New bathroom time

We need to fix our bathroom, the easiest way is to have it all redone

Who are the obvious shops to look in nowadays? Wickes, B&Q etc. We need to go and look at them in the flesh before we commit to spending lots of £s

Based in Calderdale.

Look online, find styles you might like, then work out where you can look at it. Plumbers’ merchants like James Hargreaves/Plumbworld often have displays, as do smaller indy builder’s merchants,. Halifax must have a load of different options, worth having a quick tour.

I’ve never found the big stores have a very inspiring selection of quality stuff.

What I did last year was found a decent plumber/fitter, sourced all the main items myself and just left him to get the connecting bits. He also did the tiling.

Then my dad and I decorated and a local firm put the lino in.

Cost £2-3k as opposed to twice that or more, which is what people seem to want for the whole job.

This is in Greater Manchester BTW.

Whats your budget is a good place to start

We got ones of these. Very comfy!

https://www.lussostone.com/stone-resin-baths-c1?mh_matchtype=e&mh_keyword=stone%20baths&mh_adgroupid=12127242061&mh_network=g&utm_term=stone%20baths&utm_campaign=Lusso+Stone+AD&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=9519284134&hsa_cam=167050261&hsa_grp=12127242061&hsa_ad=591288895803&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=kwd-723333978&hsa_kw=stone%20baths&hsa_mt=e&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIivrs9Oz4hgMVV5FQBh2IzwAsEAAYASAAEgIhxfD_BwE

Avoid Wickes or B&Q, they sell crap and if it ever breaks you’ll be replacing the whole thing. I’d avoid the online places for the same reason, unless you’re buying branded products. As mentioned above go to an independent plumbers merchant and buy from there. There’s also quite a lot of independent bathroom showrooms about that will do supply & fit using their own guys, as it’s their reputation on the line you’ll get better installers than you do from Wickes etc.

I’ve recently been speaking to these guys due to work https://atlasbathrooms.co.uk/ – they have a branch in Huddersfield

I totally agree with going to a plumber’s merchant – tell them what you are planning and often you’ll get good advice on options that you may not have considered.

Also look on Ebay etc for stuff – there is often stuff being sold by people that have changed their minds, businesses shifting end of line stock etc. We got a beautiful brand new Villeroy & Bosch unit for £50 a few years ago.

We had ours done earlier this year, went for a wet-room type setup, used a local firm.

Very  happy.

Not ‘cheap’ as it needed striping back to the (stone) walls & internal battens, but definitely good value.

Work out what you actually want doing first.

We then got them back to do the same with our ensuite.

Would definitely go down the local ‘plumber’s merchant’ route. I seem to remember someone on here mentioning that the end of the year is a good time to buy a bathroom suite, with many items on sale.

We had ours done earlier this year, went for a wet-room type setup, used a local firm.

Very  happy.

Not ‘cheap’ as it needed striping back to the (stone) walls & internal battens, but definitely good value.

Work out what you actually want doing first.

+1 and I’m glad I did after ours was discover to be tiles on tiles on tiles on plaster.   We recieved all the reciepts and our Local had discount arrangements for the suppliers we could leverage also

I went with the using a local plumber (that I’d previously used for a boiler but he advertised kitchen & bathroom replacements etc. to). I didn’t use a designer or anything, just picked the tiles I wanted via visiting a couple of showrooms and also went with the plumber to the local plumbing supplies merchant (who he had a good relationship with) and I picked out the other stuff from there (bar the mirrored bathroom cabinet which I bought on Amazon).

Was helpful having the plumber there was picking out stuff as could lean on his experience on what was reliable and to make sure all the right fitments were included etc. and also ended up getting a few ex-display bits which saved about £500. The plumber later had to postpone the work a couple of weeks and his relationship with the plumbing supplies place meant they were happy to hold onto it for a bit rather than insist it was delivered.

It ended up with a decent result (although pricey at nearly £12k) and a few things I wasn’t overly happy with and should have gotten them back to fix but never bothered.

Things I’d avoid if doing it again:

Underfloor electric heating (needs to be on several hours just to take the cold out of the tiles, it doesn’t heat the room at all)

Hanging toilet + concealed cistern. Mostly as my cheap construction house just had bonded sheets of plasterboard where the toilet was to be mounted, rather than a stud wall, so they had to construct a frame for it but it flexes a bit and has cracked one of tiles (plus I wonder each time I sit on it if it’s going to come crashing down…). As all the frame and cistern is now behind tiling it would be a pain to do anything about (also sometimes I can hear water dripping into the cistern that never stops but sounds really loud at night so I have to keep the bathroom door shut but then it doesn’t get passively heated in winter. Only happens intermittently though so not sure what the root cause is and can’t even see the drips via a torch trying to look in via the flush panel).

That sounds scary the bog flexing when you sit on it, you will be dreading it if someone rotund ever asks where is the toilet

Surely the plumber is at fault there and for 12k

Hanging toilet? Just no! We got our bathroom done last year. Mrs IRC liked the look of a hanging toilet but I just questioned how strong it would need to be to take my 110kg landing on it once a day for the next X years.

We did get a hanging sink unit which we like. Having floor space there seems to give a bit of an impression of space.

All in we were around £6500. But that involved going back to bare joists. New plasterboard. Full tiling. New flooring. New lights. All new units etc.  Tiles alone were about £500.

Best improvements? A sink that drains properly. The cowboy who installed our previous bathroom had zero fall from the sink to the main vertical drain. Lack of supports mean the pipe had sagged making it even worse.

Going from old standard bath with shower curtain and electric shower to P shape bath (so wider at shower end)  with shower screenwith thermostatic shower supplied from combi boiler.

Nice touch? Dual tootbrush charger wired to mains on wall.

Ours was all installed by one guy and his son. We bought all units, tiles, flooring etc.   He supplied odds and ends for plumbing, platerboard, wiring, lights.

He gave us an all in labour charge before starting. Recommended by a friend.

On the topic of learning from out people’s mistakes, I’d think hard before installing a shower with all the gubbins behind the tiles.

This is coming from someone who currently has a new feature in their house which is a viewing port from their house through the party wall into the neighbour’s house following a leaky cartridge in the shower unit.

Second tip; don’t be a tight arse and return all unused tiles for a refund. You may need them in the future. And they might be discontinued at some point 🙁

Hanging bogs are fine as long as you build them in properly, and pick a cistern with a proper metal frame to support them and bolt the pan into. Our one has a load of 2×4 framing and is bombproof. The fact that the plastic creaks when you sit down on it is a touch disconcerting, I keep having to remind myself how secure it actually is.

Hanging sinks are great, but get one where the trap position doesn’t get in the way of the drawer contents. Ours is on the small side, so it was a pain to route the waste so that we got a decent fall.

Second tip; don’t be a tight arse and return all unused tiles for a refund.

Looks like my old shower valve, ended up having to install waterproof board on top of the tiles to install a new one. Fully recessed stuff can be a massive PITA.

Hanging bogs are fine as long as you build them in properly, and pick a cistern with a proper metal frame to support them and bolt the pan into

Mine has all that (Grohe one) the problem I think was the metal frame is designed to be fixed at the top not just bolted in at the bottom (to stop it rotating forward when someone sits on the toilet) but without a stud wall to use for that they built a wood frame around it to bolt the top fixings to but I suspect that wooden frame still isn’t 100% flex-free (I didn’t actually see it before it was tiled over) so the metal frame can still flex a couple of mm

i did our ensuite myself. reckon it was approx 2k for materials.

have a hanging bog, its fine, i massively over built the frame for it though, as i do.

i also have a concealed ahower, which i kind of regret now as if / when it goes its going to be a right pain. i wish i had done a strip of contrasting tiles now.

things i regret….i spent ages getting the shower tray flush with the tiles for the wet room look. means you have to be careful with water getting every where.

then 3 years later we had the wall below knocked out and steels put in. it means the fall on the shower tray is now no longer perfect and ive had to fit a little silcone lip round the outside. also got a gap in one corner of the room where the floor has dropped. annoying but the builder did point out the whole room moght need redoing so its minor in the scheme of things

oh and large format tiles with complex build outs (to hide pipework, cistern and make funky cubby holes) means ALOT of cut tiles….

Oh, and if you have a shower tray/bath with shower above, use silicone where the tiles meet the bath, not the 2 part plastic trims which supposedly do the same thing. Looked nice, but I found about three months after fitting that they just collected water, diverted some of it to seep out of the end onto the flooring (behind more trims, so didn’t spot it), and used the rest to grow some impressive black mould out of sight in the middle.

I suspect that wooden frame still isn’t 100% flex-free (I didn’t actually see it before it was tiled over) so the metal frame can still flex a couple of mm

Don’t worry then, the tiles will fall off in time and you’ll be able to access the cistern!

Is this tangentially related to the bowel retraining thread…?

Or picolax timing failures of the boys dropping the kids off in Rishi’s pond?

The only concealed valves I’ll fit in my house are ones with a rough set to go in the wall and an unbolt-able main valve ie. Hansgrohe iBox etc.  as long as you’re water tight to the tappings, the rest can be replaced at will without disturbing wall finish.

nothing wrong with a wall hung throne as long as it’s a good brand and fitted properly.  I’d never fit one to a paramount, stramit or double boarded wall, not enough stiffness in the wall and will always fail somewhere at some point.

We got ours redone last Summer.

We got the main bits from a combination of Willbond and Easy Bathrooms.

A couple of the fittings we went ‘decidedly not cheap’ like the Grohe shower mixer / rail, and a nice lit alu mirror cabinet with  shaver/charger power point the cheaper one with wood or ply rot and distort after a while in such a humid atmosphere).

Willbond stuff eventually all sorted – but a couple of problems when they sent the wrong shape stone shower tray (delay, panic whilst 500 miles away and LOTS of chasing them needed to get sorted). Shower screen didn’t fit despite providing dimensions and questioning about adjustment TWICE. Had to eventually get something else online and faff to do a return when home on 2 big glass panel screens.

Easy Bathrooms- excellent to deal with. Zero hassle or errors.

With fitting (we had to decamp and get someone in to fit as we only have 1 bathroom) cost about £12k total.  But that included repairs to a rotten floor, back to stone for the walls then re-plaster etc, re-plaster roof, new lights, new rad, flooring etc.  New tiles (not cheapo) And a new bathroom doubled glazed window of reasonable size.

Defo wanted the bog mounted on the floor ! Sink unit / drawers is wall mounted – extra floor space there is welcome.

Only things I’d change…

– have the extractor on a separate switch to the lighting. I want to use the extractor without turning the light on !

– spec the extractor 2 or 3 times bigger than building regs require – shit ventilation and humidity is a real bugbear for me

Thanks

Plenty to think about there

Tell me about prices – we looked last year at ours – a 2mx2m, simple bath with shower, loo and sink on a single cabinet. Plain white tiles from budget range, vinyl floor and plain plastic ceiling.
Cheapest quote was £10k….most were £12k.

Sounds like you should have a stab at it yourself. Materials sounds like 2-3k tops.

Our bathroom is a bit bigger (humble brag) at 2.4m x 2m. It had a shower over the bath. I put in a new shower cubicle and kept the old bath, but repositioned it. New toilet, basin, cabinet and taps. Was £1k for materials with a lot of shopping around. Best thing was showerwall panels rather than tiles. Easier to fit, less chance of a leak, easier to remove if someone ever remodels. Obviously labour will be a big chunk of not DIYing but it is a relatively easy DIY job if you can find the time, and worth it to save £10k

And just to repeat from a previous thread on here.

DON’T get a rimless toilet. They’re rubbish.

DON’T get a rimless toilet. They’re rubbish.

I really like mine. Flush is better than the one it replaced.

Sounds like you should have a stab at it yourself. Materials sounds like 2-3k tops.

and 10-15 days of your life.  I fit Bathrooms for a living and despite people telling me how easy it is, it seldom seems to be true!

I paid the plumber and his mate just over £1k for about four days’ graft (fitting and tiling).

On reflection, materials and plasterer were probably about £1.8k on top of that.

I was very happy just to have the initial prep (smashing the old tiles out) and decorating after to handle myself.

I’m nearly 3 years in to completing my bathroom!

The shower works. Need to finish some of the tiling. Doesn’t leak into the living room like the previous bath did.

Ceiling needs sorting.

If the grohe shower fails I’ll be able to access it from the bedroom via an access panel.

Might have spent £1200 so far. I just need to put some effort into the final touches. 😭

If you can, test the loo. Ours in our new house is (literally) crap.

Don’t they test them with real people having a real shit?

and 10-15 days of your life.  I fit Bathrooms for a living and despite people telling me how easy it is, it seldom seems to be true!

Oh, I’m under no illusions, mine just took me best part of three months, although there was some wall rearrangement going on. And there were a few days when I would have happily given a fitter a blank cheque to do it for me!

If you can, test the loo.

I’ve seen that episode of Jackass.