Can't make my mind up on Bathroom - DIY or professionals?

Stephb1986_2

Hi I hope someone can help me,

Im looking for a bathroom suite i.e bath, sink, toilet

Its for my OH's house I dont live there but he's trying to do it up

At the moment its a pink armatage shanks suite which is pretty awful

So is our best bet to buy a new suite or paint the existing suite white?

If i was to buy a new suite where can i get one cheap?

Any help appreciated

Steph xx

helping_hubby

To HH: Have you had any joy with your bathroom yet? I know it can be a tough, old slog.

We've phoned and left messages with 5 bathroom fitters (a week nearly now). One phoned back and is coming round on Saturday to give a quote. I'm going to ask for a quote just for plumbing.

We've been investigating electrics too and having decided to have it done professionally, our best quote is £1650. And now I'm worried our living room ceiling is going to cost more than anticipated as its woodchip papered directly onto plasterboard and is proving very hard to get off. Got a plasterer coming round on Monday to quote, so will get advice from them as to what to do.

And finally the highways people have been round today and marked out our dropped kerb. I've already paid them £144 for the searches, but with all these extra costs, the kerb has gone right down to the bottom of the list, so might never get done now.

Hi I hope someone can help me,

Im looking for a bathroom suite i.e bath, sink, toilet

Its for my OH's house I dont live there but he's trying to do it up

At the moment its a pink armatage shanks suite which is pretty awful

So is our best bet to buy a new suite or paint the existing suite white?

If i was to buy a new suite where can i get one cheap?

Any help appreciated

Steph xx

I'm far from an expert, but there are cheap suites available. We're paying about £400 for our bath, sink and toilet. Not bottom of the range, but it's one we liked and could live with for 10 years. The guy at Jewson pointed out a very basic Armatige Shanks package. I can't remember exactly, but it was the bath, sink and toilet and some basic taps, for about £250, maybe less.

helping_hubby

Just had a plumber around today for a bathroom fitting quote. He's going to phone through the quote but there are a few issues he brought up and I'd like to see if anyone has comments on them:

1) He's yet the hundredth person to say we're silly for knocking the wall down to make 1 bathroom instead of the separate toilet/bathroom that it is now.
2) He thinks we're silly for wanting a flush shower (the one with just the head sticking out) as if there are problems/limescale problems it'll mean ripping off the tiles.
3) He says that we'll have to have 1 grey water pipe (think its the waste) showing on the wall. He says it can't be put under the floor boards.
4) He said the new toilet might have to be a bit forward from the wall, meaning we'll have to have a false backing built behind it...this is something to do with the sewage waste pipe in the way.

Any views/comments on the above would be much appreciated. I think I need to get another plumbers opinion. But they just don't phone back!

Doozergirl

1) It's personal preference. If it isn't a structural wall then the cost is free/small to do it. I'd prefer the extra space from knocking the wall.
2) Looks pretty though doesn't it!
3) It will depend on the angle needed for the fall to the waste pipe so yes, it does happen a lot. If you box it in, you can tile over the boxing. Again, if there's problems, you'd have to remove the tiling, but you can't live with all pipes exposed 'just in case'
4) That's exactly what ours was like. The soil stack was running down inside the house. The toilet sat forward with yet more boxing behind and there was boxing for the soil stack in the kitchen downstairs. Luckily we had another outside soil stack within about a foot of the toilet one so we linked to that and had the toilet one removed and capped off at ground level. It's the problem that Phireply posted up a couple of weeks ago too.

helping_hubby

Thanks Doozer and Andrew.

We're still going for the one bathroom. I hate it already that I have to walk around to wash my hands. It's too wierd.

As for the shower head....yes it's pretty I'm going to have it. There. Made a decision. If it's the wrong one I won't make the same mistake again.

As for the loo and the pipe. I wonder why the previous plumber never brought those things up.

I think I'd rather have chrome piping than more boxing in. If there is a prettier pipe, I wouldn't mind. But the grey is ugly and would ruin everything.

As for the loo. I'm confused. I can't quite see what it'll look like in my head. I think I need to google to see if i can find some pictures.

helping_hubby

Thanks Andrew, you've given us more to think about.

Have looked at our bathroom again and have decided that the exposed pipe wouldn't be too much of a problem and only about 1 foot would be exposed.

The toilet we're going to get another plumbers opinion on. Maybe we'll go for the back to wall toilet if that is the best solution (as I'm guessing moving the soil pipe outside would cost lots).

helping_hubby

I spent my lunch hour nosing at similar houses to mine on Right move It seems they all have exposed pipes, but their pipes are boxed in just over floor level.

But their toilets are all flush with the wall and you can see the boxed in corner where the soil pipe is, implying they haven't relocated it. So I'm thinking that there are ways around then. Shame because the quote came back...only £680.

Just had a plasterer around for a quote for the living area. Sounds like he's going to be expensive He was great though, gave us lots of tips on how to do some bits ourselves. And he's kindly writing us up 2 quotes, one for him to do the lot, and one for us to do the prep work.

Doozergirl

Could put the toilet next to the soil pipe if you have room? Still have boxing but smaller and to the side instead

helping_hubby

I've been in contact with the plumber who gave us the £2300 quote for doing the whole lot. He's interested if it's plumbing only, so he'll do us a new quote.

He says we can use a shape pan connector which fits on to convert pan from low level to close coupled.

He says that it's correct about the exposed pipe. However our pipe is 3 foot above the floor. So I've asked him if it's possible to lower it to the floor. I've found a house on my estate on rightmove which has this:
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-10196409.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=buy
It looks like an identical bathroom to what ours will be in terms of layout. The window is the same too (in terms of size and position).

andyhop

27% of armitage shanks and twyfords is a poor discount

most TRADE outlets such as pts and plumb centre offer around 49%