PVC Shower Wall Panels vs Tiles: Which Is Better for Your Bathroom?

A PVC shower wall panel is a rigid, waterproof sheet with a printed, wipe-clean face — marble, stone, concrete, gloss or sparkle — used instead of tiles around a shower or bath. Ours are SCN's 10mm panels: 1000mm wide and 2400mm long, covering 2.4 m² each at £78.56. Their hydro-lock tongue-and-groove edges push together into a watertight joint, so there's no grout at all.

The wall panels shelf has 51 lines, including the 10mm trims, panel adhesive and 8mm ceiling panels. SCN panels and trims carry a 10-year warranty.

Cost depends on the tiles you'd otherwise buy, but panels usually work out cheaper fitted: one panel covers 2.4 m², with no tanking, grout or tiler's day rate on top. Panelling is a confident DIY job; tiling well usually needs a tiler.

Yes — it's one of their main selling points. SCN's 10mm panels go over almost any flat, sound surface, old tiles included, which saves a day of hacking off and making good. The tiles must be:

• Firmly stuck. Re-fix or remove any that sound hollow or move, and fill the gap flush.
• Flat. Panels bridge grout lines and small dips, not a bowed wall or a proud tile. Check with a long straight edge.
• Clean and dry. Strip old silicone and soap scum so the adhesive grips. Never panel over a damp or leaking wall.
• Allowed for. Panels add 10mm plus adhesive, so check valves, brackets and the enclosure still fit; a concealed valve may need an extension kit.

Add up the widths of the walls you're covering, divide by 1000mm and round up. Then check wall by wall — an offcut only saves a panel if it's wide enough for another wall — and add a spare on a big job or where walls are out of square.

Panels are 2400mm long, enough to reach the ceiling in most UK bathrooms once the tray or bath is in. The 10mm trims come in 2.4m lengths in white, silver and (most of them) black; an internal corner trim is £11.63 in white.

• Internal corner — where two walls meet.
• External corner and L-corner — round outside corners, such as boxing-in.
• End trim — caps a raw edge, such as the front of a bath-end wall.
• H-joint — joins two edges where the tongue and groove can't be used.
• Floor and ceiling — at the bath or tray, never a trim: a small gap filled with sanitary silicone. At the ceiling, an end trim or a neat bead of silicone.

Add SCN panel adhesive at £6.78 a tube — the tube says how many panels it covers — and sanitary silicone.

1. Fit and seal the tray or bath first. Panels sit on its edge, so water running down them lands in the tray, not behind it.
2. Prepare the wall: sound, flat, clean and dry.
3. Cut panels with a fine-toothed saw, and pipe holes a few millimetres oversize with a hole saw.
4. Fit the trims and panels as the instructions describe: adhesive on the back, press each panel firmly on, and push each tongue fully into the next groove.
5. Leave a few millimetres at the tray or bath, then silicone that gap, the pipe holes and the trim edges. Let it cure for the time on the tube before showering.

With no grout there's far less for mould to grow on, but an extractor fan still stops steam marking the silicone. Rather not fit them yourself? Our supply & fit service covers Greater London.

Choose PVC panels for a quick refit over old tiles, a rental, a bathroom you need back in use tomorrow, a shower with a history of grout mould, or a job without a tiler.

Choose tiles for a particular stone or porcelain finish, a wetroom with floor and walls in one material, or the hardest-wearing surface in a busy family bathroom. Plenty of bathrooms mix the two: panels where the water hits, tiles or paint elsewhere.

Click & collect from our Chingford counter, usually ready in about an hour, or delivery anywhere in Great Britain — free over £250 ex VAT, otherwise £8.34.