My wife and I are doing the rounds viewing baths, wash hand basins and toilet pedestals. Now I know you get what you pay for, but what is the bottom line like? i.e. How good is a Focus 'Bay' suite? It costs £189-00 to take away. It consists of plastic bath, porcelain wash hand basin and toilet with close coupled tank. No taps or other fittings.
If I know what this bottom line means, I can understand much better what the more expensive/better items will be like.
TIA
Dave
The main decision you have to make is do you want a plastic or a steel bath? I think cheap plastic baths feel a lot flimsier than steel ones.
Owain
Hard to say for sinks and WCs other than not too "designer". For baths, the low end is usually thin and flexible, and not very deep.
When you say "Focus Bay suite" do you mean an own brand from Focus? If so, beware of buying cheapo own brand suites from DIY places. It's the loos you most likely will have a problem with as the cheap unbranded ones tend not to flush very well.
Our predecessors in our house had installed a cheap toilet downstairs and it never flushed properly once.
Go for a decent British brand like Armitage, Shires, Twyford etc. They're often not as much more as you'd think.
For a bath, I would suggest actually getting in to one in the shop. The shapes vary, and it would be annoying to fit one, and then find you don't fit in it or it's uncomfortable for some reason. For example, I found some where the sloped end was too steep, and if you wanted to soak in the bath for an hour (as I sometimes do), you'd end up with a cricked neck.
I went for a Kawaldi steel bath, which I found in a sale for under £100. Used a bog-standard B&Q Bog which works very well, although the seat that was for use with it was useless (I'm not heavy, and sitting on the closed lid bent the thing), so I took that back and bought a nice solid beech one in a sale. I wanted to get a slightly more specialist basin, as space is short in the room. So I went for an Ideal Standard short projection basin to recess into home made wall units, which has pretty much a full sized bowl, but has the tap offset to the side so the bowl can go right back to the wall. IIRC, the basin was around £80 from a plumber's merchant, and had to be ordered for next day delivery.
So for something like £240 (excluding taps), I got a simple but quality bathroom suite taylored to my requirements, albeit each item from a different manufacturer and supplier.
Just fitted one of those - it does include two sets of taps (cheap and nasty ones).
The toilet and sink are absolutely fine. If you don't like the design then fair enough, but they are definitely not 5 times worst than a designer set. The bath is on the shallow side. I may be wrong here, but it seem to be made of thicker material than the similar one that I bought from them a couple of years ago. In general the bath is also absolutely fine.
I am of the same opinion :-) Plus a plastic one will not be as durable. Our current bath is pressed steel, but we are getting conflicting advice on plastic v steel.
Dave
Thanks for that. The wash hand basin and the loo look like being from the Frontline company, as we both like a particular design. We will need two of each of these.
As for the bath, we have out eye on one from Jewsons, if we can both agree. It is plastic, but I still have reservations about it v a steel one.
Dave
We have no intention of purchasing from Focus. My post was just to get a feel for the quality of these items, so as to judge the rest.
Thanks.
Dave
Yes, I have noticed that and ruled out several baths, to my wife's disgust, for those same reasons.
Like you, I do enjoy a good soak. I sometimes fall asleep in the bath. Left foot covering the overflow, water up to the chin and right foot crossed over left knee, to maintain a geometric lock :-)
I think you have talked me into a steel bath, but do you think you can convert my opinionated wife at the same time ;-)
We didn't find anything that we liked.
IKWYM :-)
Many thanks for your input
Dave
I didn't spot that, but wife has already decided on the style of taps and they are coming from our local builders merchant. What's more, I like them as well. (normally, we disagree about virtually anything. If you were to see us out you would wonder why we were still married.) :-)
That is reassuring, even though we are not buying one.
Now that is something to look into. Our various trips around the bath sellers have shown up several baths where my wife has said, with enthusiasm 'look how deep that one is'. My thoughts have been 'how much bloody hot water will it take to fill it?)
Many thanks for you input
Dave
Regretfully I've never had one of those brands which worked properly. The cheap and nasty Texas Homecare ones however, did! Many of the Focus etc ceramic ware products are very good value and function well. However, if you look carefully, some of them (Spanish) have very poor glazing. Price is not too good an indicator for ceramic ware, but baths are nearer to "you get what you pay for".
Regards Capitol
One comment I would make is that a steel bath can be more slippery than a plastic one. If it's also your shower, this could increase the risk of slipping.
I recall being surprised to find it was a Dalton one when I got home, suspecting it would be a no-name. Although only a 6l flush and close coupled, I must say it always clears the pan perfectly. B&Q may have changed models of course.
If they have an option for a thicker one (say 8mm) then they are actually quite ridgid once installed.
The B&Q bog I used in the loft actually works very well from a flush point of view.
However, there were two design flaws which I note:
One is the lack of fixings for the cistern - you could screw the pan to the floor but not the cistern to the wall leaving the default assembly a tad wobbly (fixed that with a liberal application of silicone so as to glue it to the tiles!).
The second is more an operational issue - the water trap is sited more to the front than on many pans, with there being more of a slope to the rear face of the pan interior. So we are talking skidmark city here unless one remembers a strategic placing of a couple of sheets of loo roll on the landing zone!
Have a look at some of the BES ones... used some on a bathroom for SWMBO's aunt recently, and was pleasently supprised at the price and quality (saw the same ones in a posh online tap supply place for three times the price!)
Nothing worse than sitting there with cold bits sticking out of the water though ;-)
(I found with the one in our place the bath itself was deep enough but the overflow was sited so far down the side it halved the apparent depth. Havine also discovered that it could in fact only cope with a tenth of the delivery rate of the taps its usefulness was drawn into question! Some pipe repair type epoxy putty was duly applied to back of it and it caused little further problem!)
Mine was a different model -- it doesn't have either of these issues.
I think my one was in the "Barcelona" range...
I'd always go for a steel bath at the budget end. They are much more substantial and easier to fit. Last time I went for the Kaldewei (less than
100 quid) and it was excellent.I've never had trouble with cheap end sanitaryware. I've just bought a cloakroom set from Homebase. 143 quid, including genuine chrome waste and good quality single lever monobloc tap. It all looks just fine.
Christian.
The better seats shouldn't give you a bottom line.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.