How to demolish a bathroom

The first thing to check before demolishing the bathroom is whether or not there there is asbestos present, as in the 60's/70's it was very common for it to be found in the cement walls in wet areas of houses. We found asbestos in the roof of the bathroom as well as some of the walls so had to get a professional company to come and remove it, which wasn't cheap, but it is absolutely necessary to get someone else to remove it!

This video shows a step by step guide to working out if your house has asbestos and shows you the different places to keep an eye out for it.

Before

After the asbestos removal process we used the following tools & equipment to demolish the bathroom:

• Crow bar
• Hammer
• Mallet
• Renovator tool (multi-tool)
• Jackhammer
• Hack Saw
• Copper pipe blockers
• Old Rags

1. Turn off the water and electricity

2. Use the tools to remove the bathroom features in any way you can, it is best to start with removing fixtures such as light fittings, especially if you want to keep any of them. The mallet and crow bar are good for knocking out just about anything else.

3. Jackhammer up existing tiles on the floor if you want to get rid of them. You may need to consult with a tiler to ensure you have dug deep enough to allow a new level floor to be installed.
4. Once you uncover any drains, stuff old rags down the top of them to make sure that building rubble doesn't fall down them, otherwise this will cause blockages.

5. Add electrical knobs to the ends of wires so they are safe when you need to turn the power back on.

6. Add copper pipe blockers to the copper pipes you cut with the hack saw.

Tips:

• Instead of being being careful with removing wall tiles from the wall, if there are large amount of wall tiles it is easier to just replace the wall rather than trying to patch up all the dints you will make by trying to remove them one by one.

This video by Great Falls Construction is also a good video to watch if you have absolutely no idea where to start.