THE IMPORTANCE OF WET AREAS IN YOUR HOME

by Dwell Building Services | August 2020 | Good Home Maintenance

There is one area of your house that is more critical, in terms of home maintenance than any other. The wet areas in your home, specifically, the bathrooms.  

Your bathrooms cop a beating day in and day out. They are wet a lot of the time - during a shower and then afterwards until the humidity clears, the seals and waterproofing membrane in that room are working hard to make sure that your bathroom doesn’t wreck the rest of your home.  They need to be maintained and when they aren’t, they start costing serious money.

Most issues in a bathroom come up due to regular wear and tear – cracks in the grout and worn sealant at the joins. Sealant and grout wears pretty easily, even after just 5 years of use, so even if your bathroom is not that old, keep an eye on the seals and joins. Tile abutments require maintenance before moisture gets a chance to get into the wall substrate.

Another reason your wet areas might need refreshing of the flexible sealant is (ironically) if your home is brand new or you’ve just completed an extension. A house tends to settle. Settlement in the footings or slab can cause the seals at the tile abutments to separate just enough to let water in.

Cracks that let water through can turn your subfloor into wet Wheatbix (pole home with cracked waterproofing membrane and plywood subfloor), or merely rot your structural framing (slab on ground construction).

By keeping and eye on the area and applying a flexible sealant when you spot problems, you can save yourself a lot of money.  The cost of a mid-range bathroom renovation tends to be about $15,000+.  The cost obviously goes up if there’s structural damage to rectify around the shower cubicle.

If you weren’t planning to renovate your bathroom, a tube of sealant from the hardware store and a Popsicle stick is a pretty attractive option.