Acrylic Bathroom Wall Surround Installation, If Not Done Correctly Will Cause It To Fail.
The problem: the acrylic bathroom wall surround installation wasn’t fully supported and flexed enough to cause them to crack after just a couple of years.
Actually there were two problems, one the installation method and two, the use of 100% acrylic sheets.
100% acrylic is brittle and that’s why we went with 85% ABS 15% acrylic cap sheets.
You get the same sanitary, glossy surface but the ABS is practically indestructible. For an example football helmets are made from ABS.
Proper installation method is critical to prevent cracking.
So now that the correct product was chosen, lets address the installation problem I keep seeing.
Acrylic bathroom wall surround installation are attached to the bathroom wall with Butyl tape, a very sticky high adhesive product.
For Butyl tape to work properly a butyl primers must be used, which is often skipped.
Then Butyl tape is applied to the primed areas. Now here is how we avoid the flexing problem.
Adhesive silicone must be applied liberally between the butyl tape. The butyl tape holds the wall surround in position while the silicone sets up.
This prevents the problem our hotel friends had, the other contractor did not apply the silicon as you see in the picture.
Butyl primer applied to cleaned wall.
The ABS capped acrylic product would not have cracked but no one wants their bathroom wall to flex, the addition of the silicone is still very much needed.
It’s also important to note the walls need to be free of contaminants such as old reglazing material would need to be stripped off prior to installation and any soap or bath oil film before starting.
Now that we’ve properly set up the job the wall surround cut and fitted first, can now be pressed into place for a permanent acrylic bathroom wall surround installation. That won’t crack or flex providing years of great service.
Butyl tape applied along with liberal dose of adhesive silicone. Now the acrylic tub surround will be fully supported.
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Installation complete, walls are firmly set and will not flex.
Matthias Its like you read my mind! You seem to know so much about wall surrounds, like you wrote the book in it or something. this is excellent blog. A fantastic read. I will certainly be back.
Its like you read my mind! You seem to know so much about wall surrounds, like you wrote the
book in it or something. this is excellent blog. A fantastic read. I will certainly be back.
Greetings! This is my first visit to your blog! We are a collection of volunteers and starting a new project in a community in the same niche rehabing bathrooms. Your blog provided us useful information to work on. You have done a extraordinary job!