Wet zones: where your bathroom needs the most protection

A wet room isn't uniformly wet — the shower wall takes far more water than the corner by the door. GVK maps this so the most demanding waterproofing goes where water actually lands, while still sealing the whole room. Getting the zoning right is the first design decision of a bathroom.

The three areas

GVK divides a wet room by water exposure into place for bath or shower, wet zone 1, and wet zone 2 — and the entire room (whole floor and all walls) is covered with a membrane regardless of zone.

Place for bath or shower

This is the most exposed area:

• Wall surfaces in a shower (bounded by a shower wall, screen or curtain), up to 2 metres above the floor.
• Wall surfaces around a bathtub, up to 2 metres above the floor.
• The floor of the shower, or under the bathtub.

Wet zone 1

• The entire floor of the room.
• Wall surfaces within a 1-metre radius of the bath/shower place.
• Wall surfaces above the bath/shower place.
• If part of an outer wall falls in wet zone 1, the whole outer wall is treated as wet zone 1.
• The full height of the wall receives a membrane, unless a formal moisture-safety design applies.

Wet zone 2

All other wall surfaces — still waterproofed, but to zone-2 requirements. Floor membrane is carried up the wall (an upstand) even here.

Plan for the future

GVK recommends considering future installations: a room built for a shower can have its wet zone 2 reclassified to wet zone 1 if a bathtub is later added. A fixed screen wall also changes how the surfaces around it are zoned.

What M5 brings to Dubai

We map your bathroom's zones before any membrane goes on, so the protection matches the real water exposure — nothing under-done where it matters, nothing missed. It's a small planning step that decides whether a wet room stays dry for a decade.

Official source: this is M5's plain-language summary, not the official text. For the full rules see GVK — gvk.se.