FakeGamerGirl
New Member
Hello there! Me again. You guys were so supportive and helpful with my last inquiry, I thought I'd seek your guidance once more.
To reintroduce myself, I'm a 31 year old stay at home mother to a 1.5 year old toddler. I have no experience and am learning as I go.
As a refresher, my situation is that we bought a poorly flipped manufactured house full of quirks, bandaids, hidden problems, and problems we would've seen if we had more knowledge. Lesson learned! However, we are stuck with it for now and trying to make the best of it. We would have sued for lack of disclosure of clearly known defects but we only bought this because it was literally the best we could afford, so fixing it up is the lesser of two evils.
Our guest bathroom has drywall/gypsum. It's not even remotely up to code. The original "tile" was pressed particle board with thin paint to mimic real tile in appearance. We aren't construction savvy. We didn't know til it started chipping the paint within a couple months! The previous bathtub was painted plastic which became severely stained and peeling rapidly. When I learned of all this, I gutted the bathroom myself. Underneath the bathtub, I exposed a layer of rat poop, urine, black mold, etc. along with a poorly positioned p-trap. We ended up having a plumber come and move it back and lower. We didn't want to get another plastic tub, which is all that mobile homes usually get. No, this mama wanted a real tub. We managed to find one the same length we needed, although wider, so we had to trim ceramic tile with a carbide blade while already installed. We couldn't afford to pay someone for tile installation and this wasn't a task I was prepared to take on as a beginner.
We did not remove the drywall. I know this is a huge no-no and it's not up to code. I know very well that this will make it a very vulnerable area for mold and water damage. I did remove the areas that were full of mold and damaged. I did seal up the drywall to provide some protection and the area around the faucet, since it was open to install the new plumbing, was replaced with cement board.
We purchased interlocking tiles designed for bathtub surrounds that can be directly applied to drywall. I did want to tile down over the bathtub flange, but the house didn't want to allow this, as the flange stuck out further than the wall and this would've made for a very uneven wall. So, I tiled just above the flange, which is screwed in and siliconed to the wall by the plumber. The tile is very thin due to being vinyl and not ceramic, but it sticks out ever so slightly. I'm explaining all of this thoroughly because I have Googled and YouTubed like crazy trying to find a solution and was disheartened to see that the replies were always "You need to redo it" and "I won't help until you bring it up to code" and those just aren't options here.
So, maybe somebody out there loves a good puzzle or has faced this situation themselves.
The idea I have is possibly backer rods and caulking/caulk strips.. maybe vinyl/rubber wall base? I do believe the silicone will eventually break down and lose the seal, and these vinyl tiles can't have water entering the ends.
Please forgive my imperfections. I'm doing my best. I'm in a very poor mental state and nobody can possibly criticize me harder than I do to myself.
This is just one of many problems we now face, as the valve the plumber installed never had it's retaining clip in the cartridge and our bathroom and room behind it flooded last night. He also installed the hot and cold pipes on the wrong sides so we had to put them right. And the faucet just sprays everywhere instead of flowing smoothly. Please be gentle with me, I beg you.
Thank you in advance for any advice or ideas you may have.
To reintroduce myself, I'm a 31 year old stay at home mother to a 1.5 year old toddler. I have no experience and am learning as I go.
As a refresher, my situation is that we bought a poorly flipped manufactured house full of quirks, bandaids, hidden problems, and problems we would've seen if we had more knowledge. Lesson learned! However, we are stuck with it for now and trying to make the best of it. We would have sued for lack of disclosure of clearly known defects but we only bought this because it was literally the best we could afford, so fixing it up is the lesser of two evils.
Our guest bathroom has drywall/gypsum. It's not even remotely up to code. The original "tile" was pressed particle board with thin paint to mimic real tile in appearance. We aren't construction savvy. We didn't know til it started chipping the paint within a couple months! The previous bathtub was painted plastic which became severely stained and peeling rapidly. When I learned of all this, I gutted the bathroom myself. Underneath the bathtub, I exposed a layer of rat poop, urine, black mold, etc. along with a poorly positioned p-trap. We ended up having a plumber come and move it back and lower. We didn't want to get another plastic tub, which is all that mobile homes usually get. No, this mama wanted a real tub. We managed to find one the same length we needed, although wider, so we had to trim ceramic tile with a carbide blade while already installed. We couldn't afford to pay someone for tile installation and this wasn't a task I was prepared to take on as a beginner.
We did not remove the drywall. I know this is a huge no-no and it's not up to code. I know very well that this will make it a very vulnerable area for mold and water damage. I did remove the areas that were full of mold and damaged. I did seal up the drywall to provide some protection and the area around the faucet, since it was open to install the new plumbing, was replaced with cement board.
We purchased interlocking tiles designed for bathtub surrounds that can be directly applied to drywall. I did want to tile down over the bathtub flange, but the house didn't want to allow this, as the flange stuck out further than the wall and this would've made for a very uneven wall. So, I tiled just above the flange, which is screwed in and siliconed to the wall by the plumber. The tile is very thin due to being vinyl and not ceramic, but it sticks out ever so slightly. I'm explaining all of this thoroughly because I have Googled and YouTubed like crazy trying to find a solution and was disheartened to see that the replies were always "You need to redo it" and "I won't help until you bring it up to code" and those just aren't options here.
So, maybe somebody out there loves a good puzzle or has faced this situation themselves.
The idea I have is possibly backer rods and caulking/caulk strips.. maybe vinyl/rubber wall base? I do believe the silicone will eventually break down and lose the seal, and these vinyl tiles can't have water entering the ends.
Please forgive my imperfections. I'm doing my best. I'm in a very poor mental state and nobody can possibly criticize me harder than I do to myself.
This is just one of many problems we now face, as the valve the plumber installed never had it's retaining clip in the cartridge and our bathroom and room behind it flooded last night. He also installed the hot and cold pipes on the wrong sides so we had to put them right. And the faucet just sprays everywhere instead of flowing smoothly. Please be gentle with me, I beg you.
Thank you in advance for any advice or ideas you may have.