Bathroom Construction - Some Useful Tips

Bathrooms - they eat up a lot of money during construction, if one decides it to make a style quotient. But rather than spending a lot to make it look beautiful or exquisite what is important in the long run is its usefulness and ease of maintanence.

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Here comes some useful tips on bathrooms. Detailed Description given after these brief tips

1. Rough piece of stone inside the bathroom for cleaning feet and as a washing aid!!

2. Height of wall tiles.

3. Level of bathroom floor should be below the room floor.

4. Wall tiles at ground level

5. Bathroom doors - No wood - Go for PVC

6. Openable and fully closable windows rather than windows with permanent small openings.

7. An exhaust fan works wonders

8. Closet first, followed by bathing area.

9. Shower curtains, Go for it

10. Keep it dry !!

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A little more detailed description on these tips

1. Rough stone inside the bathroom !!

Watch what is directly underneath this tap inside the bathroom

It is a piece of stone neatly fixed between the floor tiles.

The purpose is simple.
Clean the feet by rubbing over this stone while water is jetting out of the tap.
Comes in handy when we have to wash any of our clothes inside the bathroom.

Properly cut and shaped stone is available in any of the hardware stores. The best method is to keep aside a well shaped stone from the truck load of stones available during the time of construction of foundation itself.

Granite pieces with rough top surface is availabe. This is costly and looks good but does not serve the purpose.


2. Height of wall tiles.

Wall tiles sure does give an exquisite look to the bathroom. The main purpose of wall tiles is to keep the bathroom clean, since it can be washed and wiped clean, whereas a cemented wall could not be cleaned. The height upto which these tiles are laid is really important.

Normally for saving the construction cost people tends to reduce its height. The height of the tiles should be atleast one feet (30cm) more than the tallest person who is going to use the bathroom. Normally a height of 7 feet will meet this criteria.

To make it look symmetrical it can be made in line with the top of the doors or windows of the bathroom.

Some people put these wall tiles until the top of the bathroom. This is good too, if you can afford it.


3. Level of bathroom floor shall be below the room floor.

This one is very very important. Normally the level of both floors will be the same and people construct bumps in front of the bathroom door so as not to allow water to escaped out of the bathroom.

The best method is to keep the level of the bathroom floor below the room floor level. After finishing the flooring the level difference should be atleast 6cm. For this care has to be taken while filling the soil inside the basement and during concreting of the floor.

If the bathroom is in first floor, ensure that this level difference is maintained during concreting of the ground floor roof. This is quite important, since the construction workers tend to forget this while concreting just to make their job simpler.

4. Wall tiles at ground level

Wall tiles and floor tiles are different in the sense that wall tiles have a smooth surface. This looks good but has a disadvantage that it gets dirty easily. So it is always better to have a small layer of floor tile in the vertical section also before the wall tile starts. This helps to keep the underside of the bathroom more neat, where it tends to get dirty more frequently.

5. Bathroom doors - No wood - Go for PVC

PVC doors are the best for bathrooms. The advantages are

1. Does not absorb water. So no decaying owing to water absorbtion

2. Can be washed and then wiped clean

3. Very light

4. Very cost effective.

5. Easy to install.

6. Durable (I have been using it for the last 6 years and looks brand new even now)

6. Openable and fully closable windows rather than windows with permanent small openings.

Some people opt for small windows inside bathroom with permanent small openings. These openings saves the user from closing and opening the windows and allows permanent passage of air. But this also allows permanent passage of mosquitos and other flies to the bathroom.

It is always better to have windows which can be opened and closed fully.

Make it a point to open the windows after using the bathroom. This helps a lot to keep the bathroom dry and filled with clean air.

7. An exhaust fan works wonders

Install an exhause fan in the bathroom. Switch on the exhaust fan and see how quickly water dries up. Leaving a bathroom floor wet means it will become slippery soon as small weeds tends to grow on the wet surface. A dry bathroom helps to keep it cleaner for a longer period of time and frequency of cleaning a bathroom can be reduced.

8. Closet first, followed by bathing area.

The position of closet should be near the entry door afterwhich only the bathing area should be present.

One enters the bathroom more for using the closet than for bathing. If the closet is after the bathing area, one has to always walk through the wet area to reach the closet and come out of the bathroom with a wet feet. This can be avoided by positioning the closet before the bathing area.

9. Shower curtains, Go for it

If one can afford, it always better to have the bathroom area separated by a shower curtain. This also helps in

preventing water to fall into the closet's area.

10. Keep it dry

A dry bathroom increases the longevity and also helps to keep the bathroom clean. During construction itself take all the steps necessary to ensure that bathroom will get dried automatically soon after use.

Hope these tips are useful to the blog readers. Please let me know your feedback by way of comments.

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