Wet Rooms in Mallorca: What to Know Before You Build One
Key takeaways
- A wet room is a bathroom whose whole floor is the shower: waterproofed wall to wall, falling to a drain, no tray.
- It needs depth in the floor for the fall; where there is none, a tray is the honest answer.
- The finish on top – tile, stone, microcement – keeps nothing dry on its own.
- In a block, the room below is somebody else’s ceiling; the waterproofing is not where to save.
In an ordinary bathroom the shower is a box and the rest of the floor stays dry. In a wet room the whole floor is designed to get wet, and that changes what the floor has to do. This guide is the reasoning behind the wet room page: what a wet room requires, where it works, and where it does not.
What a wet room requires
- A fall: the floor sloping gently towards the drain, in every direction, with no low point where water stands
- Depth: somewhere for that fall to go, which a thin slab or a floor under a bath often does not have
- A membrane: waterproofing across the floor and up the walls, detailed at every corner, threshold and junction
- A drain: a point drain in the floor, which needs four falls, or a linear drain against a wall, which needs one
- A substrate that will not move, because a crack under a seamless floor becomes a crack in it
- Ventilation sized for a room that is wet from wall to wall
- A finish chosen for grip when wet, which is a property of the tile or the microcement and a question to ask by name
Where a wet room is the right answer
A small bathroom, where a tray and an enclosure would leave no floor to turn round on. An en-suite with a level floor from bedroom to shower. A bathroom for somebody who should not step over anything. A guest bathroom in a holiday property, with no tray to crack and no door to come off. A pool bathroom, where wet feet and towels are the point. And any bathroom whose owner wants one surface and one line of drain.
Where a tray is the honest answer
Where the floor has no depth to give – a landing in a split-level house, a thin slab in a holiday block, an apartment where lowering the floor is not an option. A tray brings its own fall and sits a little proud of the floor, and a company that says so rather than promising a level floor it cannot build is the company to listen to. Many rooms sit between: a built shower floor with a single screen, level with the room or one small step up.
Wet room, walk-in shower, or something between
A walk-in shower is a shower area, with a tray or a built floor of its own and glass on one or two sides, in a bathroom whose floor otherwise stays dry. A wet room is the whole room. The companies will describe yours by what it is rather than by the label, and the walk-in shower page covers the fixture side: tray or built floor, glass, valve, head.
Microcement or tiles for the floor
Both are used in wet rooms on the island. Microcement gives one seamless surface with nothing to hold water; tiles give more grip options and can be replaced one at a time. Either way the surface underfoot when wet is the question that matters most in a room with no tray, and it is a property of the finish, not of the material family.
Will the whole bathroom get wet?
With a well-placed screen and a drain that does its job, hardly at all. With neither, yes – fine in a small room designed for it, a nuisance in a family bathroom. Say how the room is used and the design follows.
Can a wet room be built in an apartment?
Often, and the questions are the same as anywhere: whether the floor has depth for the fall, and what is underneath. The room below is somebody else’s ceiling, so the waterproofing is the line in the quote to read most carefully.
How long does a wet room take?
Longer than a tray-and-enclosure shower, because the floor is built rather than fitted and the waterproofing needs its curing time. A company will give a programme once it has seen the floor.
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