Our tile was set on plywood--no moisture barrier
We had our wall rot cause we discovered the shower tiles in our master bedroom we placed directly onto the plywood wall with no moisture barrier. Does anyone know if this is how Eichlers were originally done and has anyone else had this kind of problem? Any comments and/or referals to a good Eichler contractor to redo our bathroom would be very much appreciated.
Thanks!
We're redoing our bathrooms too. Orignally, ours were finished with brown aluminum (!) tiles glued to the same 1/4" luan plywood used throughout the rest of the house. Someone at some point "remodeled" the shower stall by stapling chicken wire lathe right through the aluminum tiles and setting ceramic tiles in mortar on that. The rest of the room kept the brown tiles, but painted the plywood panelling. By the time I got to it, the plywood was pretty nasty, especially at the shower. So I suspect we're not unique, although we're probably rare to have bathroom panels that weren't ripped out in the last 40-50 years. (Alas, mine are now gone.)
As an aside, I found that my plywood paneling was installed over 3/4" furring strips. I'm not sure why this was done. Removing them, however, made the room grow from 4'-11" to just over 5'-0." In other words, enough to fit a bathtub in where previously there was just a shower. Food for thought.
