Bathroom wood floors
I have original pine floors in my two bathrooms which I am renovating. In one I am installing an enclosed glass shower, the other I am keeping the claw foot tub. I want to keep the floors as they are but my contractor thinks I am insane. Am I?
I have original pine floors in my two bathrooms which I am renovating. In one I am installing an enclosed glass shower, the other I am keeping the claw foot tub. I want to keep the floors as they are but my contractor thinks I am insane. Am I?
Wber – Am thinking of installing bamboo in my bathroom with bath and shower. Is your shower try installed on top of the bamboo or is the bamboo cut to fit around it and if so how are the edges sealed? I’m getting a quadrant shower so worried about the finish of the edges if it’s cut around the shower and the floor installer advises fitting under the the shower but the plumber has concerns about movement/leakage.
Not insane at all. We have pine floors in one bath (tub, no shower) and bamboo flooring in the other (shower), as well as pine in the half bath. All of the flooring is new, and is holding up very well, 6 after install.
The bamboo came prefinished, and gets the most water/moisture. The pine was finished with water-based poly. As noted above, a good finish is important, as are bath mats and a good ventilation system in the shower room.
If you have old pine floors, they should hold up even better, as the water-resistant quality of old-growth pine is exponentially better than what you get (and I have) now.
As one poster said, its your house.
I would not want wood floors in my bathroom. If you do go this route follow the advice of the above posters. Do keep in mind that although people had wood floors for “decades/centuries,” people rarely showered and did not take baths as frequently as we do today.
We have original pine floors in our bathroom with a clawfoot tub. We have laid some cloth mats on them in strategic locations to protect from water spills, but there has never been any problem with the moisture and they’ve been around for years. It’s a great look and feel.
Plenty of people have had wood floors in bathrooms for decades/centuries with no problems and sounds great to me.
Should have a good finish…like many coats of poly or perhaps spar varnish. And there shouldn’t be gaps in boards to allow water to seep to other floor.
Unless you/your family love to splash water everywhere and never mop up- you will be fine.
I would be much more concerned about the moisture effecting the structural joist underneath the finished wood floor more than the effects on the finished floor itself.
If water can get between the floor boards and accumilate on the joists, you will have an eventual problem of rotting and I don’t think I have to say where that will lead…
Guest 1:57 has a good suggestion, but it will be more expensive.
You need to put some kind of waterproofing below your floor. What I’ve done before is remove the floor carefully, place a new plywood subfloor, then cement board, then waterproofing and reinstall the wood floor over that. You run the potential of having some leakage problems where the nails protrude through the waterproofing membrane, thoughy.
Or you can have the boards redone to be tongue and groove, but maintain the old look of the pine floors.
It’s definitely not “cheap” to go this route and do it correctly.
There is no reason to worry about having wood floors in your bathroom so long as you have proper ventilation (toilet exhust) in the bath–the air does not need to be conditioned. I imagine that you are using tile on the floor of your enclosed shower correct? Since you are putting new floor down you might consider using electric zmesh heating in that area for extra comfort. The biggest issues may be varying degrees of warping, cupping, checking, or other deformations to the floor, as it relates to the moisture content in the wood itself…which again relates to the ventilation in the bath.
The good thing about having your own house is that you can do what you want, but wood floors in a bathroom is not something I would recommend. I think they would be hard to keep dry and clean and water resting on wood will rapidly destroy any finish. I think that tiles are far superior — you have an enormous range of looks with that, but with the old wood….. I won’t say you are insane, but I agree with your contractor that they are not a good idea.