re-fit small bathroom for £1260 ?

richardp1977

I've just received a quote from a plumber for re-fitting a small bathroom, which was somewhat higher than I had anticipated. I live in a 1-bed ground floor flat (in Sussex) built in 1989 - therefore the pipework is in good condition and does not require any additional works. Hot water by unvented cylinder - therefore no pump or extra pipes required for the shower - it can just tee off the supply to the bath taps.

I will do the following works myself: Remove lining paper and tiles, make good walls as necessary. Remove carpet and gripper rods. I will supply the toilet, bath, basin, taps, wastes, exposed shower mixer valve, hose, head and mountings and tiles + glass shower screen. I will take all rubbish to the council tip myself - no skip required.

The plumber has quoted £910 to remove old toilet and fit new. Remove pedestal basin and fit single vanity cupboard with semi-recessed basin. Fit plinth panel, and use spare plinth panel to fill 50 mm gap each side of cupboard (which is in an alcove). Remove bath. Build stud-partition ** 0.7 m wide, full height, 50mm deep at one end of bath. Install new bath butted up to this partition. Put shower valve on partition. Box in pipes and bath side. To include materials for partition + boxing and pipes as required. To include isolation valves for basin, toilet, bath and shower.

He will tile 8 sq. metres with adhesive and grout for an additional £350, and fit a glass shower screen.

** The wall I wish to have the shower valve on is plasterboard and eggbox type cardboard partition only, which is only 50mm deep - therefore too shallow for shower, and not strong enough to mount valve on. Therefore, only need to board one side (other side against existing thin wall).

How much would you expect to be quoted for this work?

Richard

Skiduck

standard bathroom suite: £250 inc taps and waste
stud wall materials: £120
Tiles and grout: £100 (cheap white tiles)
Shower screen: £100
Labour 2 days (8 hours per day)@ £30: 480

total 1050 plus vat: 1233.75 inc vat

The rate is for a semi-skilled plumber, anyone with good qualifications will be looking for more of an hourly rate.

So not too bad a quote IMO.

richardp1977

wrote:

Skiduck: The quote I received is mostly labour!

I am supplying the suite, taps, tiles and wastes.

The plumber is only suppling pipes, stud wall and boxing materials, isolation valves, stud wall materials and adhesive + grout for tiles.

Based on your prices above, £1260 seems expensive!

Richard

Skiduck

richardp1977 wrote:

Skiduck: The quote I received is mostly labour!

I am supplying the suite, taps, tiles and wastes.

The plumber is only suppling pipes, stud wall and boxing materials, isolation valves, stud wall materials and adhesive + grout for tiles.

Based on your prices above, £1260 seems expensive!

Richard

sorry about that.

So he's taking around 4 days at 40 quid an hour. Do you think it's 4 days work? £40 is not expensive, it depends if they are a one man band or a company, and how skilled they are. 4 days may be a bit excessive though. Takes a day to do a bathroom suite.

PabloNeruda

I've just paid £320 for a bath, basin, toilet, towel warmer, and am getting the bathroom totally refitted and tiled for £500 labour (Kosovan friend of my partner).

Alan_M_2

Original quote is very reasonable if you want a modicum of quality.

Like many things, you get what you pay for.

v0n

Alan_M wrote:

Like many things, you get what you pay for.

I wish it were true. I've seen places done at costs comparable to prices of medium size cars that looked like BBC watchdog featured cruel joke. Seen plumbers earning £300 per head a day leaving sites with overflow pipes sticking out of freshy tiled walls above £500 designer bath like it was some kind of stylish feature. Seen work of astigmatic tilers that couldn't do a straight line of mega expensive marble tiles for their life and still would walk away with four digit payouts instead of lawsuit and punch in a face. Landscape designers that would create front garden by rolling out turf on concrete driveway and adding rockery in the middle without removing a single bit of a slab underneath for almost ten grand. Or equally expensive PVC windows replaced throughout the house without a single drilling or single wall plug screw used but half a dozen of empty self-expanding foam cans left in rubbish bin.

These days, you almost never get what you pay for...

Alan_M_2

That depends if your a glass half empty or half full, so instead of rating the work on estimate alone, (which as you've clearly pointed out is a plain lottery) get a recommendation, go and see some of the work the company or person has carried out and make an informed decision.

It doesn't matter what you're buying or how much you have to spend caveat emptor applies in each and every case.

Here are a few installations I did over the years....

http://s44.photobucket.com/albums/f34/ATStone/

My bathrooms started at around £5000 and went upwards depending on exactly what was required, the marble room pictured was a lot more than £5000.

A good fitter will provide references and have no problem in doing so.

cargo

Alan M

It's a real pleasure to see workmanship like that.
You clearly take a pride in your work.
Unfortunatly a lot of people are not willing to part with the cash to enable that level of work/detail/finish.
This takes time and thats what you pay for.

missk_ensington

It only took my 2 plumbers 5 hours to change my like-for-like bathroom suite and it cost me £250 cash. See my other posts in 'Is this Fair 'cost of tiling' and other posts for my methods of aquiring workmen.

There is absolutely no way I would pay over a grand for a day or two's work! What's he on £3,000 a week??!

tisonlymoi

My plumber and his mate have just informed me that I owe them £3,000 for fitting a bathroom suite and tiling (approx 22 metres wall and 4.5 floor). What shall I do?