the entire floor, and putting new vinyl flooring on it, as well as replace the friggin toilet.

Really though, I think it would help to see your pics to better gauge what/how you should do

**Ouze**

WarOne wrote:Do you want to replace the floor or fix the hole?

hmm. Both? Patch the hole and put a new floor... covering, for lack of a better word, over it?

Maybe use the hole to put in a drain that runs to the sump pump in the basement? Would that be weird?

**biccat**

Ouze wrote:Maybe use the hole to put in a drain that runs to the sump pump in the basement? Would that be weird?

Yes, that would be weird.

Is the hole in the floor covering or in the subfloor? If it's in the subfloor you'll probably need to pull up whatever is there and replace it (probably plywood). The subfloor is attached to the floor joists, so you'll want your patch (or replacement) to span at least that far.

What do you want to replace the floor with? Vinyl flooring is cheap, easy to install, looks nice, is easy to clean, and women hate it. You could also use wood laminate, also inexpensive and looks nice. Tile is a pain to install, but you can do cool stuff with it, plus it looks nice. I would suggest avoiding hardwood or carpet because of the moisture issue, but I've had bathrooms with both. Plus, installing carpet or hardwood yourself is nearly impossible (if you don't know what you're doing you'll feth it up and have to hire a professional anyway).

Oh, and tile can be removed with a hammer and scraper.

**Ruglud**

My advice - get a man in, then sit back and enjoy ME3

**Magpie**

+1 for getting a bloke, hairy men with butt crack always do a far better job than I

**AustonT**

Awaiting pics.

Wood is a terrible idea for a bathroom floor, especially one with a shower. I despise linoleum so the only real option is tile. My suggestion is for you to look for some 12"x12" tiles on clearance. My wife and I picked up enough to redo the floor in both of our bath rooms for $0.22 a foot. If you do use tile look for something meant for flooring which should have a mildly textured surface to give you some grip...and prevent your slippery death.
You can also lay a concrete veneer and add color or top it with a garage floor epoxy and grip chips.
I'd encourage you to consider either option over linoleum or wood. You can rent a tile saw for relativly cheap, grout is inexpensive and in the future if a tile breaks and you have spares you can replace them individually.

**Catyrpelius**

At this point i.e. your already seeing holes.... Its best to replace both the flooring and the subflooring. Depending upon the fixtures in your bathroom these may need to be removed before you remove the subflooring. Pictures would be amazingly helpful. In all serious though I worked my way through college as among other things a handyman. I got more work form people who started a project not knowing anything about it, but armed with well intentioned information from the internet. And it always costs more to start a project by having to fix someone elses mistakes then it does just to start from scratch.

**AustonT**

Ugg had bathrooms with carpet in one house...just nasty.

**Sasori**

Hire someone to do it.

These little projects always end up more trouble then their worth for me, and I often make the problem worse. I'd honestly rather spend the money, than the time and effort for this kind of stuff.

**AustonT**

Sasori wrote:Hire someone to do it.

These little projects always end up more trouble then their worth for me, and I often make the problem worse. I'd honestly rather spend the money, than the time and effort for this kind of stuff.

But who will you hire?

**Do_I_Not_Like_That**

Hire somebody else to do it!!! Where in god's name are your man skills!!

You could probably fix this on a saturday afternoon no sweat. Avoid wood and carpet. Vinyl can be a pain if you need to cut it to fit round your toilet/sink/bath.

A good quality stanley knife (or American equivalent) with a brand new blade, is the way. Tiles are a breeze and they are cheap as well. Always get spare tiles for a rainy day.

Seriously, you could buy the tiles, tile cutter etc cheaply and do it yourself.

**Grakmar**

Doing home improvement yourself can be very satisfying, and much cheaper than hiring someone to do it.

However, any time you're dealing with something that needs to be water tight (such as bathrooms), if you screw it up, you can be in serious trouble. If you create even a small leak, that could lead to water damage, rot, or massive fungal infestations. This is NOT a good project to start your handyman training.

Hire a professional.

**KingCracker**

No really this stuff isnt as hard as some make it out to be. Just find a place that has workers that know what they are talking about, or similar, and ask the questions that need to be asked. Once you do it, youll realize its not as hard as you first thought.

**MagickalMemories**

If you're removing linoleum tile with an adhesive backing, there's a MUCH easier way than scraping it.
Heat it up.

Use a dryer or heat gun and aim it at the time you want to remove. Move the dryer around the area of the tile so that the whole thing heats up.

Once it's hot, it should wiggle 'round a bit. Just pry it up and pull. You may leave a little of the adhesive substance on the floor, but that'll clean up relatively easy when it cools down. I removed a whole kitchen worth of tiles this way.

As for your hole... Good luck.
If the hole is in the open floor area only, you're fine. If it's not, and extends under the tub, you're going to have to pull the tub out to do it right. You need to remove the rotted boards and replace them with good boards of the same size. The section you remove should extend from HALF WAY over one joist to HALF WAY over the next joist. It's HALF WAY, because you want to be sure the boards you're leaving behind and the one you're putting in all have the support of the joist. Otherwise, someone's eventually going through that floor.

Eric

**Shadowseer_Kim**

You are saying Under the tub and foot, sounds like an old cast iron tub. You are going to get some good strong friends to wrangle that tub out of the way, so you can replace all the flooring, subflooring and possibly a joist underneath.

Non slip tile made for floors is the way to go, plenty of attractive tile out there and pretty cheap, check your discounters, tile outlet places, and even thrift stores. I often see several boxes of the same tile, enough to cover a standard bathroom floor plus some for super cheap at the thrift.

Acrylic Vinyl Flooring (aka linoleum) is a pain in the ass to deal with, has to be cut just right, and you basically have to do it while it is more or less in place, this is a whole nother skill set. Go with tile, it may not be super level when you are done, but it is overall easier.

Use greenboard, or some equivalent instead of plywood if you are doing tile. It is pretty much waterproof, and does not flex like plywood, so later your tiles will not crack from subfloor expansion and contraction due to temp changes.

Also when you are at the major hardware store (and you will be), there are a couple excellent DIY home repair books, usually about the size of a large phonebook, that cover everything, and I mean everything. Invaluable and usually $30-$50. Hey again, maybe they have one at the thrift store, used book place.

**MagickalMemories**

Good point.
I bought one of those books from Home Depot. As a home owner with a budget, it's one of the best investments you can make!

Eric

**Zyllos**

Man, the first time I stepped out on my tile in my bathroom after taking a shower in my first brand new home and almost busted my ass on the tile after I slipped. Immediately went out and got a large bathroom rug.

No issues!

But if this happened to me, I also would not be sure what to do. But I have many resources such as family and friends that could help me figure out the process so, if you do not have this kind of support, I would suggest hiring a professional.

**AustonT**

Ouze...where are the pics.

That is all.

**FabricatorGeneralMike**

Ruglud wrote:My advice - get a man in, then sit back and enjoy ME3

Call in 'The Guy' to do it. You can either play ME3 to your hearts content, or you can watch 'The Guy' work and learn something. I know what I would do... play DDO =o]

**chaos0xomega**

Ouze wrote:Next week I have taken off from work to play Mass Effect 3...

Well... at least you're honest, lol.

Advice:
1. Take a sledgehammer to the floor
2. ???
3. Call contractor

**Ouze**

AustonT wrote:Ouze...where are the pics.

That is all.

Sorry for the delay, got called in to work on my day off. However belayed, my stay-cation has officially started.

Before you look, I feel a disclaimer is in order. My house isn't too bad, but my bathroom is a rotting cancer. There are abandoned houses in Detroit that have bathrooms in better condition. I mean, it's really, really awful, like 3x worse than you think. So you might want to turn back now.

Spoiler:

Thanks for looking, and any advice you may have. I like in a fairly rural area and it's super, super hard to get contractors to show up. I have an untapped store card at Lowe's which is reasonably close, though, so hoping I can improve this somewhat myself.

**Dreadwinter**

Oh boy.....

**chromedog**

See the area where the tiles used to be?
See how there's a little bit of tile adhesive on the (what looks like) concrete board? There should have been more - or at least some waterproofing.

What are the temperature extremes like where you live? Do you get snow? If that's concreteboard, then water will have seeped through and a few freeze/thaw cycles will pop those tiles off easily.

That concrete wall should have been waterproofed FIRST (to the height of where the water is expected to splash). In our tub surround (combined shower/tub) the two walls are waterproofed to the 6'6" mark.

Over there, you have the advantage of waterproof sheeting that can be laid on the floor and walls (I think you call it Ditra) - ours is generally a rubberised liquid that is paint on in several coats.

We had our house renovated last year. Bathroom was gutted because the tiled floor (tessellated mosaic) and wall tiles were coming up/off. The floor had to be jackhammered out - the tiled walls were just tile over plasterboard (not even water resistant stuff). Contractors just cut the wall sheets out (tile and all).

Ours was lifting because of house flex. Internal Corner joints (walls, etc) were grouted (supposed to use a silicone joint to allow flexibility), so the house moved and the walls didn't. Tiles lifted as the energy had to go somewhere.

So new floor, new sheeting, waterproofing, tiling, new tub/shower, toilet and vanity. It wasn't cheap and due to our building regs, all of the plumbing has to be done by a licensed tradesman/contractor.

**biccat**

Dreadwinter wrote:Oh boy.....

Agreed. This isn't anything major, but it's going to be a lot of work. You might want to look at hiring someone.

First thing I would do is figure out how much damage you've got to the wall there. From what I can see you've got some damage to the 2x4's, so you should pull off some of the plaster backing and see how bad the wall is decayed. You'll probably need to replace some of the wall, hopefully it's not load bearing.

Second, that piece of plywood needs to come up. Yes, the whole thing. Which probably will require you to tear out most of the flooring.

Third, cut and replace the plywood sheet (did someone cut the left side with a coping saw?). Just screw it onto the joists as described above.

Fourth, figure out replacement flooring. You probably want tile. You'll also want to replace any broken or missing tiles on the wall. Since it looks like plaster behind the tile it will require a bit of work.

Or you could tear the whole bathroom apart and replace the plaster with drywall.

**KingCracker**

Agreed with Biccat on this one. Id start investigating the wall damage first. It could just be long time seepage, or it could be as extreme as leaking from the roof (I dunno where your bathroom is located) But lucky for you, bathroom walls usually arnt load baring, though I use the word usually in bold. And make sure while your tearing things out, you try your best to find out how/where the water is getting in there. It could be something as simple as a sweating pipe or a small leak from above like in a roof.

**AustonT**

Oi.
The subfloor and wall need to get ripped out to explore the damage...not in that order. Replace anything rotted and find the source of any less than obvious damage.
Waterproof everything...I feel that goes without saying in the bathroom. Caulk the periphery, tile to the wall and put up baseboard...more caulking. It looks like an asston of work. Wall, subfloor, floor, and details.

**Ouze**

If one of the steps is "rip out the existing floor", that's already way beyond me. My home repair is limited to like, changing light bulbs (although I can replace the igniters on my oven and dryer).

Thanks for the advice, and for saving me likely hundreds of dollars in screwing with it myself. I'll try and hire a professional.

**FabricatorGeneralMike**

Ouze wrote:If one of the steps is "rip out the existing floor", that's already way beyond me. My home repair is limited to like, changing light bulbs (although I can replace the igniters on my oven and dryer).

Thanks for the advice, and for saving me likely hundreds of dollars in screwing with it myself. I'll try and hire a professional.

Awsome, call in 'The guy', try to hire a ugly 'guy' sometimes 'signifigant other' likes 'The Guy' and wants to learn from him. Having a 'ugly the guy' can help with this problem.

Honestly my friend, that looks like a feth load of work. Good luck and I hope you get it all fixed up, mold is not fun. I used to do mold and aspestos removal it sucks hard core. Don't mess around with that it's your family's health on the line.