Help - bathroom fitting information needed!?

[al]

Was planning on getting our bathroom refitted late this spring, but Homebase have a sale on this Thursday/Friday that includes a few half price bathroom suites. Obviously, I can make up my own mind on what I like the look of and what will fit. However, AFAIK, Homebase also arrange for the fitting if you want them to. Not sure if this would be covered in their sale, but it it was, it could be an attractive option. Two questions:

1) Has anyone here had Homebase fit a bathroom for them - are they any good?

2) How much should it cost roughly (details below)?

The bathroom is 1780 x 1830mm. There is a standard bath in there taking up about a third of the room behind the door, with the toilet and basin beside each other opposite. Not planning on moving anything as there isn't enough space to play with! Carpeted at the moment and has hideous green/white tiling covering the walls. Would like to replace carpet with large stone floor tiles and either re-tile or tile over the wall (either half way or full way tiling). Current tiles are quite sound, if a little "curved" in places.

Aside from that, I will be buying an electric shower (not sure if Homebase will install that as part of it or not) so any recommendations on that would be welcome and also how much I should expect to pay to have it fitted.

a

[Christian McArdle]

I would only install an electric shower if your house does not have a hot water system, or it would be too difficult to plumb hot water supplies to the room.

What sort of hot water system do you have? Perhaps we could recommend an alternative.

Christian.

[none none]

AFAIK none of the big boys emply their own fitters, inc. B&Q, Homebase, MFI, etc. They merely sub-contract the work, although they are your port of call should things go wrong (which is good). I have two joiners friends who fit kitchen/bedrooms for MFI and B&Q. As a guide, when MFI charge you £1000 for fitting a kitchen, they get around £700 for their efforts (2 day work for 2 people), and the rest goes to MFI.

[al]

The house has normal central heating for hot water + radiators. The current, bath fed shower (proper tap based one, not a push-on rubber hose) is too feeble though. To use it I have to turn the hot water all the way one, then put about a quarter turn or less of cold water. If the hot water is on in the shower and the hot water is used in the basin, the shower hot water stops. It just doesn't deliver a high enough volume of water to soak you satisfactorily.

My in-laws have a power shower that sucks their immersion tank cold in about

10 mins, so I'm not too keen on them. My parents have an electric one (ie. pull-cord then instant hot water from cold feed) which gives reasonable (if not gym/hotel deluge levels!) umph to the water coming through it.

Open to any suggestions - I just want to have a good volume of water land on me in the morning! Not having to worry about central heating warming up a tank first would be a bonus.

a

[Christian McArdle]

Well, it sounds like you might have a mains cold supply. If so, a venturi based shower might be ideal for you. The flow rate is not quite as good as a power shower (which probably appeals to you!), but it will be much better than the feeble electric shower. It also means the water is heated by gas at a fraction of the running costs of electric. So you save running costs, installation costs AND get a much better flow.

If you don't have a mains cold supply to the bathroom, then a twin impellor pump might be worth having. This will also benefit bath filling. The final other alternative is an all-in-one power shower which consists of a single impellor pump after an internal mixer. If you choose a shower with a flow control, you don't have to have the full deluge, but you'll still save loadsa money on water heating and it will be easier to install, as the electricity can come off a nearby ring main (via a 30mA RCD FCU if necessary). It doesn't require a 10mm cable run specially for it like an electric shower.

Remember that the electric shower basically requires a mains cold supply too. So if you don't have one handy, the installation issues for it are even greater.

Try setting the timer to heat the tank for you! In fact, running it close to

24h a day (or off from 23:00-5:00) isn't a bad idea on a modern insulated tank. The temperature drop during the course of a day isn't sufficient to make not doing so much more efficient.

Christian.

[PoP]

So £175 each per day? About £22 per hour? That's not too bad a rate IMHO, depending on their skills etc.

But things like travel time could be a problem.

PoP

If you really must use the email address provided with my newsreader please be aware that the email is processed with spamcop. As a result your email to me might be treated as spam!

[al]

Interesting rates. You think it's about a 2 day job for a bathroom too? Needs a plumber, an electrician and a tiler ... which I suppose is similar to a kitchen!

a

[al]

The current bath has hot water from the boiler and cold water from the attic storage tank. However there is mains water into the bathroom for the cold tap in the sink, so it probably wouldn't be a huge job to pull that across. I've had a look at venturi design at this URL:

understand how it works in principle, but remain slightly sceptical ...

What's the difference between twin and single impellor pumps? Or more to the point, what's the reason for either? The only reason to not go for a power shower for me is that it will run out the hot water too quickly. The electric shower my parents has is just a cord pull to heat the water it produces, which surprisingly comes out at a reasonable rate.

There's a lot of loss through the pipes in our house (1935 vintage) - some touch floorboards and heat the floor! Nice in the winter, pain in the arse during the summer! Leaving it running all day I think would be wasteful as I'm only awake/there for about 7 hours a day!

a

[Christian McArdle]

I've never used one. However, my understanding is that they do work.

A twin impellor pump pressurises both hot and cold gravity supplies. A single impellor pump can either pump a single hot water supply (as you are using mains cold, which needs no pumping) or can pump the outlet of a flush mixer valve before it gets to the hose/head.

Provided you have a cylinder thermostat with a large hysteresis, the primary circuit will not be hot for long periods of the day. You will easily still save money over an electric shower in energy efficiency. Also, it shouldn't be difficult to lift a couple of floorboards and stick a thin layer of insulation on the pipes if the heat bothers you.

Then time it to run from 1 hour before you are there/awake until 1 hour after. You should never run out then.

Christian.

[al]

Well, we currently don't use mains cold, but as it goes to the basin I presume it wouldn't be too difficult a job to branch it off to the bath/shower too.

Isn't the idea of an electric shower that it saves money by only heating up what you need? I think the powerful ones are about 10.5kW ... does that sound right?

I do and I currently don't (run out that is!). It's enough for 4 people in the course of an hour to all have hot water. My only experience of a power shower is at the in-laws, where it sucks the hot tank dry in about 10-15mins ... which is crap!

a

[Christian McArdle]

Yes, the electric shower will be more efficient at point of use, as there isn't any hot storage for the heat to leak away from. However, electricity costs many times the cost of gas, so the small leakage you get is insignificant.

Well, a cylinder and boiler should be easily capable of beating 10kW continuously. A modern modulating boiler with reasonable modern cylinder could run at 20kW or more continuously and never run out.

If you just choose a shower or pump with variable flow and turn it down rather than having a gusher, you won't run out. Obviously, ensure that the hot water is turned on at the programmer.

Christian.