Bath Flexing Or Creaking

What's happening?

A bath carries a lot of weight: the water, and a person standing on a small area of the base. Acrylic baths are supplied with a frame or cradle and a chipboard base panel precisely because the shell alone cannot take that load, and steel and cast baths rely on adjustable feet plus wall anchors to stand solid. When any of that is missing or set wrong, the bath moves. The movement itself is unnerving but survivable; the damage is at the edges, because every joint round the bath — sealant, tiles, the panel, the waste and overflow connections — is being flexed each time someone uses it. That is why a bath that moves is usually also a bath with mouldy, split sealant and a damp patch appearing somewhere.

What usually causes it?

• The cradle or support frame supplied with the bath left out, or assembled with legs missing
• Feet not wound down onto the floor, so the bath is standing on two or three of them
• No wall anchors or brackets, letting the rim lift away from the tiles as the bath loads
• A soft, uneven or springy floor under the feet, especially chipboard over widely spaced joists
• Feet standing on the floor covering rather than on a solid base, then compressing over time
• An acrylic bath fitted without its base board, so the shell flexes in the middle
• The bath fitted after tiling, so the rim was sealed to tiles it does not actually touch

When should you call a bathroom fitter?

Call a bathroom fitter if the support frame is incomplete, if the bath was fitted without one, if the floor beneath the feet flexes, or if the rim has pulled away from the tiling. All of those mean taking the bath out or partly out, correcting the support and the floor, then resealing and making good the tiling — a fitting job. Call sooner if the sealant has failed more than once, because the movement is the reason.

What will the bathroom fitter actually do?

• Remove the panel and inspect the cradle, the feet, the base board and the wall fixings
• Check the floor under the bath for deflection and strengthen or re-deck it where it is not adequate
• Refit or replace the support frame to the bath manufacturer's instructions, with every foot loaded on a solid base
• Fit wall anchors or brackets so the rim is held against the wall under load
• Remake the waste and overflow connections that the movement has strained, and test them
• Reseal the rim with the bath full, and make good any tiling the movement has cracked

What to look for behind the panel

• A complete cradle or frame, not a bath sitting on two end feet.
• Every adjustable foot wound down and bearing on the floor, with its locknut tight.
• The chipboard base board present under an acrylic shell.
• Wall brackets or anchors holding the rim to the wall.
• A firm floor under the feet, with no bounce when you press on it.