Problem was although it had the proper Grohe metal frame there was nothing to secure that frame to (apart from the floor). I don't actually know what wooden frame was built as by the time I got home from work it was all boxed in but I was assured it was rock solid - turned out not too be 🙁 It only flexes slightly but obviously tiles don't like that - I think it's stabilised (as in won't flex further than it has already) but have still left a wedge underneath it just in case
Fuzzy wuzzy I've fallen foul of fancy toilets in the past! Built in cistern that had been tiled with no access point so when it broke it was a nightmare and ended up with a whole new standard toilet.
I have 2 pieces of relevant advice:
1. We had a humidistat extractor fan that was rubbish - I had to adjust it depending on the weather and season - however it was a cold and poorly insulated bathroom at the back of a tenement flat so did not behave the same as the rest of the house.
2. We had to have a shower over bath in that flat so spec'd a fantastic bath - a Carron one like this
It was fantastic and you really appreciate the squared-out are for standing in when showering. Only downside is that it's a slightly bigger volume to fill for a bath.
The supplier you linked to has many similar models
https://www.ergonomicdesigns.co.uk/shower-baths/rectangular-shower-baths.html
Update. The "top end" bathroom fitting is dragging on rather. Been here 3 weeks. Whole house filled with dust. Came back oneday to find they had laid the floor and it was shocking. Irregular spacing and tiles not level. Redone that. Not totally perfect but not far off. Floor is now an inch higher than the adjacent room.
Now they've mostly tiled the walls I've noticed a few small chips at the edges of some tiles and not all the tiles are completely flat to each other. Apparently it's a difficult job because the walls aren't flat. They ripped the walls back to bare breeze blocks then stuck big black panels about a centermeter or so thick on. These weren't perfectly flat to each other (should they be?) then they are tiling on to that. In places the tiles are out much further than the original tiles such as proud of the original door frame. They said they will fit beeding?
Also the bath was put in 1st then the black panels then the tiles so the gap behind the bath tap to the tiles is only a few mms and there is not much space left on the edge of the bath where it meets the wall. Is that normal practice? How on earth they will seal behind i don't know!
I suppose I'm wondering what level of perfection re tiling i can expect if my walls are wonky and whether to just ignore the minor defects or do we get them to redo or ask for money off as they are already running late and I'm pretty sick of having them in the house now 😞
Double post
Pretty much everything about that sounds poor, especially if you are paying "top end".
If they’ve reboarded into the block work then there’s no excuse for bad tiling. I certainly wouldn’t accept any chips, lipping is just poor work.
The floor sounds like they overtiled again, unless you have underfloor heating?
The board should be down behind the bath edges also, so you can get a good silicone seal before tiling.
I’m afraid it doesn’t read like “a top quality job”. Having said that 2-3 weeks is normal for a bathroom if plenty of work and changes are involved.
I think it's already been said but that price for a 1.5x2.5m room with no tiles or furniture seems exceptionally spendy to me, given a) I've fitted bathrooms before and b) I'm used to St Andrews prices. And then the snagging list you appear to be accumulating...?
I think you probably know by now that this is not £9k of 'top quality' workmanship. The decision now is do you try to get them to make good or kick them off the job and get someone else in to finish properly, and bear in mind the 'sunk cost fallacy' when you make that decision.
What was on the walls and floor before? My floor was carpet before (ick) and switching to underfloor heating + quality tiles raised the floor a few mm but they just trimmed the bottom of the door and used a slightly ramped thing (that goes under the door, forgot the name). An inch higher is a crazy amount and does sound like they've just tiled on top of what was there already (although even that wouldn't add an inch unless you using crazy thick tiles).
I actually ended up a bit disappointed with my floor tiling (the walls were done perfectly) in that after a few weeks a couple of them started to move slightly and grout started to come out. Not sure if it was because it wasn't properly laid or if the backing wasn't done properly or maybe if the underfloor heating wasn't done right but it's more a mild annoyance than anything.
I wouldn't have accepted chipped tiles though and sticking out from the door frame would have been a bit jarring but I guess beading (done well) might make it less obvious.
Mine took 3-4 weeks from start to finish (had a slight delay in middle do to the hanging toilet issue), they laid out all floor protection etc. and made an effort to contain the dust although I did pop home from lunch one day to find the tiler trimming tiles in the bathroom (which didn't have the door on at the time). He apologised and moved to doing it outside and they hoovered the house a bit but I still had to do a decent amount of dusting after. I wouldn't have been happy if they'd have thought making a big mess was just part of the job and something to accept.
what I thought were stud walls were actually just 3 sheets of plasterboard bonded to each other
Not really that shonky, just used at lot less than timber and plasterboard.
I've only seen it used once in all my years in construction!
If they’ve reboarded into the block work then there’s no excuse for bad tiling.
Yeah, it's their job to achieve a level surface for tiling, are your breeze blocks really that wonky or is there another reason?
I would also be unhappy with the way they've boarded onto the bath.
The extra inch on your floor - sounds ridiculous, and will get old after you've stubbed your toe for the umpteenth time. Have they laid thick ply just on top of the boards or something?
They took up the original floor tiles which were perfectly flat. Put down some sort of yellow matting then there's a big wedge of grey cement type stuff then our half cm thick tiles we chose. Definitely boarded around the bath. The original wall tiles were lovely and flat so tbh i think they are full of shit. We've only paid 4k so far and that included about 1.5k for some outdoor work they've done (pointing etc)
Sounds like a proper rubbish job I'm afraid.
Re the floor, it's amazing how quickly a height difference can build up, but to be honest I'd never tile a bathroom floor now as they can be cold (unless heated ££) and can move leading to grout cracking, etc.
We re-did our [2.5 x 4m] en-suite a few years ago and went with LVT which is warm underfoot, looks great and very hardwearing. As it just needs to be laid on 10mm ply (or is it 12mm?) it only adds about 15mm to the height of the floorboards.
but to be honest I’d never tile a bathroom floor now
I'd go further and say I'm never tiling anything ever again. Vinyl for floors, shower wall panels for the walls. Better finish, easier to fit, easier to keep clean, easier to remove if you decide to remodel.
Yes it does! Pbc.
We’ve only paid 4k so far and that included about 1.5k for some outdoor work they’ve done
Its a tough decision but I don't think I'd be letting them carry on. From your description there isn't a single thing they have done that I'd be happy with. If you get someone else in they'll likely charge you to remove what you've paid these guys to do which is even more galling.
Ah, not the same as ours then (Peacocks).
We had similar, and more issues, with a full renovation.
The ‘yellow’ matting is Dural Durabase. Are your floors chipboard? If floorboards it’s not really suitable IMO unless the boards are all in vgc and screwed down well. It adds no stiffness and is there as a decoupling layer. It’s actually a very good product used correctly. I’m not sure how you’ve ended up with an inch step over carpet though, dural is 4mm, tiles are 10mm and adhesive approx 5mm, which is obviously nearly 20mm but approx same thickness as carpet.
It's a ground floor bathroom. No floor boards. The room adjacent is the hall and is parquet floor not carpet. Tbh the floor height i could live with the imperfect tiling and the tiny gap behind the bath taps worries me and hearing that the tile backer should definitely go in 1st. Is tike backer always quite thick? This is a good centermeter thick which has brought the walls out further than i expected once the tiling is on.
Having our small bathroom done was a learning experience. Our good calls were nice tiles, £800 bath and using non slip Lino - looks good these days, warm and easily changed. Went for a mixture of units and taps, largely IKEA type stuff.
Quote wise for a complete refit, tile and plaster ranged from £2500-£6500 plus tiles and units. We went for the cheap quote which despite the extensive grief in the end prob got 95% of the finish.
We have recently done a main bathroom and an on suite. We went for some quite expensive stuff, but have found Matki to be brilliant. https://www.lussostone.com/stone-resin-baths-c1 - brilliant baths, cheaper than elsewhere but the most comfortable bath I have ever been in, and top quality.
Tiles - https://www.cravendunnill.co.uk/ one of the original UK tile companies. We regretted getting the textured tile in the en-suite as difficult to seal around, and just doesnt look great in a small ish room
We used a company called Farr & Harris to supply everything. Has actually worked out well, although we could have sourced stuff cheaper, it saved loads of faff and did resolve issues without any fuss.
Bogs - go for depth. We went small to maximise bathroom space. Unfortunately this actually means that when you have a dump it tends to land on the pan rather than go down the hole. A serious issue we regret !
We put recesses in the wall - didnt cost any more really, but do make it look nicer, and nice 'mood' lighting
We're in the middle of a bathroom job that's hit a few snags.
London flat in Victorian mansion block; top floor (4th) with bad water pressure; small bathroom; adjoining guest loo; rotten subfloor remade over concrete; a bit of studwork; shower over bath... wall hung loo (what could go wrong?).
The water pressure stuff needed sorting so we now have a break tank with pressure pump in the roof and an indirect Megaflo. Plumber had about a 50% success rate with making up 22mm compression joints leak free so we've already had leaks from the roof. I've gone around and fixed the leaks myself and the primary circuit has held pressure for a couple of weeks now.
The wall hung loo bit is a saga, of course. Before tiling I was concerned the debris shield for the flush plate was loose, skew and generally sloppy. Look closer. The plastic tabs had been snapped off as they had taken it off to do the plaster skim. Look closer. Loads of debris in the cistern including broken plastic tabs. Look closer. In clearing out the debris find the cistern is cracked at the flush pipe fitting because it has been monkeyed about at some point.
Great. So call them back to cut out the beautiful freshly skimmed, freshly built boxwork to get the loo frame out. They claiming "must have come from the manufacturer like that". IDGAS. Look closer. They'd fitted the loo frame onto bare plasterboard over the studwork. the plasterboard has already failed in crush so the frame was going to be loose in the wall. They'd missed out fitting the bowl mounting studs back onto the wall so they'd have been relying on the frame for all the strength/stiffness rather than the frame and wall combined. The basin drain had been run tight behind the flush pipe so it was pushing the flush pipe forward and likely the cause of the force that snapped/cracked the cistern when leant on during the fitting. They're calling the plumber back in to fix this but I'm not full of trust in my plumber for the mechanical details.
Last area of concern. They've done new plaster skim on all the walls (solid wall and partitions). Wet area has paint on tanking over the plaster skim. Wet area tiles are porcelain 9mm bricks coming in at 19.9kg/sqm before adhesive and grout. So the wall loading is going to be significantly over 20kg/sqm. Architect says he's done loads like that.
What would Singletrack do?
Urgh nightmare peaslaker! Well we've raised issues and some things have been redone a bit better. Tbh it's been 3 weeks of dust, disruption, noise and no bathroom apart from the ensuite toilet and sink so we're letting them finish as best they can and then will be discussing a discount for the poor finish on the tiling. We still owe them 8k!
