New Bathroom

kaza

Hi, I had a quote of £1700 to have a bathroom fitted and tiled (small room) I went with it as he lives across the road and all neighbours use him etc.

He told me to pick the bathroom out of the synergy brouchure he gave me, to cut a long story short..... the item I liked was £700 for a sink vanity unit alone eeeeek (tavistock groove) so I looked on the net and found the identical one on branded bathrooms for £400 so I thought he must get a big discount, asked him to call around and told him about the prices, he said he could get 10% off but thats it. The identical synergy bath is 40% cheaper elsewhere.

I can obviously order it myself, but my concern is he was either going to rip me off as I am sure plumbers must be more aware of prices than I am or he hasn't got a clue! .

I also said I wanted the skirting boards removing and tiling to the floor and he said you cant do it as the floors may not be level.

I just wondered what your thoughts are

thanks
karen

andyhop

kaza wrote: »

Hi, I had a quote of £1700 to have a bathroom fitted and tiled (small room) I went with it as he lives across the road and all neighbours use him etc.

He told me to pick the bathroom out of the synergy brouchure he gave me, to cut a long story short..... the item I liked was £700 for a sink vanity unit alone eeeeek (tavistock groove) so I looked on the net and found the identical one on branded bathrooms for £400 so I thought he must get a big discount, asked him to call around and told him about the prices, he said he could get 10% off but thats it. The identical synergy bath is 40% cheaper elsewhere.

I can obviously order it myself, but my concern is he was either going to rip me off as I am sure plumbers must be more aware of prices than I am or he hasn't got a clue! .

I also said I wanted the skirting boards removing and tiling to the floor and he said you cant do it as the floors may not be level.

I just wondered what your thoughts are

thanks
karen

Prices are between customer and tradesman, You may find he has offset labour costs against materials or may wish to apply a mark up on materials for his time to order/collect etc

This is one of the reasons i ask my customers to pay suppliers directly, Not interested in any mark-up as long as i have no leg work to do!

The skirting boards - What he is saying is a load of bull. Boards can easily be removed, Timber straps removed and wall plastered/rendered/made good. Even if the floor level is out slightly its nothing that cant be sorted at the end of the days work with a couple of bags of self levelling compound

£1700 for a bathroom in my eyes is too cheap! I can easily spend £900 on basic building materials before labour, waste and suite is added

spadoosh

Has he said you can only order your bathroom from that supplier?! Some tradesmen are funny with what goods they will deal with and what ones they won't. Have you suggested buying a suite from anywehre you want?!

I agree with andy about the flooring, probably easier to lay tiles on an uneven floor and make it look good than bend a length of skirting to replace. Dunno what your fitter is on about there?!

I personally think £1700 to fit the bathroom is about right but depends how much tiling is done, if you went to one of the DIY sheds and had it fitted it would (obv depends on size of bathroom and work that needs doing) but cost about 2-2.5k and they notoriously charge more than standar plumbers.

You checked the work he has done at the neigbours??

Have you had any other quotes?!

kaza

He seemed happy for me to get it elsewhere, as it was the identical one so same quality etc.

thanks

tpt

I'd second the thing about the skirtings, absolute load of s***e.

if your supplying then you should be free to source what you want, from where you want. He may have a kickback arrangement with the supplier or he may just not be able to get more than 10% off, he wont have the buying power of the shop on the internet, and his supplier probably wont either.

frankthetank1664

Yep this company is worth using for the fact that he lives across the road , If you ever have a problem , You know where to find him.....however the skirting board comment is a load of rubbish. Maybe they want to minimize the hassle factor ie times money etc. The installation cost is ok but again you can't expect him to give prices like they do online. Clearly his terms are probably 10-25% with his supplier and with the supply he is collecting the item, delivering , installing and I'd imagine he would be offering some kind of guarantee on the product ?
Lets face is he has to make a profit also, as I''d guessed he's running a business there.

I run a online bathroom store where we buy almost 30% of our stock direct from the manufacturers so clearly our prices will be much cheaper

Purchasing online is great as you save money from expensive showroom rrps and essentially im going to say that as I run a web based bathroom store but please be aware that if theres a problem with the item for any reason or it doesn't turn up on time , you may have saved 30 quid but you bet that your tradesman will be charging you to sit there waiting for the item to be delivered or changed.

Hope this helps