Bathroom suite

[^^tHe^MiXeR^^]

How hard would it be for a newbe DIYer like my self, to replace our sink, bath and toilet. Just a basic setup.

[Stuart]

It's a scoosh . Believe me . Stuart

[The Natural Philosopher]

I assume that is basin bath and toilet.

Bloody hard work the first time.

You have to identify how to kill the water, rip all the old stuff out (thats not too bad) then get the new bits obnly to find they on';t lne up with existing pipes, so its time to learn PLUMMBING which takes a day orthree to get right.

Mounting everythng is non trivail if you want it firm, because there is never a solid bit to screw into where you want it.

Then when its all in the walls and floort look like a bomb has hit, so its making good re-tiling and flooring etc etc.

My first one took me almost a month, and I ended up with pleurisy from too much dust inhalation and doing it with a cold coming on...

I have to say I did a lot of tiling and carpentry to case the bath in and have a place to prop my elbows on the bog tho.

I've got three bathrooms to finsih here, now. One needs a little skimming tiling and painting and furniture - I estimate about a week for that. Another one needs the same plus carpentry, 2 weeks. The third needs everything. I estimate 6 weeks for that.

Itsd esasier to rip EVERYTHING out and put in new plumbing usually by the way, and case up pipes afterwards.

[Ben Blaukopf]

Doable.

I've just done my bathroom sink, having done a fair bit of plumbing previously on my radiators and stuff. Here's my take on it.

I cut the old pipes at a convenient place (not too far back!), and added isolation valves, so I could turn the water straight back on. Endcaps would have done just as well.

The sink I put in was mounted in a cabinet, and the pipes ran in from the side. So I had to work out precisely where to cut the cabinet to get the pipes.

The tap (monobloc) came with flexible tails, so I screwed them in and mounted the tap on the sink. Then I offered the sink up to the cabinet and worked out where the pipes needed to run.

Now I knew how the pipe was running, I cut the pipe back again, cleaned it up, connected some new pipe with a pushfit joint (first time using those, and they'd be great for you if you've done no plumbing before, make sure you deburr the pipe though), and stuck the isolation valve (with a new olive, buy a pack of spares, you'll need them) on the other end. Make sure you fit the isolation valves the right way round, they have an arrow (the first I ever did I got it wrong...). When making the compression joint, I used ptfe tape. I tighten the nut as far as I can with my fingers, then finish off with a spanner. The books all say go one turn further - I don't find I need to go that far, but getting it tight enough

*does need force*.

Then I screwed the flexible tails onto the other side of the isolation valve, again using ptfe tap.

Connecting the waste is a doddle - the only thing you need to know is that compression joints will fit anything, so just get them.

Plumbing it in took me maybe an hour and a half - assembling the cabinet, drilling holes, and removing the old sink and it's surround was a lot longer!

The plumbing work was basically easy, but if you don't have flexible tap connectors, then the difficulty would go up a notch.

About to do our toilet, which I suspect will be slightly tricker, but only because everything's heavier, and I can't stick a subtle bend in soil pipe if I need to correct something.

If you want to practice your plumbing, then buy a washing machine tap, and connect this to some pipe and a stop end. Use a washing machine hose to connect this to your existing w/m suppy, and see if it leaks.

Ben

[Dave Plowman]

Well, it will require just about every DIY skill there is - plumbing obviously, plaster repair, probably some carpentry, tiling, and decoration. Maybe even some electrics. And unless you have a second bathroom, you can't really take your time with it.

[ANt]

Add a week for finding a spanner/sprocket/plier that'll successfully reach up behing the bath in the 3 microns of space between the bath and wall in order to tighten the useless plastic nuts they supply with the new taps that just about DONT fit a normal wrench and you can only turn them 0.5 degrees with each attempt.

Then a couple of days to paint the ceiling below after you've dripped water from the waste pipe because it was slightly too short after refitting/replacing the bath, but not short enough to warrant replumbing completely and would fit under a bit of stress :-)

Ant.

[PoP]

I'm just doing one. And I thought it would be a doddle. Oh boy. Talk about teaching an old dog new tricks!

It always looks easier than it actually is. I guess if you were doing bathrooms every day you'd be laughing, but if it is an extension of your skills I would caution you to watch out - it will probably take 3 times as long as your worst estimate and you will have overlooked several things.

PoP

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[Michael Chare]

Another problem comes when the toilet won't line up with the soil pipe.

Try and think out how you are going to do each bit of the job and make plans for dealing with any problems you can forsee.

Plumbing is not particularly difficult, in that you dont nead a lot of practice to do it right. Usually you can correct any mistakes (leaks). You will need the right tools though.

If you get stuck you can always get in a plumber. Plastering more than about a square foot is the one job I avoid.

Michael Chare

[Simon Avery]

Hello ^^tHe^MiXeR^^

It depends. In my case, what started out as a straightforward replacement has currently included replastering a wall, re-rendering holes in two outside walls, replacing ALL hot and cold water internal piping, wiring in four extra lights and two sockets, replacing half a floor and two joists.

And I haven't, yet, got to the "removing old suite" stage. Ordering suite today.

The trouble with this sort of thing is finding out scary things that were safely hidden underneath the floor. Ok, so the leaking hot water pipes would eventually have made their presence noticed even if I hadn't been poking around down there, so it's hopefully preventing work that needs to be done later on.

A straightforward swap of like-for-like can be very simple. Turn off water, unbolt taps and waste. Remove old. Install new. Re-attach taps and waste. Wave some siicone around.

[PoP]

That was the mistake I made. "Yes sir, that'll be simple changing the bath, pedestal unit and bog with like for like". Like for dislike more like ;)

I allocated 5 days to the job. Just finished day 9 today, back again tomorrow to do some more tiling. I reckon another 2-3 days after that to finish the odds and sods. So about 12 days in all. I can put a couple of days down to my not having the right bits and pieces in the car at the right stage, so I had to redo a little bit of the work.

Good experience of a number of trades though. I don't think I'll be volunteering for any more complete bathrooms in the near future..... :)

PoP

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[<Barbara]

"Simon Avery" wrote

It's the "like for like" that's worrying me.

My flat is only 15 years old, but came with a grey bathroom suite. I want to replace it with a white suite. I'm perfectly happy for the design to match that of the old items which - apart from their naff colour - are smart and contemporary. Easier said than done.

- Cisterns, for example, are generally narrower these days, so I'll probably need to replace to tiling so that there isn't a nasty gap. Oh well, I didn't like their colour much either.

- I'm currently bogged down in the complexity of measurements to ensure that the water and waste fittings of the new match the position of the fittings of the old, so there's no pipe moving necessary. But there aren't many matches.

- Pipes have been boxed in, reducing access space so that it's virtually impossible to reach under the bath to unbolt anything. The boxing will have to be removed in order for the work to be done.

And so on. Sigh.

Barbara