Wet rooms – avoid the flaking ceiling

Hi

when our friends visited a year ago Florian commented on my painted shower ceiling -“It’ll never hold”.

Right – A year later I declared defeat, yes it started to flake. So he was here over Easter and showed me what materials to use and being the nice guy he is just skimmed the ceiling for me.
So if you live in or near Madrid and need help with such projects let me know and I pass it on to Florian.

1. Scrub the ceiling and get rid of any loose material. I used a very sharp spatula which made the job tolerable. Use masking tape (cinta adhesiva).

2. Get aqua plast (25Kg) or a good universal plaster – Plaste Universal – (10Kg). It’s easier than MaxFino and gives you a bit longer working time. Use a steel float preferably as big as you can get away with.
Or like in our case get a good friend with the knack to do it for you. Just generate a very stiff paste by carefully adding water.

3. Let dry for a day or so and than sand down with a medium graded paper (Lisso). If you have  a good hoover and a friend / partner to follow you makes the whole experience breathable.

4. Get  pasta al temple (special). It’s a finishing white solution. This paste one dilutes in water to the consistency of cream and than simply paints on. Any leftover can be kept in resealed  plastic bottles for another job.

5. Preferably get someone else to clean up after you – Job done.

If you construct or reconstruct a new bath / wet room have a look at WEDI panels. Yes it’s a German product available here. The panels are insulating, water tight and have special (interlocking) seams . These exist for walls and floor as well as ceiling, resulting in a wet room  with no leaks or problems of penetrating water. You can immediately tile and paint. These are used for example to construct the snail formed wet room (caracoles) and many more. Wedi panels.

Next project – staple wood for the next winter – build a smokery – ……

Expat