Secrets of disguise

Pipes, valves and oth­er engi­neer­ing equip­ment do not dec­o­rate the inte­ri­or of the bath­room at all. It is advis­able to remove the tech­ni­cal “stuff­ing” out of sight, while main­tain­ing easy access to it for inspec­tion and repair. AT in such a sit­u­a­tion, spe­cial hatch­es come to the res­cue

The mod­ern approach to the recon­struc­tion of a bath­room involves hid­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions behind false walls, screens, inside the floor screed andt.e. At the same time, it is nec­es­sary to pro­vide access to valves, water meters, con­nec­tions of met­al or met­al-plas­tic pipes with flex­i­ble pipes (although it is bet­ter not to use the lat­ter at all), siphons, fil­ters, pres­sure reg­u­la­tors andt.e. Com­bin­ing ease of use, safe­ty and aes­thet­ics is not so dif­fi­cult: the con­struc­tion mar­ket offers many ready-made solu­tions.

one Pho­to: “Prac­tice”

2 Pho­to: “Col­i­se­um of Tech­nolo­gies”

3 Pho­to: “Prac­tice”

3–6. Hid­den instal­la­tion hatch­es are of two types - with frontal open­ing (3, 5) and fold­ing (4, 6). The for­mer are much more con­ve­nient to use, but also cost 1.5–2 times more expen­sive, since they are equipped with a more com­plex loop mech­a­nism.

four Pho­to: “Col­i­se­um of Tech­nolo­gies”

5 Pho­to: “Col­i­se­um of Tech­nolo­gies”

6 Pho­to: Ham­mer

7 Pho­to: Geber­it

eight Pho­to: Geber­it

9 Pho­to: “Prac­tice”

7, 8. The design of the wall-mount­ed toi­let instal­la­tion mod­ule pro­vides for a small remov­able pan­el (the drain but­tons are locat­ed on it) for access to hid­den nodes that may fail.

9. The direc­tion of open­ing is deter­mined dur­ing instal­la­tion: the con­struc­tion on the tog­gle hinge is absolute­ly sym­met­ri­cal. The hinges are adjustable, so you can achieve a per­fect­ly even gap around the perime­ter of the door.

secret door

Ready-made plas­tic and tin paint­ed hatch­es for open instal­la­tion are sold in any con­struc­tion mar­ket. They are inex­pen­sive (with­in 1200 rubles), but they look like aliens from the past, and their dimen­sions are small (max­i­mum 300x600mm). Small view­ing open­ings can also be cov­ered with remov­able ven­ti­la­tion grilles.

How­ev­er, the archi­tec­tur­al “main­stream” dic­tates its own laws - strict design of bath­rooms, stingy decor and a min­i­mum of ele­ments are in fash­ion. Today, hid­den hatch­es are in demand, which are mount­ed before the adja­cent walls are fin­ished, and then lined with ceram­ic tiles or mosaics.

The sim­plest design of this type is a hinged remov­able door fixed in the open­ing with mag­net­ic or mechan­i­cal latch­es. Sim­i­lar prod­ucts are pro­duced, for exam­ple, by Ham­mer (mod­el Hippocrates‑P) and Prak­ti­ka (Kon­tur). Frame parts are made of alu­minum pro­file, and fill­ing - from GKLV. Open the hatch by press­ing on its upper edge, and then tilt­ing it towards you - from below the sash is held by hooks, and from above - safe­ty rope or chain. If nec­es­sary, the door can be com­plete­ly removed.

Insert dimen­sions reach 700x700mm, but even with a small for­mat, say 200x400mm, they are not very con­ve­nient to use, more­over, with fre­quent open­ing and clos­ing, there is a high prob­a­bil­i­ty of dam­age to the lin­ing. There­fore, such designs are not suit­able for pro­vid­ing access to water meters.

For walls made of plas­ter­board on the frame, spe­cial hatch­es are pro­duced on axi­al hinges, designed for paint­ing or glu­ing with rolled mate­ri­als with a thick­ness of not more than 2mm. The func­tion of the loops is per­formed by two pins, and the lock­ing mech­a­nism con­sists of one or two push latch­es. Of course, there is a gap around the perime­ter of the sash, but its width does not exceed 1.5 mm, and it is not too strik­ing.

ten Pho­to: “Prac­tice”

eleven Pho­to: “Prac­tice”

12 Pho­to: Sun­Lux

10, 11. Most mod­ern mod­els of wall hatch­es are equipped with push mag­net­ic or mechan­i­cal latch­es. In case the lat­ter fail, it is advis­able to pro­vide sta­tion­ary han­dles (they can be sunk into the sur­face, made in the form of hooks for tow­els andt.etc.), or stock up on a pow­er­ful vac­u­um suc­tion cup for glass.

13 Pho­to: Ham­mer

four­teen Pho­to: Sun­Lux

12–14. The frame of the floor hatch is embed­ded in the screed, and the cov­er, which is a “trough” with a depth of 40–50mm, filled with con­crete. Lat­er, the hatch is tiled at the same time with the floor in such a way that the width of the gap around the perime­ter of the cov­er does not exceed 1mm.

Olevers and hinges

Reli­able flush-mount­ed hatch­es are rep­re­sent­ed on the domes­tic mar­ket by Prak­ti­ka, San­Lux, Col­i­se­um Tech­nolo­gies and Ham­mer. The key to the suc­cess of these prod­ucts was the suc­cess­ful design of the open­ing mech­a­nism. A spe­cial artic­u­lat­ed-lever hinge allows the hatch door to first extend frontal­ly out of the open­ing, and then swing open more than 90 or move to the side. For par­al­lel-slid­ing hatch­es, a spe­cial mul­ti-hinged hinge is used; max­i­mum sash size - 500x500 mm, and its “car­ry­ing capac­i­ty” - 7kg. As for swing mod­els, their size range is much wider. - from 200x200 to 600x1200mm, and the ulti­mate load is 40kg.

Rules for the instal­la­tion of hatch­es with a hinged lever hinge

fif­teen Pho­to: “Prac­tice”

16 Pho­to: “Prac­tice”

17 Pho­to: “Prac­tice”

15. The hatch is installed before fin­ish­ing the adja­cent walls in a pre­de­ter­mined open­ing.
16. Ina par­ti­tion made of plas­ter­board, a frame is fixed with screws to the rack pro­files and jumpers at least at two points on each side.
17. After adjust­ment, but before fin­ish­ing the hatch, a load equal to the weight of the lin­ing should be hung on the door. Thus, it will be pos­si­ble to accu­rate­ly main­tain the gap around the perime­ter of the hatch.

eigh­teen Pho­to: “Prac­tice”

19 Pho­to: “Prac­tice”

twen­ty Pho­to: “Prac­tice”

18. They begin to veneer the wall from the door, and the fin­ish­ing mate­r­i­al should not pro­trude beyond its edges by more than 50 mm, and the opti­mal tile release is 25–30mm on each side.
19. The gap between the lin­ing of the hatch and the wall is equal in width to the usu­al tile joint.
20. To fill it, use a san­i­tary sealant to match the col­or of the grout. Two days lat­er, the seam is cut with a wall­pa­per knife - and you can use the sun­roof.

ATCur­rent­ly, each man­u­fac­tur­er offers sev­er­al series of hatch­es for tiling. Almost all mod­ern mod­els are equipped with push mag­net­ic locks, but they can also be opened with a suc­tion cup. Hatch­es dif­fer not only in the sash kine­mat­ics (open­ing, slid­ing), but also depend­ing on the mate­r­i­al of the frame parts (paint­ed steel or alu­mini­um), the “load capac­i­ty”, as well as the use of the perime­ter seal­ing con­tour. The size range is extreme­ly wide and allows you to find a suit­able option for almost any open­ing and tile for­mat.

Stan­dard prod­ucts with a hinged-lever open­ing mech­a­nism are quite afford­able. Let’s say the hatch is 400x600mm will cost 4500rub. When man­u­fac­tured accord­ing to the cus­tomer’s size, the cost increas­es by 1.5–2 times.

Under the floor and in the “attic”

When arrang­ing a bath­room with a show­er with­out a tray and in some oth­er cas­es, you need to leave access to taps and pipes pass­ing under the floor. This task can­not be called sim­ple, espe­cial­ly if the floor must be absolute­ly water­proof. ToFor­tu­nate­ly, there are sealed floor hatch­es on sale, the frame of which is equipped with rub­ber seals. They are made from alu­minum sheets and pro­files and are installed at the stage of cre­at­ing the sub­floor. This design can with­stand a load of up to 15 tons, and raise the hatch with a spe­cial hook or screw han­dle. Many mod­els are equipped with gas shock absorbers to facil­i­tate open­ing.

Alu­minum water­proof hatch­es of var­i­ous sizes (from 200x200 to 800x800mm; step in resiz­ing is 100mm) is pro­duced, for exam­ple, by Col­i­se­um Tech­nolo­gies (Arma­da and Super­Lock mod­els, with one and two con­tours of sil­i­cone seals, respec­tive­ly). Their price - 1400–4000rub.

If you plan to car­ry out com­mu­ni­ca­tions requir­ing revi­sion behind a false ceil­ing, then the lat­ter should be rack or mod­u­lar. These two schemes allow you to eas­i­ly remove and put in place any fin­ish­ing ele­ment. Wet room ceil­ings of this type are avail­able from Acu­ra, Ecoph­on, AMF, Ill­bruck, OWA, Albes andetc. Parts of the kits are made of alu­minum with a poly­mer coat­ing, stain­less steel, extrud­ed poly­styrene foam or polyurethane foam.

ATon a hemmed plas­ter­board ceil­ing, you can also arrange an inspec­tion hatch on axi­al hinges (for paint­ing), but it is much eas­i­er to install a remov­able ven­ti­la­tion grill, and it will look neater.

The edi­tors thank the com­pa­nies “Prac­ti­ka”, “Sun­Lux”, “Colos­se­um Tech­nolo­gies”
for help in prepar­ing the mate­r­i­al.

• Source: Ideas for Your Home Magazine#204

Mate­r­i­al pre­pared

Vladimir Grig­oriev