B&Q bathroom installation -should I avoid?!

Greenst

Sorry for spelling errors etc doing this on a small phone ! Meant to put the taps were cheaper than b&q equivalents and operate smoothly where as b&q taps seemed lightweight, clicky to operate and the finish is nowhere near as good.

hegus123

I am just in the process of a bathroom being fitted by B & Q.
What the sales person tells you at point of sale is totally different to what you get. I know little of bathroom fitting/tiles etc, so sales person recommended certain tiles and amount.
Mistake number one........due to wrong type of tile, the tiler needed to cut the tiles using a diamond cutter, which increased work/price by double.
Mistake number two........The amount the sales person had calculated was 20 boxes, thinking that was 20 metres coverage, wrong they were 1/2 metre in each box, resulting in only 1/2 delievery, and guess who had to pay for the other 20 boxes.
At present my bathroom is only half tiled, and still awaiting delivery of the other 20 (heavy) boxes, so the plumber/tiler cant do the work yet. We have no bath, and the old toilet, which you have to use buckets to flush it.
There are other problems too, which i will try to sort out later, but my advice (which i have learned.....tks to B & Q) is you are best to see a local plumber/tiler, at least you have a contact for any probs. With b and q, you have a project manager, but only contactable by phone, and in my experience not much help. I paid more because i expected them to be professional, reading the leaflets and talking to there sales team, but this is totally wrong when it comes to work. When the work is finally done, which i cant see for awhile, i will complain, and try to recoup the extra money i had to pay for miss information during the plaining stage. but i dont have much hope in this, seeing how it gone so far. A bad experience for me and my family.:(

betamother

Have just registered with this site to tell a wee bit of the nightmare we had with B&Q bathroom installation and hopefully persuade others away from choosing B&Q installers for getting their bathroom fitted. I appreciate that a percentage of B&Q bathroom installers are well qualified and amply experienced individuals who will deliver a quality installation. However, what we experienced was so horrifically stressful & exhausting that I would say don't gamble on getting a good team of fitters - we did and the gamble didn't pay off. I'll never allow a B&Q contractor into my home again.

Our simple like for like bathroom installation should have been complete within 5 days but ended up taking over 2.5 months with sporadic revisits from different teams contracting for B&Q (all managed by a Fife kitchen and bathroom installation company). In the end we were forced to get very heavy on B&Q via trading standards and we managed to be partially reimbursed for our completely bodged installation because we uncovered the fact that most of the contractors were unqualified casual labourers who did not comply with B&Q's stated standards for criminal records checks and insurance documentation. Essentially, the people 'working' in our home, around our children and with access to private information about our home security and personal belongings could have been !!!!!philes or burglars. There certainly was no evidence of most of them being plumbers.

It is no exaggeration at all for me to look back on our experience with B&Q and identify it as the most stressful episode of our family life. Please don't underestimate the impact of a runaway installation by cowboys in your home, particularly when it is backed by an ill managed machine of people who are happy to pass the buck all day long and are grossly dissassociated with the stress and inconvenience they cause their customers.

By all means buy the B&Q products but DO NOT opt for a B&Q installation. The risks are just too high.

aroachy

Just had a very helpfull chap fro B & Q do a design on my bathroom, just over £7000.00 but delving deeper into the labour charge was almost £5000.00 yikers thats for a weeks work, appreciate not as simple as that,the tiling cost was £1200 thats for 20 square metres all in,(Floor and walls),to take to remove and dispose of bathroom £437, i dont mind paying a reasonable amount but because its a small bathroom, the is a minimum charge per job, so the local recommended chap is coming today,

sistafromanothermista

I would avoid like the plague if i were you. Go for someone independent and you'll get a much higher level of service.