Waterproof Melbourne

01/06/2025

The Montrose Bathroom is almost ready to tile! (Just waiting on a window now) Shower base put in yesterday and caulked today to seal it. Then it was coated in Bluedog which is a paintable protective coating that will peel off once the tiling is complete. The doorway had new architrave installed over a layer to pack it out slightly, accomodating for plumbing the walls. The arcs have also been undercut to allow the tiles to be installed, leaving a gap for silicone to be applied to seal them against moisture damage. I pre-primed these with an oil based undercoat yesterday as well. It’s looking great!

30/05/2025

The Montrose bathroom got sheet membrane installed today. I used sheet membrane for this solution as the shower base is quite heavy and needs to drop into a recessed area of the concrete. I wanted a very strong membrane to help mitigate the potential risk of damaging the membrane during installation and the weight of the base on the membrane as well.

28/05/2025

It’s important to read installation instructions. The warranty instructions for this shower base requires it to be put in place and tested with water to ensure it falls toward the drain. I couldn’t video and pour at the same time so missed me pouring 2.5litres of water out over the surface and watching it drain down the waste. The last little bit continued to drain into the waste very nicely. Tomorrow it will be set in place ready for tiling to start Friday (waterproofing tomorrow)

30/04/2025

Having a closer look at the gaps between the floor and the wall and filling them.

28/04/2025

Having a deeper look at fillets used to support transitions for Class III membranes. Whilst this is a watercloset (toilet) and is a low risk area, the method used can also be used in high risk areas like showers. Personally, I prefer to use bandage embedded into the membrane for these transitions in high risk areas as they are stronger than membrane on its own especially where movement is expected but it is slightly more expensive as it uses more material and labour to install a quality solution.

24/04/2025

24/04/2025

Busting stuff up (and out!)!! At the end of today, we managed to fill the skip with rubble and plaster. This represented the screed and tiles from the floor, the remaining wall tiles, render and mud and the plaster walls and ceiling. A massive day. The bathroom is now a blank canvas ready for roughing in plumbing and electrical fittings which will happen next week. Time for a sleep now!

23/04/2025

Demolishing a bathroom at Montrose. The old bathroom was built in the late 1960’s. Very interesting looking at the different technology in use back then:

1) tar paper attached to the studs to provide a waterproof/ water resistant membrane on the studs (and to support the render in the next step)
2) extruded galvanised wire mesh nailed to the wall. Horizontal studs placed every 300mm or so to support it.
3) render applied to the mesh to act as substrate for the tiles
4) Tile adhesive used was mortar. This appears to be placed onto the tile, then the tile stuck to the render and leveled with neighbouring tiles before being grouted.

To remove it was very heavy work. The material from these two and a bit walls packed down about 1.5m3 of waste in the skip. When I was removing it, I was thinking of the guy that carried it all in there 50 something years ago!

10/04/2025

Apart from a couple of cracks, I think I found why this pond had been leaking. A small hole in the base of the pond revealed a cavity underneath. I filled this void with approximately 5kg of Mapei T40 grout to provide structural support of the concrete and secondly to provide a sound substrate for the waterproofing membrane to be applied.

The entire pond has been drained, pressure washed, drained, acid washed, drained and all debris cleaned. After chasing the cracks and filling with Bayset MS Spur, we’re starting on the first coat of Bayset WPA-100 membrane. This will provide a potable lining to the pond to keep the water where it needs to be.

09/04/2025

Excited to have the opportunity to help improve things for the waterproofing industry and members of the Australian Institute of Waterproofing as a member of the Technical Subcommittee.

Shane Smedley from Waterproof Melbourne has joined the ranks of other fellow AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF WATERPROOFING(AIW) Members who are on the Technical Committee. This committee answers AIW Members' Waterproofing questions, advocates between members & government, partakes in updates of Aust...