I’m going to fit a basic new bathroom in our house. Take out the old suite, lay new plywood floor and put a new bath and ‘built in’ units with the basin and toilet. All in the same places. I’d rate myself as a competent DIYer, I’ve done all the components bits of the job in the past.

I reckon a long week, (i.e. 1 weekend, 5 weekdays then another weekend) for me on my own with a bit of help to get the bath in. The supplier, who does fitting reckons that would take me 3 weeks as it’s a difficult job’. My missis thinks we should get it fitted by them for speed, (2 blokes for 5 days) but I think they’re taking the piss to try and get the work.

What says you hive mind, (and whatever estimate you give, I’m not paying them to fit as their prices are huge) 🙂

Took me about that long when I did ours but I had to have the room replastered so it was spread out over a longer period of time. Included tiling and flooring as well plus I had to move the water supply as the taps were in a different place on the bath. Oh and we had to have the electrics for the shower replaced to a larger core.

Assuming you’re doing like for like and there’s no structural surprises I reckon you’ll be fine.

I was quite pleased with how it turned out;

Mmm. Smart. That’s the thing, there’s none of that messing about moving services to do, save a bit of reshaping to slightly different tap hieghts/positions.

Quite a useful idea with the bath, that ww. Where’d you get that and the matching screen?

I originally thought ours would take a week and it ended up taking 2. You end up wasting so much time on trips to B&Q because something doesn’t quite fit right, etc! Was done by my Dad who has a lot of experience with DIY, but we’d just bought the house and didn’t realise how many little surprises the house had in store for us!

Oh yes…. tell me about thos little bodges that take so long to put right because the previous owner couldn’t be bothered to do them right….

Is there another WC ( or bathrooom ) in the house ?

If not your putting yourself under a fair bit of pressure to get it done.

If there is Go for it, it will take at least twice as long as you think.

Oh yes…. tell me about thos little bodges that take so long to put right because the previous owner couldn’t be bothered to do them right….

The blackened cave containing an old rusty water tank that the previous owner had been too lazy to take out when they got a new boiler was a personal favourite…

Is there another WC ( or bathrooom ) in the house ?

There is.

You end up wasting so much time on trips to B&Q because something doesn’t quite fit right, etc!

We have a superb local hardware store just over the road, which speeds up that process no end. And as we’ve lived in the house for a while now, I think I’ve dealt with anything horrific in the past. *crosses fingers*

I’m having a new bathroom installed shortly, and the company fitting in are quoting 5 days. DIY would be longer I’d imagine.

Are you tiling the floor?
Add in enough time to lay tiles and let the adhesive dry before you can get back in the room and start walking around.
I laid all the whole tiles last thing in the day, leaving them overnight to dry, then fitted the suite and got it all tested before doing the fiddly bits of tiling – cutting the edge pieces and grouting afterward.
…but in that house, we only had one bathroom so had to get it all working asap!

Think it was a full weekend to strip the room, lay whole tiles and plumb in the WC, sink and bath with shower.
Another 5 days’ of evenings tiling the walls and splash-backs and a full weekend of final fiddly bits (bath side panel, light fittings, blinds, shelves etc etc).

Much longer than you imagine 🙂

It has taken us 3 weeks just to get a non faulty toilet supplied!

My estimate was just to get the thing functional again. Tiling and decoration can be done afterwards, in evenings and weekends as you say. The completely critical 🙄 consideration is that my partner and teenage daughter can perform their respective beauty regimes at the precise time and to process with no disruption

Frankly I’ll be happy giving myself a quick flannel down out of the waterbutt in the garden.

Two years ago just before Easter, my mate and I were looking at the bathroom I was going to replace. I had a quote, it was a good chunk in labour and my mate is a competent DIYer and my close circle of friends were in various trades, all in debt to me in some way.

After an afternoon of beers, we were stood staring at the bathroom, he was bemoaning that I was going to pay 1500 quid to fit something he felt we could fit in a week.

A few moments later, he picked up the club hammer we had in the hallway, went into the bathroom and smashed my sink up, before informing me we would start tomorrow.

Two weeks is what it took, two weeks of hell, I ordered the bulk of what we needed online, then moved into screwfix for the rest.

The best part of it was replacing the ceiling, forgetting to open the windows and ending up rolling around on the floor giggling from the glue fumes.

Then I smashed up the cast iron bath that was in there, and a bit went through the new ceiling, right in the middle, and I had to start again.

I called in favours from plumbers, tilers and sparkies to get the job done. Tiling took forever, had to rip out the wall, put plasterboard back up and hope it held.

Worst Easter ever. Still it cost less than expected. And there is nowt quite like watching your mate Billy the Fish gurning his face off tiling with a can of special brew in one hand and a tab hanging out his mouth.

deadlydarcy – it came from B&Q – the whole suite. I fitted a small glass panel about 25cm wide by the window (bought some channel and had the glass cut and tempered to fit) to protect the blind and keep the window sill dry.

It’s pretty good quality and still all looks good 2 years on but they struggled to deliver it – ended up with 8 items arriving via 5 separate deliveries.

I was glad I followed my own advice and didn’t take anything out until I had the replacement in my hand…

no horror stories besides the plaster falling off the wall as I removed tiles and wallpaper from before. The whole wall behind the loo and bath end is a plasterboard one – was easier to do that to run pipes and cables behind than chase them in.

^ ace Quirrel. 😀 I hope to be a little more organised than that, and having previously read your threads regarding your fondness for superstrength bevvies, I’ll be a bit less pissed too!

It took me 4 very full days to fit a bath, shower, sink, toilet, new rad, new ceiling with down lights and an extractor fan. It wasn’t a simple job as we needed a stud wall for the shower and the taps needed moving to the other side of the bath.

Another 4 or 5 days to do all the tiling and grouting.

I found the bathroom fitting pretty straightforward but I would get the tiling done by a pro if I did it again.

I’m on day 11 on mine
Was quoted £2150 by a bathroom fitter,so decided to crack on myself.
Room was plastered so I primed walls and taught myself to tile. I channeled out the walls for concealed pipework .
Fitted mosaic tiles , new rad , new floor . ( use at least 12mm ply if tiling , Mapei Keraquick and latex ) new bog ( gross/ Vom / never again) New bath , same plumbing so easy

kept sink ,but removed /cleaned and refitted .

just painting now and grouting last bits , got a drip on my shower that needs doing , and boxing in pipework at the back , plus fit a shower screen

and IM an imbecile and never done anything like this before

had to teach tiling + grouting to myself and have spent alot of 12hr days on it .

9 days if you can rope in a mate for 4 or 5 of them . Tyring to hold a heavy towel rail against a wall and draw round the mounting points one handed onto glazed tiles so no pencil lines show almost had me launching the rail out the window

I’ve got a small ensuite that I’m doing I thought it would be done my the end of Christmas (i.e about a week), it is still not done – not because it is taking ages but because I can’t be arsed. I have ridden my bike loads though. I’ve got everything plumbed in and 2/3 or the room tiled (all walls floor to ceiling) and thats taken about 5 days so far. I think I need 3 full days to finish it (but its nice weather tomorrow).

The thing that takes me the longest is the mental planning – standing in the middle of the room staring at something for 30mins whilst you work out the best way to do it. Things like where to start tiling etc. Once you get going its allright. it was much easier before the kids too, now I feel like I’m missing out if I spend a whole weekend doing DIY.

Pissed DIY is the only way to do it.

I made a feature wall in the kitchen from bright green paint, at about 3am in the morning. It looked good and green

By 8am when we had got up, it was apparent that maybe the booze had softened our vision and in fact it was patchwork green as was the kitchen table, floor, high chair and curtains.

I’m not sure weather this thread is helping or not. I’ve learned it will take between 1 weekend and 5 months, and be either dead straightforward or a nighmare in the 7th circle of hell. Glad I asked! 😆

You can get some cracking lino these days;

although the first one leads me to wonder why they’ve replaced their bidet with a washign machine.

Treble the time you think it may take and then you might be in the same ball park.

I did the bathroom myself* whilst renovating our new hour and it took ******* ages. Even the rip out took forever – I went back to bare masonry on all walls as the old tiles pulled the plasterboard off with them. Drywall adhesive is like bell metal…

I couldn’t believe how such a small room took up so much time but I was having to dot and dab all the walls and move a lot of plumbing around which it doesn’t sound like you will be doing.

I fitted the kitchen (including the flooring) much quicker than the bathroom…

*I got a tiler/bathroom fitter in to finish the job for me as I just could not face any more tiling and the window reveal looked like a pig. Best money I ever spent.

You can get a nice finish tiling if you’re a competent DIY’er it just takes a LONG time compared to the pros.

I think your initial estimate of 9 days is bang on. This should allow for the inevitable delays of incompatible fittings, pipes with access issues etc. I find that the key is to get a good start on the job, getting as much done as possible in the first two days. Then you can relax a bit knowing that you’re on top of things.
Fit isolation valves on all the pipes to every fitting, if they don’t already have one.
Very good luck to you 😀

Just wait till you are fitting that beautiful toilet and as you try and line it up you realise the soil pipe is too far away or too close to the wall and it doesn’t fit, no matter what you do, the flex pipes, tight U’s loos U’s straight pipes cutting the little bit of soil pipe down, it just doesn’t fit.

You lot are not filling me with much confidence. Last time I tiled a bathroom the last second to last action I carried out was to drop a hefty screwdriver point first into the sink, so I’m not complacent about the issues I may face.

dont worry . i just had a drip from the bottom of my concealed pipework .

If it had been from the top it would have been out with the club hammer , bolster and goggles . Fortunatly it was the isolater valve at the bottom , 15mins to mod a cone spanner to fit in the tiny gap , and 1cm of turn and its fine

use at least 12mm ply if tiling , Mapei Keraquick and latex

Actually, minimum WPB plywood for tiling is 15mm preferably 18mm. I’d use nomoreply or hardiebacker myself. Wouldn’t touch Keraquick either if I’m honest.

It’ll take exactly twice as long as you originally thought and cost twice as much. I do it for a living and some bathroom fitting still surprise me with how little thought has gone in to how you’re supposed to actually fit them, that’s before all the stuff you have to fix or modify before installing.

and proof it before laying it with a latex based proofer?

I can imagine it could easily take 3 weeks. If your are in a rush its better to get someone in, DIY and speed don’t go together well in my opinion and I’ve done quite a lot of fairly big projects in my house. There is always something unexpected in any project and I have learnt to just accept that as part of the process and I think if you already looking at time as a factor it’s not a good starting point.

Plan ahead. The local sports centre/pool showers will turn out to be very handy. If you don’t have a 2nd loo, keep a few containers handy for night emergencies when you can’t really nip round and use a neighbours loo and also plan where to dispose of the contents of such containers. Pre warn friendly neighbours that you are looking for ‘facilities’ in advance and you may get offers to use their shower etc if you are lucky.

For some reason if the loo is out of action, everyone needs to go twice as often as normal. 🙂

^ Just don’t smash the old toilet up and you can lift it in and out when you need a poo, and simply aim well down the soil pipe when peeing

We only have one bathroom/WC in our house. The neighbours provided emergency WC access if needed, the small boy was sent on holiday with his mate

Fit T&G wall panelling up to the washbasin, washbasin out and panel behind, washbasin back. Repeat process for WC, bath and shower. Pipework concealed behind the panelling where possible

I “discovered” flexible WC pan connectors (WC apparently needed to be central on its wall – a few inches off originally), shallow P-traps (free-standing bath) and hygiene traps to save time / space

Flooring contractor to lay vinyl and all serviceable bar the painting within your timescale. I consider myself reasonable at DIY, but I’d never done anything like this before

Do you lot work 4 hour days?

Me, my dad and my uncle (who’s the only one in the trade with any skills, he does Victorian house to flat conversions for a living) did my standard suite over a bank holiday weekend. It was 2 long days with a third for finishing though. Basically involved removing a plastic suite and replacing it with decent white stuff in broadly the same place, the bath was turned 180 degrees but that was easier than it could have been because the tap end was being moved back to being near the pipes. So we just cut off the copper pipe and waste pipe that was running the length of the old bath as opposed to having to route that.

Beyond that, we cheated using flexible hose connectors with built in check valves. Sure, they’re expensive compared to copper or plastic push fit and the purists might sneer, but you don’t see it and it means you can fit a flying end of the water pipe to your tap tail in literally seconds. Even if that added £40 to the build it was worth it.

Prior, I’d stripped tiles and lino tiles, my uncle rough skimmed the walls first job which dried while we removed the existing suite, good enough so I could tile the walls in the evenings of the following week. Ply over floorboards was the work of a couple of hours, I tiled that the following week too. Only difficult job was the pan, which needed an imperial to metric outlet converter or something, but he got on the phone to a few plumbers, spoke some garbled numbers and then sent me off to pick it up while he and my dad drank tea in the garden.

OK, there were three of us, to fetch and carry while the boss did the difficult stuff, but I can’t honestly see why you couldn’t go from functional to functional in 3 or 4 longish days.

It’s taken us 11 days to get from this

to this

and still quite a bit more to do

Do you lot work 4 hour days? Me, my dad and my uncle (who’s the only one in the trade with any skills …did my standard suite over a bank holiday weekend.

You do realise that 3 people doing 3 days work is 9 man days so longer than a lot of the people above? That and an uncle who is a tradesman so not all that DIY.

^ and he didn’t do it supping on ale, red wine and a couple of bottles of Jura.

Myself and gf replaced suite and tiled half bathroom in 2 days and an evening.
We replaced bath with walk in shower but otherwise nothing too complicated
Had never done anything before, lots of planning before hand and push fit connectors are your friend
And sealant!!

I’ll give you 6; him and me working hard for 2 long days plus a couple of hours of finishing off, plus a day’s worth out of my Dad. Although having him there for all 3 should strictly be 2 days off for hindrance value 😉

And a substantial amount of beer and rollups were part of the equation too. And they take time to roll.

he he – the OP is my brother and I’m a lot worse at DIY than him, but in the time honoured fashion, I’m going to stick my oar in anyway!!!!

I don’t think it’d be that tricky if you are prepared and methodical, make sure that all the fittings and positions are current standard is the key as others have mentioned (does the toilet waste fitting line up, is the sink unit the right height etc)

I did a toilet at a previous house (a properly old one with an external flush pipe connector, I’ll tell you the story about the bog theft sometime 🙂 ), and fixed the flushing mechanism in the current one; they aren’t difficult. if you can do tap joints then the sink will be as easy (if the HW and CW feeds line up then happy days)

the bath and shower is the bit that would take the longest, when you do these you could wait until school summer holidays and pack your daughter to Y&Ds house – you could find a tiler (Dave Mycock?) to do one day and break the back of the decorating

Ooh – we have leftover tile adhesive and grout, you’re welcome to have it for nowt!

if it were me (and my bobbins skills) I would plan
1 day prep
1 day for the toilet
1 day for the sink
2 for the shower/bath
decorating, whatever