When people first see a Cladrok panel they tend to assume two things:
- that it must be enormously heavy;
- that installing it is a job for specialists.
Both assumptions are reasonable when confronted with a wall of genuine natural stone, 2400mm tall and seamless from floor to ceiling, but both are wrong.
The truth is that easy installation was one of our focuses when engineering Cladrok. Here is what fitting our panels actually involves.
Can you fit stone panels over existing tiles?
Yes. This one detail completely changes the cost and work required when renovating your bathroom or wetroom. Cladrok panels fit directly onto existing wall surfaces, including old tiles. You don’t need to strip your bathroom back to bare plaster or fill your home with broken ceramic and dust before getting started. The surface most people assume must be demolished can be the substrate.
For a homeowner, that shaves renovation down from weeks to days and means any tradesperson has a cleaner job with fewer stages and trades to coordinate.
How heavy is a natural stone panel?
A solid stone slab the size of a Cladrok panel needs specialist handling and heavy-duty structural consideration (along with a team of tradespeople to carry it). A Cladrok panel does not. It is not a slab. It is a layer of genuine stone bonded to a lightweight waterproof composite backing. Cladrok is light enough to be lifted in one hand by one person, with all the character of natural stone and none of the burden that comes with it.
That matters. Our panels can be carried up a staircase, manoeuvred into a small bathroom, and cut and handled without specialist lifting equipment.
Do you need a specialist tiler?
No. There is no tiling in the process. No setting out, no spacers, no grouting; none of the difficulties that working with small ceramic tiles demands. The panels can be measured, cut to fit, fixed with adhesive and finished with trims and sealant at the edges. A confident DIYer can achieve an excellent result and any tradesperson will find the system straightforward.
There are no joints within the wet zone. This keeps the finished wall looking seamless and means there is nowhere for water to get in.
What does the process look like?
In short, you measure the walls, cut the panels to size, check they fit, bond them to the wall, and finish the edges with the matching trims. The tools needed are in most households’ toolboxes and are ones that any tradesperson carries. This beats tiling’s traditional bathroom renovation processes: the drying times, the grouting day, the sealing, and the return visits. Cladrok can be delivered, installed, and ready-to-go on the same day.
Less disruption for a better bathroom
The cost of a renovation is not just the materials. It is the labour, the mess, the weeks of a household working around a room that can’t be used. Cladrok removes the need for demolition and specialist trades. We engineer panels that protect your budget, protect your walls, and protect the value of your home.
If you are weighing up using Cladrok in your own project, the best place to start is with a sample. Feel the stone, test the weight, and picture the wall without a single grout line.
The installation will be straightforward.
