UKC

Hi

I'm in the process of replacing my bath tub and I've found that there's a 40mm gap between the top left hand side of the bath and the wall. The wall is tiled, I can't figure out how they got around it themselves with the original bath. Any advice would be handy.

The crude schematic below is my bath, the x's are the taps, the gap is at the top where 'r' is. The gap runs down to 'q' where it tapers down to no gap in the corner where 'q' is. In the corner by 'q' is a wall corner.

Thanks in advance

Jason

 'r'  ____x__x____   'q'

     |                 |

     |                 |

     |                 |

     |___________|

So you're putting a rectangular bath into a trapezoidal space? Sounds like your room has sagged out of square, you'll need to pull it back into shape with a ratchet strap across the long diagonal

More seriously, presuming you took the bath out, what was there before? Presumably a row of ~40mm tiles or a tapered row of tiles to fill the gap? Perhaps a tapered plastic trim piece bonded to the bath?

There's something missing here, I guess perhaps you didn't take the old bath out?

jk

Is your bath square?

Just fit the bath. When you fill it, it'll expand to fill the gap...

Was old bath sitting on a plank sharing the load across the floor? Don't forget to deal and level it when it's full of water and a person stood in it. 

Yes I took the old bath out which is rectangular like the new one, but I cannot see what they did to compensate for the difference between the wall and the bath, I'm baffled. There's no tapering or wedge to fill the gap. There's been no structural change since I whipped the bath out, its a solid wall.

Sorry, I was kidding about the room/wall moving.

I'd check your new bath is level and square. Also the old one if you still have it has it been modified? 40mm runout along the short edge is a big gap, 5-10mm I could understand if it were twisted due to improper levelling.

Did the end of the old bath tuck under the tiles/plaster somehow to hide the taper, perhaps the new one is taller so you can't do the same thing?

jk

A thin fibreglass bath will flex to some extent if you push it hard enough. Is there a channel cut into the wall to take the rim of the bath? That might be your only option. 

What are you putting on the wall? Tiles or shower board? The board comes with a very good sealing strip system that will accomodate quite big differences.

Was the old bath longer, and cut down to shape?  Or perhaps it was undercut into the wall?

Did they use an extra wide plastic bead/seal to cover the gap?

Are you sure the gap wasn't there all along, just hidden by a soap holder?

I think the last installers basically warped the bath to fit as its quite flexible. It was screwed into the walls at around 8 points, it took hours to free it. My new bath is heavy and too sturdy to do the same so I'll need to build a compensation between the bath and the wall I guess.

I'll need to put a wedge in to fill the gap, any idea's on how I'd do this to keep it all water tight ?

Jason

I'm glad you said you were Joking as I was googling what you said !!!

I'm pretty green behind the ears with this, but learning fast.

Take note of what summo said then about filling bath with water (with or without a person in the bath) before the final leveling, fixing, tiling and sealing into place. The weight helps settle the bath to where it will be under normal use and so there is less likelihood of movement later leading to cracking of sealant or gaps appearing.

This is completely not helpful, but is quite amusing...

A friend of my partner bought a new bath, which was duly delivered.  Before fitting it, he thought he would surprise his wife, so he set it up in the living room with candles and a glass of wine, and laboriously filled it with buckets of hot water.  She came home to find him very pleased with himself for surprising her, and urged him to get in first, having an inkling of what was going to happen next.  The bath was not a freestanding bath and was somewhat flexible, so as he got in the movement of the water built up enough momentum to tip it over, spilling water (and an embarrassed, wet, naked man) across the living room floor and tripping the electrics.  Which at least meant that the guy in question wasn't ever forced to admit that he had no idea how he was going to empty the thing!

I am lead to believe that the wine was appreciated, at least.

(This may be apocryphal, but it was told to me as a true story and it did make me laugh)

What else are you doing: walls/tiles etc or just taking old bath out and putting new one in its place?

R=2XQ

or in other words, cover the gap with a loofah 

Don't over think it... fill the gap with a bit of ply or similar, then tile the gap-filler allowing a slight overlap to the bath (make sure the tiles slope down towards the bath - doesn't need to be much just enough that water won't puddle, and then use a decent flexible sealant on the gap between tiles and bath.

Put the old one back again. 

Agree with everyone’s suggestions re the space. Only caveat is I assume there is no shower over that end of the bath otherwise you’d possibly have to re think it ! Best of luck otherwise. 

If you have the space I’d probably move the bath a foot away from the wall and then fill the gap with some plywood held to the wall with a couple of mounting brackets and to the bath with a wooden batten, then tile or paint it, making a handy shelf at bath height.

Why?  A triangular shaped filler between the bath and wall will look really obvious and really shite.  Pull the bath away a bit and the wedge will look less obvious as it’s small compared to the rest of the shelf.  Also all the crap the women in the house use in the bath can go on the new shelf and not clutter the sides of the bath, invariably falling in to your annoyance.  

Whilst you’re at it, install the taps to the middle of the long edge, presumably also along a wall.  It’ll make it much more comfortable to have two people in the bath.

Good idea re making it less obvious. 

Good idea re making it less obvious.