The whole room is the shower.
Silicon Valley Kitchen & Bath Co. designs and builds wet rooms from our office in Campbell, serving the South Bay and the Bay Area. A wet room waterproofs the entire bathroom floor and the lower walls as one basin, sloped to a drain, so the shower and often a freestanding tub share an open, curbless space. We plan the slope, the drains and where the splash goes, then build it with one design-build team under one permit.
CSLB License #975092 · Licensed since 2012 · 2272 Camden Avenue, Campbell
What's included
- —Waterproofing across the whole floor and up the walls
- —Floor recessed and sloped to the drain from every edge
- —Linear or center drain, placed to control where water goes
- —Freestanding tub inside the wet zone
- —Fixed glass screen or fully open layout
- —Heated floor built into the assembly
- —Porcelain or sintered stone surfaces, slip-rated for the floor
- —Permit, flood test and inspections
Waterproofing the room, not the shower
In a normal bathroom only the shower is waterproofed. In a wet room the membrane runs across the entire floor, up every wall to at least the height the spray can reach, and to the ceiling wherever the shower actually is, with the door threshold detailed so water cannot migrate into the hall. The floor is then sloped so every point drains, including the corner under the tub, which means recessing the subfloor on a raised foundation or cutting the slab. We flood test the whole basin and document it before any tile is set.
Slope, drains and where the splash lands
A wet room drains well only if the slope and the drain are designed together. A linear drain along one wall lets the whole floor fall in one plane, which suits large-format tile. A center drain needs the floor cut to four planes, which works better with small tile or mosaic such as MIR Mosaic. Then we decide where water will actually go: a fixed glass screen on the shower side keeps the vanity and toilet dry; a fully open plan is possible but means the towels, the toilet paper and the floor near the door all get wet unless the layout keeps them well away from the spray.
Tub in the glass, heat in the floor
The classic reason to build a wet room is to put a freestanding tub and the shower in the same zone behind one glass panel, so the filler splash and the overflow from a long soak land on a waterproofed floor. That frees the rest of the bathroom from needing a tub alcove. Electric floor heat goes into the same assembly, under the tile and above the membrane, and extends into the shower floor and bench; with the floor sloped and heated, the room dries quickly after use. Homeowners often underestimate the ventilation a wet room needs; we size the exhaust fan to the open volume.
Questions we get
- Do you build wet rooms in Campbell and the South Bay?
- Yes. Our office is at 2272 Camden Avenue in Campbell, and we build wet rooms in Campbell, Los Gatos, Saratoga, San Jose, Cupertino and across the Bay Area as part of our design-build bathroom remodeling. We hold California CSLB License #975092 and have been licensed since 2012.
- What is the difference between a wet room and a curbless shower?
- A curbless shower keeps the waterproofed area to the shower itself, usually behind a fixed panel. A wet room waterproofs the whole bathroom floor and treats the shower and often the tub as one open space. The wet room needs more waterproofing, more slope work and more care about where water goes.
- Does the whole bathroom get wet?
- Not if it is laid out well. A glass screen on the shower side and a drain placed so the floor falls away from the door keep the vanity and toilet area dry in practice. The rest of the floor is waterproofed anyway, so an occasional splash does no harm.
- Can a wet room go in a small bathroom?
- Yes, and it is one of the best uses of the idea: removing the curb, the tub alcove and the shower walls makes a small room feel larger and easier to clean. The limit is usually the floor structure and the drain location, which we check at the site visit.
- Does a wet room need a permit?
- Yes. Drains move, the floor structure changes and electrical is added for floor heat. We handle the permit process with your city's building department and the inspections, including the flood test.
Where we build
Based in Campbell and working from Napa to Carmel. These are the cities closest to our office.
- Campbell
- Los Gatos
- Saratoga
- San Jose
- Cupertino
- Monte Sereno
- Santa Clara
- Sunnyvale
- Los Altos
- Mountain View
- Palo Alto
- Menlo Park
From the Journal
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