Wet room installation in Grantham has become one of the most requested bathroom projects we handle at Construction Interior Design Ltd. And it’s easy to understand why. Whether it’s a Victorian terrace on Harrowby Road, a semi-detached on one of the newer Barrowby Gate estates, or a period property near the town centre, homeowners across Grantham are realising that a properly installed wet room isn’t just a luxury. It’s a practical upgrade that changes how a bathroom functions every single day. We’ve been fitting wet rooms since the early 2000s, long before they became fashionable, and that experience counts for a great deal when it comes to getting the waterproofing right.
The key word there is properly installed. A wet room done badly is one of the most expensive bathroom mistakes a homeowner can make. Get the tanking wrong and you’re looking at water ingress into the floor structure, potentially saturating joists, damaging ceilings below, and causing damp problems that spread well beyond the bathroom itself. We’ve surveyed properties in Grantham where a previous installer had simply tiled over a shower tray and called it a wet room. That’s not how it works. A wet room requires a sloped screed or a proprietary wet room former, continuous tanking membrane across walls and floor, and correctly positioned linear or point drains. Every step matters.
There’s also the accessibility angle, which is increasingly important in Grantham’s housing stock. Plenty of the town’s older properties were built for a different era, with baths that are difficult for older residents or anyone with limited mobility. A well-designed wet room removes that barrier entirely. No step, no lip, no awkward manoeuvre. Walk-in access, grab rails positioned correctly, a slip-rated floor finish, and a thermostatic valve that keeps the water temperature safe. It’s the kind of project that improves quality of life, not just the look of the room.
If you’re thinking about a wet room conversion in Grantham and you want to talk it through before committing to anything, we’re always happy to have that conversation. You can get in touch with us here or call us directly on 01476 860800. No hard sell, just honest advice from people who’ve been doing this for over 30 years.
Grantham has a real mix of property types, from the Georgian and Victorian terraces around the town centre and Springfield Road area through to post-war semis and the newer builds on the western fringes of town. Each one presents its own structural considerations when it comes to wet room installation. The older properties typically have suspended timber floors, which changes everything about how you approach the installation. You can’t just lay a screed over a suspended timber floor without first checking whether the joists can take the additional dead load, and you need to think carefully about how the tanking will be applied without trapping moisture in the floor structure itself.
For timber subfloor situations, we most commonly use a proprietary wet room former, such as those from Wedi or Marmox, which are lightweight, pre-sloped, and bond directly to the subfloor without the weight penalty of a sand and cement screed. On solid concrete floors, a liquid tanking membrane applied in two coats works well, particularly products that conform to BS 8000-11 standards. The tanking needs to turn up the wall to a minimum height of 100mm beyond the wettest zone, and at corners, we always use reinforcing tape bonded into the membrane before the final coat. These are the details that separate a professional installation from a cosmetic one.
Floor finish selection is equally critical. In a wet room, the floor tile needs a minimum R10 slip rating, and for accessible or walk-in wet rooms we’d typically specify R11 or higher. Mosaic tiles work well because the greater number of grout lines increases grip, but larger format porcelain tiles with a textured or grip surface are increasingly popular and look superb. We always coordinate wet room floor finishes with wall tiling, so if you’re thinking about your overall scheme, our bathroom floor tiling Grantham service is worth looking at alongside your wet room specification. Getting both designed and installed as a single package means the falls, the drainage positions, and the tile layout all work together from the start.
Building Regulations in England require that any new wet room installation involving structural changes or material alterations to a bathroom’s drainage and waterproofing must comply with Part H (drainage) and Part C (resistance to contaminants and moisture) of the Building Regulations. While a like-for-like replacement doesn’t always trigger a full notification, any works that alter drainage routes or structural elements will need to be notified to your local building control authority at South Kesteven District Council. We handle all of that as part of the process, so you don’t need to worry about navigating it yourself.
We don’t just operate in Grantham; we cover a vast area of the Rutland area. Below is a list of our high volume locations:
Here’s something we hear quite often from Grantham homeowners after a wet room is finished: they use their bathroom differently now. Not just occasionally, but every morning. The absence of a shower enclosure or tray completely changes the feel of the space. Smaller bathrooms, which are extremely common in Grantham’s terraced and semi-detached properties, feel noticeably bigger when there’s no glazed screen or bulky enclosure eating into the floor area. The room breathes. It’s easier to clean. And for families, it’s quicker to rinse down after the kids have been in.
For older residents or those with mobility considerations, the benefit goes beyond aesthetics. Grantham has a significant and growing older population, and the demand for accessible bathroom conversions reflects that. A wet room with a correctly installed linear drain, a slip-rated floor, and wall-mounted grab rails that are properly anchored into solid noggins or blocking means a bathroom that’s safe to use independently. That kind of independence matters enormously to people, and it’s a privilege to be part of delivering it. We’ve installed wet rooms for clients in their 70s and 80s across Grantham who tell us it’s one of the best decisions they’ve made for their home.
There’s also a straightforward property value argument. Wet rooms, when done to a high standard, add real appeal to a property. Buyers in Grantham’s mid-market and above are increasingly looking for bathrooms that feel considered rather than functional. A fully tiled, properly drained, well-lit wet room signals that the house has been looked after. It’s the sort of finish that estate agents notice and buyers remember. So as much as we always focus on the practical and day-to-day benefits, the investment case for a quality wet room installation in Grantham holds up pretty well too.
One project that sticks in the mind was a late Victorian terrace on the south side of Grantham town, a property with a small first-floor bathroom sitting over a hallway. The customer wanted to remove a freestanding bath and outdated shower cubicle and replace the whole room with a wet room. The challenge was the suspended timber floor. The existing joists were sound but we needed to install solid noggins between each joist run to provide a firm base for the wet room former. We used a 50mm Marmox Multiboard former, cut and bonded to create the correct 1.5% fall towards a central point drain, then applied two coats of Mapei Mapegum WPS liquid membrane across the whole floor and up the walls to 200mm. Large format 600x600mm matt porcelain tiles in a warm grey finish, with a contrasting white grout, gave the room a clean contemporary look. The customer had a fully waterproofed, open wet room with a hinged glass screen to contain spray, in a room that had previously felt cramped and dated.
Another project involved a bungalow on the northern edge of Grantham where the owners, a retired couple, needed an accessible wet room to replace a bath they could no longer safely use. Here the floor was solid concrete, which made the screed approach more straightforward. We formed a 50mm sand and cement screed with the fall built in, tanked with a two-coat liquid membrane, and tiled with a small-format anti-slip mosaic in a soft stone colour. We installed a 1500mm linear drain along the entry wall, grab rails in three positions anchored into the blockwork, and a thermostatic shower valve set to a maximum temperature of 43 degrees. The result was a bathroom that was safe, accessible, and looked completely designed rather than clinical.
Every wet room project starts with a proper site survey. We look at the subfloor type, the joist direction if it’s timber, the existing drainage position, and the structural wall construction. All of that dictates the method. And we’re always honest if the existing conditions mean certain finishes or drain positions won’t work as the customer hopes. Better to have that conversation at survey stage than halfway through the installation.
The most immediate benefit of a correctly installed wet room is the gain in usable bathroom space. In Grantham’s typical semi-detached or terraced properties, bathrooms are often between 4 and 6 square metres. That’s not a lot to work with when a standard shower enclosure takes up a 900x900mm footprint and a bath takes up 1700x700mm. Remove both and replace with an open wet room covering the full floor area, and suddenly the room works far more efficiently. Residents in older Grantham properties often describe the change as making the bathroom feel twice the size, even though the square footage is identical.
From a maintenance perspective, wet rooms are significantly easier to keep clean than conventional shower enclosures. There are no enclosure frames to harbour limescale and mildew, no shower trays with awkward silicone seals that discolour over time, and no low-level grout lines that constantly battle moisture. A wet room with large format wall tiles and a linear drain has far fewer surface junctions where problems can develop. We always advise clients to use an epoxy grout in wet room applications rather than standard cementitious grout. Epoxy grout is waterproof, highly stain resistant, and doesn’t need sealing. It costs more upfront but it’s absolutely worth it in a fully wetted environment.
And for anyone in Grantham thinking about future-proofing their property, a wet room ticks that box definitively. Whether it’s accommodating changing mobility needs, increasing the appeal of the property to future buyers, or simply having a bathroom that functions better for a growing or ageing household, the case is strong. We’ve never had a customer come back to us and say they regretted installing a wet room. Not once in over 30 years.
Wet room installation isn’t a single fixed solution. There are several configurations and approaches depending on the property, the available space, and what the customer wants from the room. At the simpler end, a wet room conversion involves removing the existing bath or shower, forming the correct floor fall, tanking the floor and lower walls, and installing a drain and shower valve in an otherwise unchanged room layout. This is the most cost-effective route and works well in most standard Grantham bathrooms. At the other end of the scale, a full wet room renovation involves complete strip-out, structural alterations where needed, a fully tiled floor-to-ceiling finish, ceiling-mounted or wall-mounted shower heads, recessed niches, and integrated lighting within a fully waterproofed environment.
Drain choice is one of the more technical decisions in a wet room installation. Point drains sit centrally in the floor and require the screed to fall from all four walls towards the centre, which is the most demanding screed work to get right. Linear drains run along one wall, typically the wall opposite the entry point, and only require a single directional fall, which is generally easier to achieve consistently. Channel drains are linear drains with a wider aperture, which can handle higher flow rates and suit larger open wet room areas. The choice depends on the floor area, the shower head type, and the aesthetic preference of the customer. We talk through all of this at the initial survey.
Shower valve specification is equally important. In a wet room, we almost always recommend a thermostatic concealed valve rather than a manual exposed mixer. Thermostatic valves maintain a set water temperature regardless of pressure fluctuations elsewhere in the system, which is both safer and more comfortable. For Grantham properties on older pipe runs with variable pressure, this makes a real practical difference. Concealed valves, where the body sits inside the wall and only the trim plate and handle are visible, give a much cleaner finish and are worth the slightly more involved installation.
Not always. Many loft conversions fall under permitted development, but it depends on your property and the size of the build. We’ll check all regulations and handle applications if required.
Construction Interior Design Ltd has been operating since 1992. That’s over 30 years of practical construction experience across residential and commercial projects throughout Grantham and the wider East Midlands. We’re not a bathroom showroom with a fitting team bolted on. We’re a construction company first, which means we understand the full building context of a wet room installation, from structural considerations and drainage regulations through to waterproofing systems and tile substrate preparation. That breadth of knowledge means we spot problems that specialist bathroom fitters sometimes miss.
Our accreditations matter too. The team holds CSCS cards, IPAF certification, PASMA qualification, and SSSTS site supervision certification. These aren’t just letters on a website. They represent assessed competence in construction safety and practice. We’ve worked alongside major contractors including Simons Construction and Simpson Shopfitting, delivering fit-out and installation work to a commercial standard. That level of rigour transfers directly into every residential wet room we install in Grantham, whether it’s a straightforward conversion or a complete bathroom renovation from scratch.
We’re transparent about what wet room installation involves, how long it takes, and what it costs. We don’t quote low to win the job and then add costs as we go. When we survey your property and put a price together, it reflects the actual work required. If we find something unexpected once work begins, we tell you straight away and we discuss the options before proceeding. That’s how we’ve built the reputation we have across Grantham over the past three decades. If you’d like to discuss a wet room project, contact us online or call us directly on 01476 860800. We’d be glad to help.
