Bathrooms create different environmental challenges to other rooms in your home. These rooms produce more moisture, humidity and condensation. These factors can all affect the materials you use to construct the room.

If you're constructing a new bathroom and need to plaster the walls, then you may be keen to use plasterboard. You know that this is a quick and effective solution.

However, you may not be sure if you can use these boards in a bathroom environment. This is doable; however, you need to choose the right products. What should you look out for?

Built-In Moisture Resistance

Some standard plasterboard products can't cope with moisture or water. If boards get damp or wet, then they start to go mouldy or to rot. Obviously, this isn't a great thing to happen inside a wall.

At some stage, you'll have to get to the plasterboard, take it out and renew it if it becomes too degraded. This is quite a big job.

Left alone to get too wet, the plasterboard will lose some of its rigidity and strength. As well as preventing it from doing its job, it may start to pass moisture into the structure of the walls of the room. You could end up with a nasty damp problem that needs fixing.

However, if you install boards that have built-in moisture resistance, then you shouldn't run into problems. These boards absorb less water and moisture. They can withstand the standard environmental variations in a bathroom—both in its walls and ceiling—so they'll stay in a good condition for longer.

Extra Anti-Fungal Properties

Regular plasterboard can also turn mouldy in a damp environment. If you use it in a bathroom, you could end up with mould on your walls and spores in the air. Breathing in mould spores isn't a good idea for anyone; it's more hazardous for people with allergies or breathing conditions.

While moisture-resistant plasterboard shouldn't grow mould itself, this doesn't mean that your bathroom will always be mould-free. Areas of water ingress or significant damp may make mould grow elsewhere inside your wall.

If you install moisture-resistant boards that also contain anti-fungal treatments, then your boards give you an extra line of defence from mould. They get extra protection, and they could also stop it from spreading.

For more advice on suitable bathroom solutions, such as products from the Gyprock plasterboard range, contact your plasterer or building contractor.