Rough cost for a fitted bathroom

[Simon Finnigan]

Hi all, I`m looking at getting a bathroom redone in the house. The room is roughly

2m x 2m, and already has the electricity and water in, as well as the waste pipes out. I`m not good at this level of DIY, so i`d be looking at getting a company in to do the entire job - strip out the old one, fit all the new stuff and leave me with a nice, fully working bathroom. I`m after a rough idea of the labour costs involved in this, to figure out how much money will be needed. We want a decent bathroom suite, a nice shower (but no bath), sink and toilet.

Any help will be gratefully received!

[cerberus]

We're having ours done at the moment (same spec as yours), which also includes removing a wall to combine the loo & bathroom into one. = £2087, they are small independent builders & they have done other work for us before.

Don.

Mind you

[Dave Gordon]

2m x 2m, and already

good at this level of

out the old one, fit

after a rough idea of the

We want a decent

removing a wall to

builders & they have done

We had two bathrooms done at the same time (trying to keep one working at all times), but the price was skewed by a number of factors like whirlpool bath. The biggest factor on cost for us was tiles. We were fed up trying to redecorate bathrooms, and wallpaper always peels, so we had all the walls tiled floor to ceiling. This turned out to be the biggest cost item by a long way. Was 8 years ago, so not going to tell you how much it all cost. Just beware.

Other things I learned:

1. DO NOT take one of those "say yes now and get a discount" deals. You can ALWAYS get a cheaper quote.
2. Beware a salesman who requires an evening appointment and requires both husband and wife to be present.
3. Beware a company who don't have an office you can go visit to have their trousers down if it all goes pear-shaped.
4. Beware of a salesman who, on being told "no thanks" (or even "thanks we'll add your quote to the list"), gets his area manager on the phone to talk to you, to give you a special deal that you must say "yes" to that day. Not trustworthy, and a reputable company will not need to do it.
5. Get phone numbers of previous customers, to phone and ask about their experience. Not just the use fo the shower, but the fitting.
6. Get familiar with what your fitter will do. If you don't want plain plasterboard behind the shower tiles (trust me, you don't), then know this and tell the guy beforehand, and make sure he does it the way you want. (Water will always get behind the tiles after 10-15 years, and plasterboard turns to blancmange when it is wet. No reputable fitter uses anything other than cementatious board or marine ply (or a brick wall) to back tiles in a shower)
7. Get a power shower, but don't bury the power shower unit where you can't reach it. Make it accessible or use one of those exterior units (i.e. on the wall in the shower). Their life is only

5-10 years, so make it easy to replace without having to rip walls out.

1. Get it clearly specified what the company will do and what service they will provide. Ours promised a project manager to visit the site twice a week to ensure the fitter was doing a good job (most fitters are not paid a lot). After 3 weeks of no-show, we discovered he was on holiday in Barbados.
2. Powered ventilation is important. So is anti-fungal grout and anti-fungal sealant. Check thats what they are actually using (NOT what they say they will use).
3. Stupid, but make sure they actually glue the drain pipes together before boxing in the shower tray. Actually this was one of the faults with the shower we replaced. The other was No. 6. Woke up to find tiles and blancmange piled up in the shower tray and a bare stud wall showing. Later that day I also discovered my tiles were imperial sizes and the tiling industry had gone metric...

[Simon Finnigan]

Thanks for the tips. I went into B&Q today on my break to ask the question, and got an answer of between £3k and £6k, depending on exactly what I want doing. I`m sure I can improve on this price range and still get the quality I want, so time to get doing some research.

Any suggestions for the types of company to go for to get a good job done for a good price? Dolphin etc will charge far too much, but I don`t want Paddy & Mick turning up with a sledge hammer and a tube of superglue either. We`re also looking at getting the central heating done at the same time - reckon it`s worth trying to find a company that does both and work for a betterquote for all the work, or keep it seperate?

[fullflow plumbing]

Keep them separate, most CORGI blokes won`t want to do a "complete" bathroom with all the tiling etc etc as they can earn more money by moving to a different job and concentrating on gas work/boiler fits. By all means ask but you have more choice with who fits your bathroom as they don`t need the gas qualifications.

Make sure Mr Bathroom fitter issues you with a Part P certificate for any electrical works that he does - check he`ll either self cert or employ a registered sparky before giving him the job.

Richard

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[Simon Finnigan]

The electrical work will most likely be fairly minor, but I`ll get that cert - g/f is a conveyancing solicitor in training, so she knows the paperwork that`s needed :-)

I`ve been thinking, and would really like to have a heated fan in the bathroom, blowing down. Partly to save myself the effort of drying fully with a towel, and partly because when I wake up for an early shift at 4AM I`d like to be able to get the bathroom nice and warm without cooking things in other rooms by turning the C/H up. Is this something that could be installed for sensible money in a bathroom, or am I asking too much?

[Andrew Gabriel]

You want a downflow fan heater with a pullcord. I think they're excellent in a bathroom. I always install one. It will need a fused switched spur from a ring circuit. One thing I have noticed is they're all crap quality nowadays, nothing like the quality of ones available 20 years ago. With daily use, the integral pull-cord switches last about 2 years.

[Simon Finnigan]

Thanks for letting me know what I want, it`s a lot less embarrassing giving a builder etc a name, rather than asking him for "one of those fan things that you stick on a wall, pull a toggle and it blows hot air out" :-)