Bathroom - Parts and Fitting Help...

BeerBelly

Bathroom > Parts and Fitting?

We've been to B&Q and got a very high price (we haven;t picked top of range for everything either) for a very small bathroom - they even charge extra £550 just to remove tiles! Labour is nearly double the parts for whole bathroom suite, including shower, titles, accessories, heated towel rail..etc. There was also a £450 extra sur-charge because we are in a London Borough!!! Is it so high because they get their cut, so we are paying some of our hard earned cash on thin air?

Also heard some of the taps and stuff can be naff and never any spares around in future.

QUESTION if you was going to rip your bathroom out, where would you look to get quality equipment and look at fitting?

Still considering B&Q but worried if theres a problem, the builder blames the surveyor, the surveyor blames the designer and we get nowhere and also not happy at the price at all (we even got the suite in half price!!!)

Honest question, what you would do in same situation, preferably by those either in the trade or been through the same.

Thank You

aliasojo

In the process of sorting out our bathroom just now so we've been looking into costs etc. I would avoid B&Q tbh.

B&Q are overpriced and they do take a cut of the labour/fitting costs. My friend has just had them do a cloakroom, it's approx 1.6m x 1m and all that is in it is a standard wc and a vanity basin unit. It is tiled all round including the floor and it cost them £3k.

They have had loads of hassle with it, the taps that were sent were faulty, the installation date was changed and no-one told them, there was an issue with the basin unit but the installer referred them to B&Q and B&Q referred them to the installer. I wouldn't entertain them now after seeing the issues.

I got an independant bathroom company out to quote and was told £11k. Needless to say we're now sourcing the stuff ourselves and will get an independant plumber and tiler etc. I've picked what bath toilet etc I want and have searched on the net for the cheapest price, then phoned round all the places near us to see if they will beat the price. I expected the net to be cheapest but surprisingly our local place knocked another £35 off the cheapest price of the bath alone, so worth spending some time looking.

Good luck.

Canucklehead

Good morning: Source your gear from a local plumbers merchant (many have online shops as well) and stick with brands such as Ideal Standard, Bristan, Mira, Aqualisa, Grohe, Kaldewei etc. Find a qualified plumber on the CIPHE website who can do all the works associated with the installation before you buy anything, just in case the goods are inappropriate (or considered tat). The OH recently fitted a bathroom and cloakroom down here where the client had sourced rubbish...made the process painful and more expensive for all concerned.:eek:

HTH

Canucklehead

Mrs_Moc

We are also in the process of having a new bathroom fitted. Definitely source the fittings yourself, it is so much cheaper. We went with a local company for the fittings who had a good reputation and also asked for discount which we got.

We were lucky to have a plumber in the family, who is organinsing the work men and again giving us great discount. He recommended going for a Mira shower, said these were the best value for money.

We got out tiles from Armatile and were able to print off a 20% off coupon from the internet, then asked for another 10% off instore which we got.

lolarentt

We had a small shower room/loo etc gutted and completely redesigned with walk in open shower (large sunken tray, as near as we could get to a wet room) plumbing, waste redirected, all plumbing, heating, wastepipes outside the room (as opposed to the metres of waste pipes, water pipes etc that used to run around at floor level).

We tried various firms for ideas, and quotes but they were all too vague and contradictory. In the end we used a local guy who was suggested by a local builders merchant (one of their regular customers). Everything worked out brilliantly - our guy had firm ideas on what fittings were OK and what were less reliable and we went along with him most of the way. Only exceptions were all the shower fittings, and basin and taps which we bought ourselves in France
(where all plumbing fittings are a fraction of the price of UK - good old Leroy Merlin! http://www.leroymerlin.fr/mpng2-front/pre?zone=zonecatalogue&idLSPub=1129734210&renderall=on).

Again we consulted our man to ensure threads/fittings etc were compatable with UK products

usignuolo

We had a new bathroom and sourced all the stuff ourselves. Definitely cheaper. I can recommend a good reasonable priced installer but he only works in south west London.