Bathroom Renovation

Most bathroom failures in Greek apartment buildings trace back to one decision made in the first two days of the job: how the wet zones were tanked before tiling. A tile finish can look identical whether the membrane underneath is continuous and taped at every junction, or patchy and reliant on grout to keep water out. The difference only shows up eighteen months later, in the ceiling of the flat below.

We tank every wet zone as a continuous system — floor, upstands and shower walls to at least 1.8 metres — with taped corners, pipe collars sealed at penetration points, and a flood test held for a minimum of 24 hours before any tile is fixed. This is documented with photographs and a signed record, because it is the one part of the job you cannot inspect once the room is finished.

Everything above the membrane is decoration. Everything in the membrane is the actual bathroom.

The same porcelain tile can look premium or cheap depending entirely on where the cut pieces fall. A setting-out drawing maps every wall, floor and niche before ordering, so full tiles land at eye level and on the leading edge of any feature wall, and narrow off-cuts are pushed to corners, behind doors or under the vanity where they are never seen.

This matters more in bathrooms than any other room because the space is small and every surface is close to the eye. A 20cm miscalculation in a living room floor is invisible; the same miscalculation in a 1.4-metre-wide shower recess is the first thing anyone notices.

Sanitaryware manufacturers publish exact rough-in dimensions — the position of the water supply, waste outlet and, for wall-hung units, the frame fixing centres. These have to be fixed before tiling, because moving a waste outlet after the floor is finished means breaking tile to get to it.

We cross-check every rough-in dimension against the selected sanitaryware model before first fix, not against a generic assumption of where a WC or basin usually sits. It is a small piece of coordination that prevents the single most common and expensive bathroom snag: a fixture that doesn't align with its own pipework.

A bathroom with no mechanical extraction, or an extraction fan sized for a room half the volume, will grow mould behind furniture within a year regardless of tile quality. Extraction rate is calculated from room volume and air changes per hour required for a wet room, then specified as a fan model with that stated performance — not a generic fan bought because it fits the ceiling hole.

Underfloor heating is increasingly standard in Greek bathroom renovations, both for comfort and because it dries the floor faster after use, reducing standing moisture. It is designed as a wet system laid into the screed with its own thermostat zone, tested under pressure before the floor is finished, and never retrofitted as an afterthought once tiling is underway.

Most Greek apartment bathrooms are small, and the fixed points are the building's drain stack and, often, a water heater on the wall. The biggest gains come from layout rather than finishes: a wall-hung WC on a concealed frame, a level walk-in shower with a fixed glass panel instead of a bath, a shallow vanity and large-format tiles with fewer grout lines. Each of these depends on the survey — floor build-up for the shower fall, wall depth for the frame — which is why nothing is promised before it.

On the islands the conditions change. Sea air corrodes ordinary chrome and cheap brass, so fittings are chosen for it; hard water marks glass and dark surfaces, so screens get easy-clean treatment and finishes are chosen to hide limescale. Rental and hotel bathrooms are drawn once and repeated room by room, materials are shipped in as few loads as possible, and the work runs between autumn and spring so the property opens for the season.