A step-by-step UK guide from prep to finish. Rip out the tiles — you don't need them. Panel a full wall in a Saturday with no grout, no trades and no mess.
Real ceramic tiles look great, but the install is a nightmare — batten out, tile, grout, seal, wait, repeat. A full bathroom takes a tiler three days and £600+ in labour before you've paid for materials. PVC panels do the same job in an afternoon, cost less than the tiles alone, and won't grow black mould in the grout lines because there are no grout lines.
Tongue-and-groove edges lock together to form a single sealed surface. Ideal behind showers, baths and wet-room walls.
No grout means no dark mould stripes, no annual re-grouting weekend, and no scrubbing between tiles.
A wide-format 1000×2400mm panel covers 2.4 m² per piece — a shower wall in four panels, not four hundred tiles.
Soap scum, limescale and fingerprints come off with warm soapy water and a soft cloth. That's it.
A 10-panel pack from PanelDeals starts at £39. That's a full wall for less than the cost of a decent tile trim.
No wet-cutter, no dust extraction, no diamond blade. A fine-tooth handsaw or utility knife is all you need. See our Cutting Guide.
PVC wall panels aren't only for bathrooms. The same waterproof, wipe-clean surface earns its keep in five different rooms — and often solves more than one problem at once.
The classic use. Panels around the shower, above the bath, or across a full wet-room wall. Popular finishes: Carrara Marble Matt for a spa look, White Gloss to reflect light, Loft Concrete for an industrial edge.
Behind kitchen worktops, sinks and prep areas. Wipe-clean, splash-resistant, and no grout for grease to sit in. Full guide: Kitchen Splashback Installation & Care Guide. See our kitchen splashback range.
Waterproof surface for behind washing machines, sinks and mop buckets. Practical, easy to clean, and looks a great deal smarter than melamine.
Yes — PVC ceiling panels are a real thing and work brilliantly in bathrooms where paint peels within a year. See our Gloss White V-Groove ceiling panel with silver strip or Ash Wood Effect ceiling panel.
Anywhere you want a hygienic wipeable surface. Popular in dog-grooming rooms, home gyms and rear boot rooms too.
Our full PVC wall panel range covers matt whites for calm bathrooms, marbles for luxury en-suites, concretes for industrial kitchens and sparkle for something bolder. Here are the most popular:
Bright, reflective, timeless. Bounces daylight around a small bathroom.
Shop White Gloss →
Softer, hides watermarks and fingerprints. A modern, understated finish.
Shop White Matt →
The signature Italian marble look — grey veining on soft white, matt finish.
Shop Carrara Marble →
High-gloss reflective marble — premium, glamorous, main-bathroom material.
Shop White Marble Gloss →
Warm cream base with gold and rust veining — luxurious, hotel-suite feel.
Shop Gold Marble →
Warm stone tones — pairs beautifully with wood, cream units and warm lighting.
Shop Beige Marble →
Raw urban concrete effect — perfect for industrial kitchens and minimalist bathrooms.
Shop Loft Concrete →
Soft grey veining on a warm neutral background — subtle, versatile, easy to live with.
Shop Grey Concrete Marble →
Glitter-effect white for those who want a bit more shimmer. A statement finish.
Shop White Sparkle →Straightforward. Most of this you already own; the rest costs less than a lunch out.
Trims are what separates a DIY finish from a professional one. They cover exposed panel edges, seal transitions between panels, and finish off internal and external corners cleanly. Every trim in our range comes in Black, White and Chrome, and in 5mm, 8mm and 10mm depths to match the panel thickness you're using.
Wraps 90° inside corners. Fits BEFORE the panel — panels slide into it.
Shop Internal Corner →
Caps 90° outside corners. Fits AFTER the panels — hides cut ends.
Shop External Corner →
Closes the exposed edge where panels end — against a window, door or wall.
Shop End Cap →
Joins two panel runs neatly along a flat wall. Useful for run > 2.4m.
Shop Joint Bar →
Softens the ceiling-to-wall joint with a rounded transition. Fits at the top of the panels.
Shop Coving →Panels stick to whatever's beneath them. If that surface is greasy, damp or lumpy, the panel will fail eventually. Twenty minutes of prep saves you re-doing the wall in two years.
Wipe the wall down with sugar soap solution to remove grease, dust and old cleaning-product residue. Rinse with clean water. Let it dry completely before you go any further — grab adhesive doesn't bond to a damp surface.
Panels can hide small bumps and dips (up to about 3mm) but can't fix a bowed wall. Run a spirit level or long piece of timber across the wall — if you see gaps larger than a pound coin, fill the low spots with filler and sand back flat. Anything major (rendered walls out of true, bulges from old plaster) needs to be resolved first, or the panels won't sit flush and the seams will gap.
PVC is waterproof, which means moisture trapped BEHIND the panel has nowhere to go. Damp becomes black mould, black mould rots wall boards, wall boards fail. Fix the source of any damp (plumbing leak, cold-bridge condensation, missing dpc) and let the wall dry fully — a moisture meter reading below 15% is the safe threshold — before you fit anything.
Take off shelves, brackets, towel rails, radiator escutcheons and light-switch faceplates. Turn off the electricity at the consumer unit before touching any socket or switch. If you're not confident, get a qualified electrician to isolate the circuits. Radiators can be shifted forward on their brackets a few centimetres in most cases without draining down, which is enough clearance to panel behind them.
This is the sequence we recommend for a single-wall install (up to 4 panels). Adapt for larger jobs, but the principles hold.
Before any glue, hold the first panel against the wall in position — check it hits the ceiling and the floor cleanly, check nothing behind it (pipes, wiring) sits proud, check the trim/corner it needs to meet lines up. Adjust the trim position if needed.
Internal corner trims (where two walls meet at 90° internally) go on FIRST. Cut to length, apply a bead of grab adhesive to the back, press into the corner, hold for 30 seconds. The panels will slide into these on the next step.
Even if the walls look square, they rarely are. Using a spirit level, mark a vertical plumb line where the outside edge of the first panel will sit. Every subsequent panel takes its cue from this line — get panel #1 perfectly vertical and the rest fall into place.
Measure floor-to-ceiling and subtract 3–5mm (allows for movement, easier fit). Cut with a fine-tooth handsaw, face-up, apply masking tape along the cut line to protect the finish. Full technique: Cutting Guide.
Grab adhesive goes on the BACK of the panel, in a zigzag "S" pattern with vertical beads every 15–20cm. Don't cover the whole back — solid coverage traps air and pushes the panel proud in patches. Aim for 60–70% coverage.
Slide the tongue edge into the internal corner trim (or against the plumb line). Press firmly across the whole panel with the flat of your hand — top, middle, bottom. Check plumb again with the spirit level. Hold in position for 60 seconds while the adhesive grabs. Move on to the next panel — slide its tongue into the groove of the previous panel, repeat.
The final panel usually needs cutting to width. Measure the remaining gap, subtract 3mm, cut with a fine-tooth saw or jigsaw. Slide the tongue in, and cap the exposed cut edge with an end cap trim or an external corner trim — whichever the wall needs.
Measure the socket back-box position from a known edge, transfer marks to the panel. Drill a starter hole in each corner of the cutout with a 5mm drill bit, then use a jigsaw or padsaw to cut between the holes. Test-fit before applying adhesive — you can sand slightly larger, but you can't fill an oversized hole.
Use a hole saw sized to the pipe diameter plus 3mm (for movement). Mark the pipe centre carefully — measure from two edges to avoid drift — and cut through slowly. If the pipe is against a wall, use a jigsaw to make a slit from the panel edge to the hole so the panel can slot around it.
External corners (a wall projecting outward) get the external corner trim AFTER the panels are up. Both panels butt into the corner, the trim caps over the exposed edges.
Panels can be cut around window and door reveals. Cut the panel to length, then measure and cut the notch for the reveal. Use end cap trims to finish the exposed edges where the panel meets the reveal.
For walls longer than 2400mm — the height of a single panel run — use a joint bar trim to join two rows or two panels side-to-side neatly.
Panels lock together tightly, but the joints between panels and worktops, baths, showers, floors and ceilings still need a bead of silicone. This is what makes the installation genuinely waterproof at the wall boundaries.
PVC panels are one of the lowest-maintenance surfaces you can put on a bathroom wall. A quick wipe once a week is all that's normally needed.
"Eyeballing" the first panel guarantees the last one leans. 60 seconds with a spirit level saves hours of frustration.
The mould that appears in 6 months is because the wall wasn't dry when you fitted. Meter it, wait, then panel.
More glue is not better — it traps air and pushes the panel out. Serpentine beads only.
A 5mm trim on a 10mm panel leaves a step. Order trims to match your panel thickness — 5, 8 or 10mm.
Standard translucent silicone yellows over time. Use white with whites, clear with marbles, grey with concretes.
Silicone needs 24 hours to cure. Turn the shower on before that and water gets behind the seal.
Yes — as long as the tiles are clean, degreased, firmly bonded (no loose or hollow tiles), and level enough. Fill grout lines deeper than 3mm with filler for a flat bed. This is one of the biggest reasons people choose panels — no need to hack the tiles off.
A single wet-wall (behind a shower or bath) is typically 3–4 hours from start to sealant. A full four-wall bathroom is a weekend for a competent DIYer — day one prep and panel, day two trims and sealant.
Fix the bracket through the panel into the wall structure behind — never into the panel alone. Panels are decorative, not structural. Plan bracket positions before you fix the panels and mark them, then drill through when the adhesive has cured.
5mm for kitchens and dry walls where impact is minimal. 8mm for general bathrooms. 10mm for wet rooms, shower cubicles and heavy-use areas — more rigid, more impact resistant.
Only if a heat-resistant glass barrier is fitted between the panel and the hob. PVC is comfortable up to 60°C but will warp or discolour with direct hob heat. See the Kitchen Splashback Guide for full guidance.
Yes, slightly — panels from different production batches can vary in shade. Always order everything you need in a single order to guarantee a colour match.
Yes — order our free sample pack. Delivered free to UK addresses.
Free UK delivery on all panels · Free samples · Free help from the team on 020 4634 5400
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