New to the site and love it!!! Just found it yesterday while looking for some help on an IKEA Varde countertop.
Anyways...
My hubby and I are in the process of gutting and remodeling a kitchen in our 1950's mid-century modern ranch and we'll be outfitting it with IKEA cabinetry. I'm loving all the information found thus far on the site but do have a NON-IKEA question to post:
[align=center]Have any of you experienced diy-remodelers ever worked with the [/align]
[align=center]water-resistant greenboard material? [/align]
My architect brother-in-law just recommended it to us and said it's a few dollars more and can be bought at LOWES. It sounds like a great material for a kitchen.
Yup, what Eva said. We used it before tiling our bath walls.
Generally, it is used for 'wet locations', such as around a tub or in a shower. A kitchen, even the backsplash area, would not generally get the same water exposure. While using greenboard would not be a problem, it would be somewhat 'overkill'. Some people prefer to err heavily on the side of caution, however.
We tiled our backsplash top to bottom, all the 'way round, and used regular drywall.
My understanding was that green board falls in between regular drywall and cement board in water-durability.
Green board is regular drywall with a water resistant barrier. I'd say it might be worth it to use behind the sink or an area that gets splashed a lot with water; elsewhere it might be overkill.
For applications where there would be lots of contact withwater, like a shower stall, you'd use cement board, whichstays rigid even if water gets back onto it. (A failing tiledshower installed on green board was what precipitated my bathroom remodel)
Greenboard is sort of in a no man's land - Not recommended by the Tile Council of America for wet (shower/bath) areas (use CBU - Cementious Backer Board -instead) and beyond necessary for kitchen backsplashes.
I say don't waste your money on "upgrading" to greenboard for a kitchen backsplash.
This coming from a major DIY-er who isobsessedwith research and married to an ex-construction guy whoreads everything about a project before even picking up a tool.
Acc. to several experts, say, at the John Bridge Forum, Greenboard is for areas that will be exposed to *moisture*, not direct water. SO, it's now not up to code for shower tile underlayment, or direct bathtub surround. However, it can be used for bathroom ceilings (when supported every 12" o.c., which was a surprise to me--we're having to add extra joists) and walls in the bathroom that aren't "wet" walls.
I wouldn't use it for a backsplash right behind a sink, but maybe in other areas of the kitchen behind cabinets. But then again, for my entire backsplash, I used hardibacker behind the tile. Can't go wrong with that.
The plumber I read (whom I trust and respect--his name is "lazypup", and he's on another forum) cited the International Residential Code and the Uniform Plumbing Code in this regard. I can't seem to cut/paste to this forum, so the gist of what he said is that concrete-board needs to be used up to 72" from the drain on a shower, then greenboard may be used. And if greenboard is used on a ceiling, framing must be no more than 12" oc.
So there are some specific (and yet rather wide-encompassing)code cites. But definitely go check codes for anyone's specific area.
Well, building codes (as in code = law) are specific to location. The ICC to which you refer is a US organization that makes recommendations for code. While their rec's have been widely adopted in the US, they are not in use everywhere in the US, and are certainly not the law up here.
Being a well-experienced DIY'er, my choice is for regular drywall in the kitchen and greenboard above the tub. However, we maintain our grout by always wiping down the tiles and by re-sealing every year or two. Were I to put in a separate shower, I would probably use cement backer board there. There are advantages and disadvantages to both materials.
In the end, the backing material is a fail-safe anyway: it's water resistance is only needed if your grout fails.
This is off-topic to the original question of backsplashes, for which regular drywall is perfectly OK, but I just have to say it anyway: Grout, no matter how carefully maintained, is not waterproof -- and greenboard is never OK for shower walls (and dubious on a tub surround if there's a shower head). The waterproof membrane system, not the grout, is what makes a shower waterproof. The stakes are high: structural damage to your home. I'll give you one guess how I learned this. And I second the recommendation of the John Bridge forum to get advice from the pros. OK, back to the topic of this thread.Â* Pam
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