Bathroom Waterproofing in Mallorca
Tiles are not waterproof. Grout is not waterproof. Microcement is not waterproof without its sealer, and the sealer is not the system. What keeps a bathroom dry – and the room below it, and the wall behind it – is a layer you will never see, applied before the finish and detailed at every corner. It is the part of a quote to read most carefully. Describe the room and we pass the request to bathroom renovation companies near you.
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The finish, and the system behind it
Every bathroom has two layers. The one you choose – porcelain, stone, microcement – is the finish, and its job is to look right and to be walked on. The one under it is the waterproofing, and its job is to make sure that the water which gets through the finish, as some always does, goes to the drain and nowhere else. A bathroom fails when the second layer is missing, incomplete, or stops short of the places water actually reaches.
Those places are predictable: the floor of the shower and the walls around it, the corners where floor meets wall and wall meets wall, the threshold where the wet area ends, the junction around the drain, and every hole cut for a pipe or a fixture. A waterproofing system is a membrane across those surfaces plus the detailing at each of those points – the tapes, the corners, the collars – and the detailing is where the work is.
The finish can be replaced. The system cannot, without taking the finish off. That is why it is worth getting right the first time, and why it belongs in the quote by name.
What a waterproofing job usually covers
- The substrate made sound and dry before anything is applied
- The falls formed in the floor towards the drain, so water has somewhere to go
- A membrane across the shower floor and up the walls, to the height the room needs
- Corner and junction detailing where floor meets wall and wall meets wall
- The drain collar, where the membrane meets the drain body
- The threshold, where the wet area ends and the dry floor begins
- Collars or detailing around every pipe and fixture that pierces the membrane
- The remainder of the floor in a wet room, where the whole room is the shower
- Checking, and where the system allows it, testing before the finish goes on
Where it matters most
Wet rooms
Bath to shower
Apartments and upper floors
Questions that tell you whether a quote includes it
A company that does this well will answer all of these without looking anything up.
- What waterproofing system are you using, and is it named on the quote?
- How far up the walls does it go, in the shower and outside it?
- How are the corners, the threshold and the drain detailed?
- Is the fall formed in the substrate, in the tray, or not at all?
- What happens where the pipes come through the wall?
- Is the substrate being replaced, repaired, or tiled over as it is?
- Will you show me the membrane before the tiles go on?
- What is the drying and curing time before the finish is applied?
Humidity, salt and old houses
A bathroom on the island is asked to cope with a humid climate, coastal air that reaches into the room, and often a building that was put up long before wet rooms were imagined – stone walls that hold moisture, floors that sit on the ground, ventilation that is a window. None of that changes what waterproofing is; it changes how much of the rest of the room the system has to think about. Ventilation that actually moves air, a floor that is separated from what is under it, a wall that is allowed to dry.
A company that has renovated bathrooms in old houses here will raise these before you do. That is the company to listen to.
How your request reaches a company
Mallorca Bathrooms is a comparison service. A request for bathroom waterproofing goes to the bathroom renovation companies on our list; they quote the work and carry it out, and any agreement is between you and the company you pick.
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01
Describe the job
Tell us the property, roughly what you want and where it is. Photographs and a rough plan help, though neither is required.
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02
We match it
The request goes to companies that work in your area and take on this kind of job at this size.
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03
They quote you
Each company contacts you directly with its own price, timing and approach. We do not set any of it.
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04
You compare and choose
Put the quotes side by side and take the one you want, or none of them. Using the site costs you nothing.
Is waterproofing always part of a bathroom renovation?
It should be part of any renovation that touches the wet area, and it is not always in the quote by name – which is the point of asking. A quote that lists tiles, suite and labour and says nothing about the membrane has either included it silently or not at all, and you want to know which.
My bathroom has tiles – is it not already waterproof?
Tiles and grout let water through slowly, and always have. If there is a proper system under them, the room is fine. If there is not, the water has been going into the wall or the floor since the day the tiles went on, and the renovation is the moment to fix that rather than tile over it.
Can waterproofing be added without retiling?
Not under the existing tiles – the membrane goes on the substrate, and the substrate is under the finish. Surface treatments exist, and a company can tell you honestly what one will and will not do for a particular room. For a shower, the answer is usually to do it properly once.
How do I know it was done?
Ask to see it. The membrane is visible for a day or two between application and tiling, and a photograph of it – the corners, the drain collar, the height on the walls – is the record. A company that expects you to ask will offer.
Get bathroom quotes
Describe the room once and ask every company the same questions about the system behind the finish. The answers are the quote.