Your tile size and joint width
Measure an actual tile rather than trusting the box, and measure the grout joint you are working to. These two figures give you the door size, so get them right before anything else.
Tile Access Panels
A tiled access panel lets the door vanish into your wall, faced with the same tiles and grout lines as the surround. Built with a moisture resistant board insert that takes tile adhesive, our panels are made to order to match your tile module, with hinged or lift out doors and optional fire rated construction. Configure yours to size below.
Sort by:
Ex. VAT
Inc. VAT
How a tiled access panel disappears into the wall
A tiled access panel is built the other way round from an ordinary panel. Instead of a finished door face you get a recessed tray, lined with a moisture resistant board that takes tile adhesive, and you tile that tray with the same tiles as the surrounding wall. Once grouted, the only thing that gives the panel away is the grout line around its edge, which is why setting out matters so much.
The frame is fixed into the opening before tiling starts, so the tray sits at the right depth for your tile and adhesive bed. The tiler then works across the wall and over the door as if the door were part of it. When someone needs to reach the valve, stopcock or cistern behind, the door comes away complete with its tiles and goes back afterwards with no making good.
That is what separates a tiled panel from a plastic or metal hatch in a bathroom. A hatch is a visible object on a tiled wall. A tiled panel is a section of the tiling that happens to open. In a shower room, along a kitchen splashback or in a bath panel run, that difference is usually the whole reason for the specification.
Order to the tile, not to the opening
This is the detail that catches people out. With most access panels you start from the size of the hole. With a tiled panel you start from the tile, because the door has to land on grout lines that continue across the wall. A door sized to the opening rather than to the tile module leaves you cutting slivers of tile around the edge, and the panel then reads as an obvious rectangle in the middle of the wall.
So work it out on paper first. Decide how many whole tiles the door will carry, add the grout joints between them, and that combined figure is the door size to order. The structural opening is then formed to suit the panel, rather than the panel being chosen to suit an opening that has already been cut. Where a wall is being built from scratch this is easy. Where you are retrofitting into existing tiling it is worth measuring the actual tile and joint on the wall, since fired tiles vary from their nominal size.
Because every tile module is different, these panels are made to order rather than stocked in fixed sizes. Set the tiling out, then order the panel to match it.
What to have ready before you configure
The custom tiled access panel configurator builds your panel to size. Have these five things settled before you start and the order takes a couple of minutes.
The door size you want
Work from whole tiles plus joints to a door that lands on the grout lines. Make it big enough to reach and work on whatever sits behind, since a panel too small to get a hand and a tool through has to be enlarged later.
Hinged or lift out
A hinged door stays attached to the frame, which suits a panel that is opened often or sits where a loose door would be awkward to hold. A lift out door comes away completely, which gives a clear opening to work through and keeps the edge detail simple.
Frame type
A beaded frame keys into the surrounding finish where the wall is being made good around the panel. Choose the frame to suit the state of the wall the panel is going into, not the other way round.
Whether it needs a fire rating
If the wall forms part of a fire compartment, the panel has to hold the same rating, and fire rated construction is specified when you order rather than added afterwards. Check the requirement against the specification before you configure.
Fitting, tiling and getting back in later
Fix the frame square and plumb into the opening before any tiling starts, and check it against the tile setting out one last time while there is still room to adjust it. A panel fitted a few millimetres out of line with the grid is difficult to disguise once the wall is tiled around it.
Tile the door tray with the same adhesive and the same bed thickness as the wall, so the door face finishes level with the surrounding tiles rather than proud of them or sunk behind them. Keep adhesive out of the gap between door and frame, and clear the perimeter joint before it goes off. When you grout, treat the joint around the door as a grout line like any other, but be aware that hard grout bridging door and frame has to be cut through the first time the panel is opened. Cutting that joint cleanly with a grout removal blade, then keeping it clear, is what lets the door come away without chipping a tile edge.
Once the panel is finished, tell whoever maintains the building where it is. A well made tiled panel is genuinely hard to find later, which is the point, and also the risk.
When a different panel suits the job better
A tiled panel is the right answer where the surface it sits in is tiled and the panel needs to disappear. It is not always the right answer for the rest of the building.
If the opening is in a cupboard, a loft space, a garage or anywhere the look of the hatch is not the point, a budget access panel does the same job for less money and arrives ready to fit. If the wall or ceiling forms part of a fire compartment and is not being tiled, work from the fire rated access panels range instead, where the rating, orientation and door face are set out product by product.
If your opening is an awkward shape, sits in an unusual construction or needs a combination the standard ranges do not cover, our bespoke access panels are made to your drawing. And if you are still weighing up door finishes across a whole job, choosing the right access panel walks through the options side by side.