Mrs and I have been chatting about updating our bathroom as its just old and tired. Bath and wc are ok so we’d keep them but change the basin and get a new shower installed, new tiling and flooring and lighting. Its a small bathroom, very small – looking at 1500*1800.

I’ve reached out to a few bathroom fitters and told them whats going on, we’d buy everything and strip it down ourselves we just need things refitting and so on.

Following quotes I’ve received back today – £3k, £5.5k £7k….

I was quite shocked at this and basically said thanks, I’ll get back to you. I’m thinking no one wants the job as its ones of those tiny annoying jobs which isn’t big enough for two workers without getting under each others skin and in the way.

Anyone know any decent Bathroom Fitters they’ve used around York area?

If you want to do bits and pieces of the job yourself you could be getting charged PITA tax. Maybe ask for quotes for the whole job>

As tomd says, they are probably charging more (or giving you the “go away” price) because you want to do some work and supply parts. That is much more a pain for them and eats into profits. Do you actually need a bathroom fitter? Do the plumbing bits yourself (assuming roughly like for like), then get a tiler for the floor and tiles and an electrician for the lights

Yeah, alarm bells ringing when someone starts saying they want to save this, do that themselves, etc. Kind of makes you think job might be a hassle.

Also, size of bathroom isn’t really a major factor as in, a smaller bathroom won’t necessarily be much cheaper. Same fitting required, same equipment needed on site etc.

Yeah get a quote for the whole job.

Yeah I thought about that so the Mrs has put up one of those RatedPeople adverts for the full job to see what offers she gets and they have been around the same range. I just picked up some numbers and rung around.

Doing it ourselves seems a good idea and might save us some cash, her dad built their house extension and has done a few bathroom and kitchen refits but after this paragliding accident he cant physically help.

Thanks chaps.

Currently doing this for our downstairs cloakroom.
It amazed me how much it’s costing.

We’re having the whole thing done & the two quotes we’ve had were originally £5390 & £4068.
This is just for a cloakroom, so no bath or shower.

We’re having the whole lot done though
– walls skimmed
– LED downlight
– Half-height wall tiles with a mosaic inlay one down from the top tile
– floor tiles
– new towel rad
– new vanity unit, sink & taps
– new bog/cistern etc. that they are having to box out from the wall slightly
– re-routing pipes (including chasing in) & boxing in waste pipe

The higher quote included a ridiculous allowance for tiles & flooring, which we have sourced ourselves. Same with the radiator – the radiator they specced was £200 with £70 valves.
We’ve managed to get that quote down to £4300 but will have spent £350 on our own bits, so total cost will be £4650.

The cheaper quote – bloke was a bit ambiguous, messed us around with the pricing & I’ve since seen him on Facebook ranting about Brexit which put me off him, to be honest 🙂

I would do it myself, but I really don’t have the time. I could do it, but would end up not spending time at the weekends with my family. We’ve saved hard for it, so would prefer to just have someone come in & do it though. Still seems mega-expensive but seems to be the going rate…

Remember also that you might spend an evening trawling the internet for the shower or whatever you want at the best price, but for the tradesperson, this takes otherwise unpaid time and also often involves time for collection etc, hence why prices quoted for items will often be, and generally need to be, more expensive than you can find yourself.

OP – that sounds about right really – having been there with two bathrooms (a small en-suite and a larger family bathroom) it isn’t a cheap job. On both occasions I did the full strip-out and sourced the fittings, tiles, flooring etc as well as employ my own preferred electrician and the en-suite was around £5k, the main bathroom (which is over twice the size), £8k

You lost me at the point you “reached out” to some bathroom fitters……….

i’m amazed you got three responses. how many reacharounds did you give?

..,we just need things refitting and so on.

This is a bit vague really.

Do you just want stuff connecting to water and waste and fixing place ?

Or pipe work moving, walls to make good, bathroom fixtures fitted and connected, floorboards to fix, board floor and full tiling job floor and walls?

Similar situation with our ensuite – very hefty bills – but it needed total gutting / working with old cast iron wastes which couldn’t easily be adjusted (no access to replace lot.)

Ended up doing the lot myself – including new ceiling with proper insulation and raising the floor height and new floor. I think all in, I’m probably down close to £3k – but I now have all the tools and a bunch of useful new skills. Tiling itself is really quite easy – the hardest bit I found was trying to work out the ideal layout for minimal cuts. When I’ve been round other places / pubs etc… I always have a look at the tiling job, most of the time I’d say I did a better job

If you have the time do it yourself – it took me about 3 weeks total, but, here is the thing, spread over about 8 months to finally finish, working full time, 2 small kids meaning no evening work – it was in use before it was finished though

Can’t say I overly enjoyed doing it, but I like looking at the finished job and the extra £3k+ in my pocket

If I had a tradeguy in there was several ballaches that would have been their issue – for instance having to order and wait in for the same toilet 3 times after the first 2 turned up damaged

If I had the money I’d get someone else to do it….

i’m amazed you got three responses. how many reacharounds did you give?

jam bo, you owe me a keyboard, mine now has tea all over it.

I have just done 2 bathrooms at c 5k each. Same 2 guys, I bought all materials and did all the running around. It took them say 8 man days and me about 4 man days, total refurb, stripped everything out, new windows, appliances, tiles to c 2m height and new tiled floor.

Costs can quickly rise by upgrading appliances, glass fixed shower screen for eg I had made for 200 but you could easily spend 1k on better glass and moving parts.

Worth every penny though, I enjoyed the project.

I did our main bathroom myself. It took an AGE! I’m really happy with the results and as mentioned by DT78 constantly find myself looking at tiling jobs when taking a pee and comparing it to my own work.. If you’re going to do the whole lot yourself just go in with your eyes open – I had to watch a shitload of Youtube vids, read up on technique, buy tools, re-buy tools, trips to the shop x lots, etc. etc. I learned some valuable skills but would probably never do it again – tiling is okay but as a DIY’er you can either do it well or fast.. not both.. I was EXTREMELY slow but got a lovely finish in the end with only a couple of minor errors that only I really see..

If you’re doing the rip out, make sure you get a good SDS chisel drill.. I went back to masonry on all 4 walls and can confirm that drywall adhesive is like bell metal. I did it the old fashioned way with a chisel and hammer.. never again.

If you decide to tile just remember that 1st tile on a wall decides the fate of every bit of tiling on that surface! As above the amount of time in pub/restaurant bathrooms I see a tiny little slither of tiles at one end is unbelievable.. just because someone didn’t place that 1st tile to avoid it. Blazzin Saddles off here give me some excellent advice re. tiling when we did our bathroom.

Did our guest bathroom at the start of this year. Very small at 1500 x 1500mm. Total cost was in the region of £1200, including all materials and digger hire for drains, new bathroom suite, shower, glass shower screen and tiles. Ended up digging up the back garden to fit new drains, coring new holes for toilet & shower waste, smashing up floor to put in underfloor heating, built stud wall to hide shower pipes, 1200 x 700 shower, new toilet & sink, tiled everything using the cheapest tiles B&Q had on offer. Thoroughly enjoyed it and I learned loads, so go for it if you fancy a challenge. All I can say is don’t underestimate the amount of time it takes. If I’d been paying labour on top of the materials it would have easily brought the total to £3-3.5k.

We paid £5k + tiles for our bathroom refit.

Was good value for me not to have to spend all my spare time for weeks doing it myself, and not having to pay for DIY waste disposal at the tip etc etc.

This thread is making me a little nervous, our ensuite has a bath that we want to take out and turn into a large walk in type shower, the power shower is already plumbed in, and although the bath surround is already fully tiled, we’d probably want that end of the bathroom re-tiling, a fixed screen/partition putting in and an extra extractor to pull moisture directly away (possibly update the spotlights in there too), I’d initially thought it could be done for ~£1500 (assuming I took out the bath and removed all the tiling) the boss reckoned it would cost more…

I’m starting to think she might have been right.

Same feeling cookeaa. We thought a budget of around 2k would have been enough for the job as its a small room but obviously we haven’t thought enough about it.

If you are diying it I would get some second opinions from knowledgeable people. A plumber designed mine and moved appliances around, e.g., toilet has more space around it – just look at how u sit on the wc, also, the basin was moved so u have more space, again, look at your arms when you are using a basin.

Also, things will go wrong so budget accordingly. I booked a plumber, window was made back to front so it delayed me a week. Plumbers time slot was lost….check everything, and check again.

The pro all in quotes may look expensive but there is loads of faffing about you don’t see.

4650 for a downstairs bog. 😳

I just spent ages writing a detailed mat breakdown and this forum reloaded itself and lost it.

In short you will be lucky to get it for 1500 that would be cheapest

You lost me at the point you “reached out” to some bathroom fitters……….

Yep, that’s a 20% price uplift right there 😂

Don’t let your trade or plumber go out and choose you a bath. Spec the fixtures and fittings yourself.
Been on too many jobs where the plumber or GC has chosen the ‘screwfix special’ bath etc and they’re absolute garbage and double the money would’ve got something 10x the quality .

I’d spend the money where it matters …hang on, in my book that’s on everything :/

4650 for a downstairs bog. 😳

Cloakroom Wrightyson, Cloakroom 😗

We did some steel frames for an “artisan” builder a few years ago who was building an orangery for a customer. Looking at the design, I asked him what the difference was between an orangery and a conservatory.
He looked at me an smiled and then said “ in this case about thirty grand “ 😂

wrightyson Member

4650 for a downstairs bog.

Crazy, innit?!
We have pretty much ended up going with the only company that have engaged with us, provided us with a detailed quote & listened to exactly what we want.
In my opinion it is ridiculously expensive, but there is no way I have the time to do it myself – it would take me forever & a day & I’d have to learn a load of new skills along the way.
And we have been unable to get any other suitable quotes.

The first person I tried to get round said he would come round & then didn’t. He then wouldn’t answer the phone.

The second person is the quote we are going with.

The third person came round, didn’t make any notes at all and then I had to chase for a quote. He e-mailed just a price with no breakdown & included two values (and no, one wasn’t 20% more than the other, so it wasn’t VAT). I queried it & he said it was a mistake & it was actually the higher value & that was the total price including VAT. It was cheaper than quote two & once I’d confirmed that included everything we wanted, we accepted the quote. Then when I chased up for a formal quote with breakdown of costs, he said he’d made a mistake & it didn’t include VAT! So the price went up 20%.

The fourth bloke kept saying he’d get back to us & never did.

We ended up in a situation where we didn’t really want to spend as much as we are going to, but equally couldn’t keep putting it off forever & in lieu of more quotes.
And while I am happy to do DIY jobs around the house & have done most things so far that have needed doing, this was a job I didn’t want to tackle.

revs1972 Member

Cloakroom Wrightyson, Cloakroom

If that’s a piss-take at me, I kept calling it a downstairs loo & it was tradesmen who kept asking me if I meant a cloakroom….so eventually, I gave up calling it a downstairs loo & started using their terminology…

Wow that seems very expensive.

Just starting a bathroom refurb tomorrow. Found a well reviewed local plumber who now only dos full bathroom remodels.

He helps me with layout/ design ideas but ultimately left it to me buy the items.

We are moving radiators, new and repositioned sink, wc back to wall. Style, bath replaced with large walk in shower, which is fitted away from where the bath was, so new drainage. Tiling, wells and floor, new dropped ceiling spotlights, illuminated mirror. Strip out old kit, tiles and horrible wooden wall panelling.

He’s supplying all plumbing parts, spots, electricals bits and bobs, grout, adhesive.

Quoted £1900 estimated 2.5 weeks. Bathroom is not vast at 2.6m by 2.2m

Shower unit, 8mm glass sliding quadrant 1400/900 and decent tray, toilet, cabinet sink all decent spec and moda brand, illuminated mirror, chrome rads. £1300
Tiling £600
Ceiling pannelling £80

So around £3850 all in.

These are northern rates however.

That is cheap, his day rate excluding mats is just over £100?

I budget 250 a day down south. Well that’s what I mentally pay myself!

If he is doing the electrics he needs to have the right cert

I’ve reached out

Arghhhhh! Are you a recruitment consultant perchance?

No Glen. Far from it.

That’s seems reasonable kirky.

We’ve narrowed down the work that needs doing.

Nothing is being moved. Literally no space to move anything anyway. The layout doesn’t allow it. Every bathroom has the exact same layout on our side of the street. Zoopla stalking Pro.

-new basin
-new bath,little lad has chipped it playing with toys…
-new mixer shower with glass screen
-floor tiled
-re-skim before tiling if needed
-2 walls tiled, approx 3-4 m/sq
-possible ceiling drop for some LED lights.

How far north are you kirky?

Also just noticed your bathroom sounds exactly like ours but yours is a a bit bigger and we have no rad , what on earth is with the wooden panelling!

There is a lot of trades in bathrooms, plumbers, tilers, electricians, carpenters

Cost of fittings vary immensely from 200 to £2000 plus for a shower for example.

Are you having small or large tiles, is it natural stone so needs to be sealed etc.

Time is money if you wife wants herringbone tiles and sanitaryware from people who supply to the queen then you better get the overtime in.

Good thing I’m doing a lot of it myself….nearly there and I’m not in the slightest bit bitter

Don’t let your trade or plumber go out and choose you a bath. Spec the fixtures and fittings yourself.

I took a hybrid approach, plumber suggested going with him to the local trade supply place (which also had a good showroom). Ended up getting mostly ex-display (but mint) stuff which saved me over £500, plus the plumber had an account there and they were happy to store the stuff until it was required. Was really useful when looking at various options to have both the sales guy’s opinion and the plumber’s – other than going by price I didn’t really have a clue when looking at stuff online what was decent quality and what wasn’t.

Getting it all delivered at once when the plumber was ready for it worked well to, he said quite a few jobs got held up when clients ordered their own stuff and some bits turned up late or needed to be returned etc.

Also get someone to take overall ownership of it (the plumber in my case) as there’s lots of trades involved (sparky, plumber, tiler, painter & carpenter in my case) and I was glad the plumber coordinated it all with people he knew and worked with rather than me have to sort that out, even if it might have cost £500+ more for the privilege it was well worth it.

Should hopefully be finishing changing my toilet cistern and swapping a laminate worktop for slate tiles in mine today.

Taken a lot of work!

I had a bathroom refit last year.

Has a corner shower cubicle and bath too.

I supplied the shower and flooring.

I came out at about £5.5K

Edited to add I supplied the electric shower, not the tray and cubicle.

We had our ens0uite done a couple of years ago, we just got the chap to rip everything out and replace with new. Cost about 3.5k for something that’s 1800 * 2500 or so. Bit more info on this:

https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/bathroomtrackworld-shower-panels/

plumber suggested going with him to the local trade supply place

Definitely agree with using a local trade counter – we did that for most of our stuff (a couple of bits we sourced elsewhere – like a complete bargain Villeroy & Boch vanity unit off Ebay – brand new, £80!!!) but the advice we got from the counter was great and they recommended some things we didn’t even know existed (such as an ultra slimline shower tray so we have got a step-free floor to shower without the huge cost of wet room flooring.

stumpy01

Currently doing this for our downstairs cloakroom.
It amazed me how much it’s costing.
We’re having the whole thing done & the two quotes we’ve had were originally £5390 & £4068.

We had the following done in our cloakroom earlier this year and it cost £1900 all in:
– LED downlight
– Half-height wall tiles
– new towel rad
– new vanity unit, sink & taps
– new bog/cistern etc. that they are having to box out from the wall slightly
– re-routing pipes (including chasing in) & boxing in waste pipe

Based on the rate we paid, i’d only expect to add £750 (maybe £1k if the tiles were really expensive?) to that for the additional items yours included:
– mosaic inlay
– floor tiles
– walls skimmed

We did have one quote @ about £5k though 😆

You can save some money by ripping out the old bathroom yourself