Professionaly-done bath-to-shower conversion - roughly how much?

[Bert Coules]

I realise that this is one of those "how long is a piece of string" questions, but a relative has asked me, and I've really no idea...

The job is:

Remove existing bath and dispose of. Tile spaces behind bath to match (more or less) existing walls (top of bath to ceiling is dead standard 6"x6" plain ceramic tiling). Cover as much of floor beneath bath as is necessary (rest of bathroom is vinyl on concrete floor). Route existing hot (from combi) and cold (from mains) feeds to new shower control - pipes can be on surface of wall. Fit shower unit - preferable larger (longer?) than the normal 30" square (or whatever they are) self-contained modules.

I'd be grateful for any and all thoughts, however approximate.

Incidentally (and since this is a DIY group) I feel confident that I could do all of this myself, but the professional quote is what I was asked about.

[Bert Coules]

"Professionally" with two ls that should have been, of course. Shameful apologies.

[Phil L]

You do realise that there are about 20 shades of 'white'? - ergo whatever is used to 'match' up to existing tiles, won't

H&C pipes should already be behind existing bath? - can't these simply be extended?

No one can give you anything close to an estimation for this job because the shower cubicle alone could cost anywhere between £100 - £1000+

[Bert Coules]

Is it really necessary to be quite so patronising? Of course I realise that matching the existing tiles will be difficult. Hence my use of the phrase "more or less".

Yes, they can.

Well then let's see if someone helpful is willing to offer a rough pricing with a nine hundred pound leeway. That would do very nicely. My relative (and I) have no idea how long the job might take and hence how much labour cost might be involved.

Oh - I forgot to mention that the existing bath is plastic, which ought to affect any quote, wouldn't you say? Though I notice you didn't pick up on that point to be rude at me with.

[John Rumm]

So back of envelope estimate could be:

1/2 a day...

3/4 day with grouting etc

1/2 day

1/4 day

1 day

3 days for builder and mate probably...

So take that as anything from 600 - 1000 Add on a 100 for getting materials etc. Add on cost of tiles (say 100), shower enclosure and tray (500), flooring (50), Shower valve etc (150), Misc items (say 50)

so getting on for another 1000. Allow 10% contingency and you get say £2,400 (or £200 more if supplier is VAT registered).

[Bert Coules]

John,

Thanks very much for your reply, your helpfulness and your courtesy. Your approximation will be enormously useful to my relative.

[Another John]

Bert - I think you're being _way_ over-sensitive for a News group, and may be unreasonably upset.

I don't think Phil L's response was rude at all: simply short and to the point. A lot of people are like that in life, and I'm sure that if you'd been having this conversation in the pub (as opposed to via keyboard and screen) and Phil said exactly the same things, you wouldn't have taken offence.

Fortunately, John Rumm weighed in with a typical JR post as well, which redressed [your perception of] the balance.

No need to take umbrage at a brusque response like Phil L's: by Usenet standards, it was not even on the spectrum of "rude"!

Good luck with the job btw John

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

If the point of this exercise is to give an older person or someone of limited mobility somewhere easier to bathe in than a bath, then maybe a shower cubicle isn't the best solution. There are ads in magazines that old people read for shower areas that are basically waist-high gates that can open enough for very easy access to the shower tray area, perhaps with curtains above them. If there's any possibility that a carer may have to shower with the relative then you need to look at that sort of thing rather than normal cubicles. Some sort of wet-room approach might make more sense.

[Bert Coules]

It is.

Agreed, hence my reference to something larger than the norm.

That would be ideal, I think, but the practicalities are tricky, due in part to the solid concrete floor. A raised section involving a small step up would be acceptable for a shower area, but to raise the floor of the whole room would presumably entail a step in the doorway, which my relative considers too dangerous.

Thanks very much for the thoughts.

[Nick Odell]

The wet room that I know in a school building doesn't have a step in the doorway but a very shallow gradient away from the door. Designed to be used by children with physical and learning difficulties, none of them have any difficulty with it though last week one of their teachers unwittingly showered with his foot over the drainhole - with predictably hilarious consequences.

Nick

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

Bear in mind also that some or all of the work might be able to be done without VAT being payable. See:

[Bert Coules]

That's an interesting idea, though to reach the necessary height for a slope down to a drainage point above the solid concrete floor in this particular (very small) room, I suspect that the gradients would have to be prohibitively steep. Can a concrete floor be channeled into safely, I wonder? I've no idea how thick it is or how and where it's supported.

I can imag> Bear in mind also that some or all of the work might be able to be done

I didn't know that. Thanks very much.

[root]

Rather than a wetroom, how about including a seat in the shower? Not a (rather tacky) plastic chair you merely place in the cubicle, but a built-in ledge, having a hardwood seat/slats. It would mean your shower cubicle was larger than normal - but you already mentioned that possibility. If the base was maybe 3-feet square and the ledge another 18 inches deep, then the part of the shower above the ledge would measure 3 x 4.5 up to the ceiling.

[Bert Coules]

A seat has been considered, but not a built-in one: that's a good idea, thanks.

[Phil L]

I assumed 'more or less' reffered to the space that needed tiling, which we have no idea of BTW, how big is it? 5m2? 50m2?

good.

You still don't. JR said 3/4 of a day for tiling and 1/2 a day for flooring, but considering we have no idea of the sizes, these are extremely rough guesses, and flooring with what? His guestimation of 2.4k is just that, a guess, and at the end of it all, you've still got a bathroom that has been patched up - it would be cheaper to hack back to brick and start from scratch

I wasn't rude at all, you didn't supply any information at all, other than you think the tiles are white. No sizes of anything apart from a rough guess at a cubicle!! the fact that the bath is plastic has no effect on the price.

by the way, my car won't work, have you any idea how much it will cost to fix? - it's blue.

[Bert Coules]

Phil L,

I've no wish to prolong this, but I would point out that an initial response from you saying, "it's necessary to have the dimensions of the room in order to give even the vaguest of quotes" would have been far more useful and considerably more polite.

I said nothing whatsoever about the colour of the tiles! And surely the costs of removing and disposing of a cast-iron bath are going to be greater than those for a plastic one?

[Neil Williams]

Depends on your view on wetrooms. Personally, there's little I dislike more than standing on dirt or toilet paper on a wet floor - even a tiny bit makes me shudder - and wetrooms are far too difficult to keep clean in that regard. (Public swimming pools seem particularly bad for this kind of thing).

Neil

[Martin Bonner]

That's a relief. As "Another John" said elsethread, this doesn't even begin to register on a rudeness-meter properly calibrated for Usenet.

Not really. It might be a little quicker to cart out a plastic bath, but most of the time will be disconnecting the piping anyway.

[Martin Bonner]

On size: I find 900mm square (=3D=3D 3 foot) irritatingly confining. For an elderly relative, I would strongly recommend at least 900x1200 (which is still a lot smaller than a bath).

Another possibility is to consider an open sided shower - without a door. That means there is that much less to negotiate when getting in and out, and makes it easier for a carer to assist. An open sided shower does need to be bigger though (so that you don't get splashes out of the shower area), but if you are starting with a bath sized area, that shouldn't be a problem.

[Bert Coules]

That's interesting, thanks. I recall an old cast-iron bath having to be smashed in situ with a sledgehammer, which left a fair bit of peripheral damage that had to be made good.