What material / board should we use to close off the door?

[ivanptr]

Hi everyone,

Our plumber inspected and provided quotes for the job of converting our laundry room into a toliet.

Basically we want to install a toliet and close off the door.

Due to a lack of experience, when the plumber asked us "how do you want to close off the door? because the brick cannot be found easily." We dont know what are the alternatives and just said then use "boards". Very ambiguous.

So the job description in the quote we received :
-The removal of back door, framing out and sheeting in laundry.
-The installation of new P trap china toilet with water and waste connection to sewer and water line at back of house.
-The tiling of skirt tiles behind toilet.
-The achitraving around blue board where connected to blockwork. (Owners to paint external blue board section.)

What cost effective and weatherproof board should we consider and tell our plumber to use? 

Thank you for any suggestion

[JDE]

Ivanpt

Just a suggestion outside the box. You could just permanently seal the door, remove inside trim and bog or resheet the inside. From outside it wouldn't look any different. No matter what you do if you can't match the outside bricks it will be obvious that a reno has been done. Our house has feature sections of fibro weatherboard (stronger and less prone to damage than straight villa board   JDE

[ivanptr]

@JDE 
Thanks a lot for the brilliant idea, we could seal the door , but we still need to put a board to cover it

we can paint so we dont mind material mismatch with the brick

but we want something that can be stronger and more durable against bad weather.

Can fibro weatherboard have a flat smooth surface without cladding?  

[JDE]

By can fibro weatherboard have a smooth surface, if you mean no texture yes, if you mean no overlap no. There are profiles that appear flatter with a shadow line. Just a question if you were to silicon between the door and frame and door and floor and leave gauze door in place would it not be totally sealed and better sealed than it has been since the house was built? Just a thought JDE

[MitchellMc]

Hi @ivanptr,

It's great to see you've been receiving some helpful advice from @JDE.

To clarify, the blue board mentioned in the quote is a generic name for an exterior cladding sheet such as Hardietex. It's a cement sheet that is blue in colour and will give you a flat (slightly textured) panel that you can paint over. We have Hume Prima Blueboard.

You might wish to check with your local brickyards for a matching brick or get a quote from a builder for enclosing the doorway. I'm not entirely convinced that brick style would be hard to find. It's pretty generic and has been used extensively on many houses over the past 30 years. Ultimately, bricking up the doorway will be the most professional approach, and a builder shouldn't have any difficulty doing this.

Mitchell