Question: I’m wondering if your cork wall tiles are suitable for use in a bathroom. I see that cork flooring wouldn’t be a good choice, but curious to see if the wall tiles could be used. Thanks!

 

Answer by iCork Floor LLC:

Gluing cork onto a wall is no problem.  A bathroom wall is doable – I’ve had one gentleman from Sweden wrap his bathroom in cork.  He had worked with cork for years in Europe and have a very strong knowledge of what it would take to do this.  Mainly, it takes a special type of water proof drywall made specially for bathrooms/shower walls – it is often referred to as “Blue board”.  This is the first of many necessary steps.  The blue board would have to be patched and sanded – the same as drywall. 

 

Please do not attempt to lay the cork over existing walls in a bathroom.  Only if you are 100% sure the drywall is water proof, can you/should you do this.  If you choose to apply to an already existing surface bathroom surface, you will need to prime the surface (assuming that the walls are painted, all old tiles/grout/mortar has been removed/patched) with paint primer made for bathrooms/outdoor paint primer.  Two coats is an excellent start.  Then begin applying the cork to the wall.

 

Once the blue board surface is ready, you then use the Wakol D3540 adhesive.  There is no other adhesive available for our cork glue down tiles.  This adhesive is a water based contact cement adhesive.  Both surfaces must be butter with the adhesive and left to dry.  Once they are dry, or have “flashed”, then you begin to apply to cork to the wall.  A contact cement adhesive is permanent.  Once the two buttered surfaces come in contact with one another, they are “done”. 

 

To be on the safe side, you will want to have a heat gun and a small putting knife on hand just in case of a poorly placed tile.  Once tiles are in place, you will then need to seal the tiles with 3 coats of water based polyurethane.  For a wall application in a bathroom, we only recommend Loba WS 2K Supra finish (this is the same as the factory finish).