Bathroom cladding/building in a shower seat

[40somethingJBJ]

Hi. I’m after a bit of advice please. I’m having the bath removed and a shower put in, however, due to the bulkhead of the stairs which is currently under the sloping bit of the bath, the shower can’t go all the way to the wall, so I’m having this boxed in and a seat built in (I’m disabled so need a seat anyway). Looking at cladding the walls instead of tiling, but would ideally like the seat area doing in the same type of thing, however I’m dubious about the hollow type cladding being suitable to sit on as it looks a bit fragile, so looking for other options to do this with. Any suggestions would be welcome! Many thanks :)

Are you thinking of the plastic laminate cladding sheets? I have a feeling that tiling will be more durable. You can get cement-based tile backing boards such as Hardiebacker which is waterproof and the tilers tell me does a much better job of boxing in for a bathroom than the old ply or plasterboard methods.

The seat will have to be bolted through into the wall, either brickwork or wooden studs.

There are a few different types of bathroom cladding; the one you describe sounds like the ~10mm thick hollow plastic style available from the likes of B&Q that you can put a finger through with a bit of effort.

It wouldn't be suitable for what you describe, however there are other kinds of solid bathroom cladding that may suit:

Nuance range from Bushboard (4mm thick solid acrylic, 11mm thick laminated MDF)
Multipanel range from Grant Westfield (11mm thick laminated marine ply)
Fibo, ShowerWall, Selkie (Rearo). I'm sure there are other manufacturers too.

Tiling would certainly be an option too.

The only cladding I knew existed was the flimsy stuff! I’ll have a look at the others now.

We have shower board/wet wall instead of tiles and utterly love it no more grout cleaning and modern designs are really nice.

Why not get the slope properly boxed off with a frame and heavy duty something before covering it?

Yes it’s being boxed in properly, I’m just looking at what to cover it with so as I can sit on it safely.

Shower board/wet wall will be fine. Warmer than tiles I should think too!

Well yes, there is that!