Tile or Surrond for tub ?

[buckeye95]

All,

Looking for a little advice on the forum. I am on the verge of a bath renovation that involves replacing the tub and existing tile.

Initially, my wife was set on putting tile up to replace the old. I have never done tile before, but am willing to give it a shot. Recently several people have noted to her how much they like their tub surrounds (one peice per wall that snap together). Apparently they are much easier to install and clean. She was concerned they might look too much like "cheap plastic", but I did note that Home Depot has some pretty nice ones that look almost like tile.

What have your experiences been, good or bad ? Are the surrounds that much easier to put in (I am concerned that if I do tile it might not look good being my first time) ? Are the surrounds that much easier to clean / maintain then the tile ?

Any help would be appreciated.

Regards,

Pete
Buckeye95

[Timmah80]

I would suggest using a one piece three sided fiberglass unit. I have torn out 3 showers in bathrooms in the past 2 months. They were all the 2 piece side wall and neo-angled glass. Every one had moldy sheetrock behind it. If you use the multi-piece walls I'd make sure to squeege the glass and dry all the joints after every use. And a couple tubes of caulk never hurt anyone.

[Warren]

I think the hardest part of laying tile is getting the math right at the start. Unless you have some odd corners, if you think it through and get the first runs laid right, the job should go pretty smooth. I try to start in a corner so that if you have to cut them, all of the cut ones are on the ends of the runs. My suggestion is to stay away from mosaic style designs and, for God's sake - stay away from laying mosiac itself. Tedious, tedious, tedious, unless you use the premade ones that only need grout and sealing.

I prefer the look of tile and, properly sealed, maintainence isn't the much more than a surround. Says the guy whose wife usually cleans the shower.

[crokett]

Tile is not that hard to do. I've done it a few times and it looked great. As warren said, it needs to be sealed.

The surrounds will be quicker to install and easier to clean and maintain than the tile. Probably cheaper too. But they won't look nearly as good.

[JimD]

The two bathrooms with showers or tub/showers that our builder installed are one piece. For low maintenance, I don't think they can be beat. Unfortunately you can only go that way if you either haven't put the walls in yet or are willing to tear them out. Doesn't normally work for a remodel.

The three piece moulded are to replace the one piece. You could have difficulty with mould in the joints. Still should be low maintenance. I don't care for how they look.

For tub surrounds, in one of the bathrooms I did in our house, I used tile. It is NOT difficult. Wall tile is much easier to cut than floor tile. It also has little nubs molded in for spacing so it is harder to get it messed up. You want to put up a concrete backer board. It is a pain to work with but it will not get mold and fall apart if it gets wet. You can cut the mesh with a knife and break it like drywall but I usually use the same concrete abrasive blade in a right angle grinder that I use to cut tile. Tile is pretty cheap if you stay with the generic white or off-white sold at the big box stores. To give it a bit more character, I like to throw in a stripe of color. In the kids bath, over top of their one piece, I put up a row of white tile, then a stripe of color tile, then the bullnose. In our bath, I put up generic white tile then a ~3 inch band of a mosaic that my wife like (that had a mesh backer so the spacing was easier).

I hear tile is harder to maintain. That can be reduced by using larger tiles. I would like to have a granite tile shower. Granite is floor tile but you can put floor tile on walls - just not the other way around. You need a wet saw to cut natural stone products, however.

Another option is to use sheets of the stuff they use for one piece bathroom sink tops - cultured marble stuff. Around here they call it micalene or something like that. You have a seam only in the corner. Looks pretty nice.

Unless you wife insists, I would not use the molded surrounds. They say CHEAP to me. Tile costs no more and looks much better. The only disadvantage is it requires a bit more work to install and maintain. I have also observed the newer ones look better but I still think tile looks a whole lot more upscale (the improvement in the surrounds is they look a bit more like tile).

Jim