# Forum Home Renovation Bathrooms  Acrylic freestanding bath - need to reinforce floor?

## OIY

We are installing a freestanding acrylic bath over old Balticpine floorboards (+ tile sheeting & tiles). Do we need to reinforce thefloor? Or is this just for heavier stone baths?  The weight is approx. 50-60kg.

----------


## barney118

Why are you sheeting over Baltic pine? It's better to remove and the sheet as the sub floor might not handle the weight of sheeting and tiles, start at sub floor first.  
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

----------


## phild01

I agree if this is to be a long term proper job, remove the boards, put the scyon down and forget about the underlay.

----------


## METRIX

> I agree if this is to be a long term proper job, remove the boards, put the scyon down and forget about the underlay.

  +1, tile underlay has no place in bathrooms, kitchens fair enough, take it out and replace with Scony

----------


## OIY

what's scony?

----------


## barney118

Should be scyon lightweight cement sheet James hardie  
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

----------


## JB1

> We are installing a freestanding acrylic bath over old Balticpine floorboards (+ tile sheeting & tiles). Do we need to reinforce thefloor? Or is this just for heavier stone baths?  The weight is approx. 50-60kg.

  The rip off of Scyon (trademarked), in the same vein as Palsonic or Sonic haha   

> what's scony?

----------


## OIY

Yep that's what my builder said he'd need to lay down - cement sheeting. 
Do you think it's necessary to pull up floorboard???

----------


## barney118

> Yep that's what my builder said he'd need to lay down - cement sheeting. 
> Do you think it's necessary to pull up floorboard???

  Yes  
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

----------


## phild01

> Yep that's what my builder said he'd need to lay down - cement sheeting. 
> Do you think it's necessary to pull up floorboard???

  Your builder might be considering cement sheet underlay rather than compressed cement flooring or scyon (scony :Biggrin: )

----------


## paddyjoy

I just googled "scony" hoping to find a cheaper version of sycon, turns out it's the spanking club of new york ha ha  :Roflmao2:  well that's my excuse anyway if the wife checks the browser history. 
Getting back to the original question, would OIY need to add in an extra joist while he has the floor ripped up or will the sycon spread the load?

----------


## METRIX

> what's scony?

  Scony is the spanking club in New Your as was pointed out by paddyjoy, but I don't think going to tha website is going to help you with your bathroom  :Biggrin:  
There are two ways of doing a floor in a wet room, the right way and the other way, the right way would be to rip out the timber floor and replace it with either Scyon Secura (not scony) this is a lightweight modern version of the traditional compressed Fibro. 
Info here Scyon - Scyon Secura Interior Flooring 
Traditional Cfompressed here http://www.jameshardie.com.au/produc...d+Flooring.pdf 
There is also the other way which is to leave the timber in place and put Ceramic Tile Underlay over this, then do your waterproofing and tiling. 
Info here http://jameshardie.com.au/products/d...lay+Jan+13.pdf 
If it was my bathroom I would go for the Scyon option, compressed is just too difficult to work with, being very heavy and hard to cut and fix down, I personally would never use Tile Underlay in a wet area, and I never do in any of my clients, it is a perfectly acceptable product to use, but IMO it's suited to kitchens or other areas you want to put ceramic tiles over timber, not bathrooms. 
Tile Underlay takes time to fix down properly because it has to be nailed every 75mm around the perimiter and 150mm throughout the rest of the sheet, this can be very time consuming, and it might only work out slightly more to rip up the timber floor and put Scyon down. 
To answer your question if you need the floor reinforcing, your bath does not weigh too much, but it does depend on where the bath will be positioned, lightweight freestanding stone baths start around 70Kg, but typically they weigh around 150 to 200kg, I have ripped out old square cast iron baths which must have weighed 70kg, but when you add the water which could easily be another 300 or 400kg or more and a person or two you might have upwards of 700kg of concentrated load on the floor in an area that cannot handle it. 
The only person who can answer if you need to reinforce the floor is your builder, as he knows what the current floor situation is, it may require ripping up the floor to find out if he can't determie it from above or by getting under the floor.

----------


## Oldsaltoz

to install a free standing bath tub on an upper floor usually results in the floor boards being removed and replaced with FC sheeting (Cement sheeting). 
With the floor boards out the floor joists are doubled up, by fixing a second joist to each existing joist in the bath area. 
A 2 or 3 mm gap between sheets allows for proper sealing / movement and laying them in a brick pattern also helps to reduce movement in larger areas. 
Do once and do it right, it's cheaper in the long run. 
Good luck and fair winds.   :Smilie:

----------


## OIY

Thanks everyone. I’ll speak to my builder about pulling upfloorboards and replacing with Scyon. I’ll get him to check out whether I needto reinforce joists at same time. I might push waterproofing back a day to allow for this.

----------


## Anthony1915

Hi guys,
Really interesting reading here.
I've moved into "Bathroom Mode" now and I got an issue with the old boards showing signs of rot in one of the corners. House perimeter sunk and water found a new location for the water drain.
I would of liked to keep the timber floors but looks to be too hard to repair and I know once I start it I would want to finish it right with the correct water proofing etc. near impossible if keeping the existing boards.  I think I may have to  drop my joists a bit to match floor level heights.  19/22 mm Scyon + ~10-20mm mortar + 10mm tiles I'll be a bit over the original 19mm timber boards.  Going to have to do some more research in doing this though.  I also have a new cast Iron bath (120kg dry) which currently sits over a couple joists so I have to make sure they are well supported. too.
Thanks for the info.

----------


## paddyjoy

> Hi guys,
> Really interesting reading here.
> I've moved into "Bathroom Mode" now and I got an issue with the old boards showing signs of rot in one of the corners. House perimeter sunk and water found a new location for the water drain.
> I would of liked to keep the timber floors but looks to be too hard to repair and I know once I start it I would want to finish it right with the correct water proofing etc. near impossible if keeping the existing boards.  I think I may have to  drop my joists a bit to match floor level heights.  19/22 mm Scyon + ~10-20mm mortar + 10mm tiles I'll be a bit over the original 19mm timber boards.  Going to have to do some more research in doing this though.  I also have a new cast Iron bath (120kg dry) which currently sits over a couple joists so I have to make sure they are well supported. too.
> Thanks for the info.

  Don't forget abut the slope also when calculating the height, the further your drain is from the door the higher the screed will get if you know what I mean.

----------


## Oldsaltoz

> We are installing a freestanding acrylic bath over old Balticpine floorboards (+ tile sheeting & tiles). Do we need to reinforce the floor? Or is this just for heavier stone baths?  The weight is approx. 50-60kg.

  Plus the weight of the water at 1 kg per litre and the weight of the person in the bath.
Divide that by 4 and you have some idea of the weight on each foot. close to 60+ kg each. 
As others have advised use cement wet area sheeting with stagered joints and know you will have no problems. ever. 
Ps sister the joists under the bath will a simple task if required with old timber floor removed. 
Good luck and fair winds.   :Smilie:

----------


## Anthony1915

> Don't forget abut the slope also when calculating the height, the further your drain is from the door the higher the screed will get if you know what I mean.

  Yeah I get that.. Hence the variance in the screed height.  I found AS 3740 so will have a good read of that plus a couple guides I downloaded too.  At this stage I would like to place the drain close to if not underneath the free standing bath to keep the water draining off the walking standing areas.  See what happens. 
Cheers.  Sorry for hijacking the thread.  :Smilie:

----------


## president_ltd

> We are installing a freestanding acrylic bath over old Balticpine floorboards (+ tile sheeting & tiles). Do we need to reinforce thefloor? Or is this just for heavier stone baths?  The weight is approx. 50-60kg.

  (probably late replying to this as I think you already found this out, but just for clarity..) 
alas, if you really are in "Victoria" what you're doing here is not to code.  You cannot have a bathroom / wet area with the existing wooden floor. 
What will have to happen is cement sheet over existing floors then waterproofing then you can put other things within that, e.g. wood floor (non structural) or 'wood' vinyl plank.
The weight of the bath should not really matter, its actually not really that much in the scheme of things.

----------


## METRIX

> What will have to happen is cement sheet over existing floors then waterproofing then you can put other things within that, e.g. wood floor (non structural) or 'wood' vinyl plank.
> The weight of the bath should not really matter, its actually not really that much in the scheme of things.

  The weight of the actual bath is not really the issue here as it's acrylic, but when it's full of water and people it will weigh a few hundred kilo's.

----------


## president_ltd

> The weight of the actual bath is not really the issue here as it's acrylic, but when it's full of water and people it will weigh a few hundred kilo's.

  Bear in mind that two people standing on same floor in high heels will have equivalent people weight distribution onto 4 very small points on the floor as the same two people sitting in a bathtub with 4 clawfoot legs on the floor.
The bathtub would/should be setup such that its feet are on joists. 
If a 3rd person in high heels entered the bathroom is the floor loading then exceeded?  Don't think it would be...

----------

