Is the GKBI plate always green?

Hello everyone,

our interior carpenter wants to tell me that he installed GKBI boards in the bathroom. However, these are (strangely) not green. Is that strange or are there actually non-green GKBI boards?

He is having trouble providing the certificate. And I don't want to take the boards off the wall right now because he says the designation would be behind them....

Thank you

We have green ones in the bathroom and gray ones in other places in the house (e.g. niches in the living room, suspended ceiling areas). I believe the green ones are impregnated against moisture and therefore more suitable for use in wet rooms.

In my opinion, the bathroom is technically not even considered a wet room, as there is no persistent moisture. Additionally, there are other seals.

Nevertheless, I would also prefer the green ones ....

The term damp room is not defined in any standard, therefore there are different definitions. At Knauf, the green boards (GKBI according to DIN 18180 /H2) are referred to as being for domestic damp rooms in the product information, meaning kitchens, showers, and bathrooms. Therefore, it is best to install the green GK boards in these rooms, and to my knowledge, this is also the standard construction method. It may be possible to use the regular ones with additional impregnation, but this should be assessed by a professional. Alternatively, gypsum fiberboards can be used without further impregnation (e.g., Fermacell); they are more stable and heavier and offer good fire protection properties. For my renovation, I will probably use only these gypsum fiberboards.

Caution, a shower is a wet room!!!

Wet rooms and WET CELLS are to be distinguished, a shower, for example, is clearly a wet cell and must be constructed as such. Officially, no wet room boards may be installed there anymore (even the latex coating you can apply doesn’t help) but instead, for example, a cement-bonded board (Aquapanel or Powerpanel H2O) must be installed...
What you do at home is of course your own business again, I myself installed GKBI a few years ago with Lugato shower sealant, but honestly I wouldn’t bet 100% on it

The designation of the GKBI boards depends on the manufacturer, some also have the boards in gray but with green lettering (fire protection boards, for example, are not red but usually have red lettering)