Bathroom Refurb

Richie_C

Hi everyone,

I've just had a plumber round at the weekend for labor costs to refurbish our bathroom. He's come back with a quote of £4500.

This would be to:

Take out the old suite - bath, shower, toilet and basin.
Remove old tiles, floor(its line a cheap vinyl) and remove the skirting board
Smooth the walls down, they are bumpy but skimming them will make them look new.
Re tile the floor and parts of the walls (basically the shower and bath area. I've worked out all the tiling to be 12sqm. That's including 10% for waste.
We also asked if he would make some recess shelves in to walls of the bathroom. These walls are hollow and are'nt supporting walls.
He would then also install the new suite.

As for the suite, tiles etc. We would provide them ourselves from various retailers.
So far I've priced up a bath, vanity basin, shower enclosure with tray, new shower, taps for bath and basin, all waster pipe work, cabinet, 3 ceiling lights, towel rail, toilet holder etc and tiles. I've priced these all up for £2k, while not dirt cheap we have gone for mid range and are currently still looking round for good deals on these items from lots of different sites.


With that all noted he's quoted £4500 for 2 weeks on his time to complete the above work, that is for his labor costs and materials he will use like grout and sealant etc.

My question is this a fair quote?

I'll post up some pictures when I get home so you can have a better idea of what he would be working with

Doozergirl

A good bathroom fit does depend on good preparstion and isn't as cheap as many people
think. That said, I'm not sure it's great for two weeks work of one person's time without warrantying anything.

You've got quite a lot to install but you will always have the issue that if there is something wrong with one of the items that you purchase (or it's ever questionable that it could be product or workmanship) then it's your own problem.

Does this include a charge for VAT?

Of course the labour charge does depend on the level of work, but you're not buying hugely expensive items there.

I don't think skim is the best way of ensuring good adhesion for the tiles. Cement board is expensive and this can bump up materials but £30 in plaster isn't going to do the same.

Richie_C

Here are some images of my bathroom: http://imgur.com/a/7POzHThe total roomsize is under 3m x 3m.

As for tiling we only want the floor, shower and bath area tiled.
I found a which article online that gave use average prices for installing baths and tiling etc and when I use the average prices I'm getting nowhere near 4.5k for labor.

To put it into context the same guy originally quoted to just install the bath, shower, basin and toilet and was going to charge £300 to install them all and that included all the pipe work. Now I have a plasterer who will plaster the room for a few hundred. Which leaves tiling, boxing in of pipe work and installing the recessed shelving I dont know how that can add up to £4k. As for painting we would do that.

Richie_C

Doozergirl wrote: »

A good bathroom fit does depend on good preparstion and isn't as cheap as many people
think. That said, I'm not sure it's great for two weeks work of one person's time without warrantying anything.

You've got quite a lot to install but you will always have the issue that if there is something wrong with one of the items that you purchase (or it's ever questionable that it could be product or workmanship) then it's your own problem.

Does this include a charge for VAT?

Of course the labour charge does depend on the level of work, but you're not buying hugely expensive items there.

I don't think skim is the best way of ensuring good adhesion for the tiles. Cement board is expensive and this can bump up materials but £30 in plaster isn't going to do the same.

Everyone we've spoke to was shocked by the price. As you can see from the photos its not a tiny bathroom but its not massive either.

Again I just dont understand how he cant quote £300 to install a bath, basin, toilet and shower enclosure and shower and thats with any additional pipework and then add on £4200 to tile and skin the walls and box in the pipework.

lauraland

I cant see your pic. Are you changing the layout at all, such as moving the toilet? I'm getting mine done 2.5 x 1.9m at a cost of 3k, and they will have it completed in a week. I would get a few more quotes if I were you, just to compare.

ukjoel

You called a plumber - he quoted £300 for plumbing.

He then quoted £4k for tilng.

I dont think he wants to do the tiling.

Get plumber to do the plumbing - then get a tiler to do the tiling.

Better finish and better price.

Doozergirl

£300 to do the plumbing is ridiculously low though!

Richie_C

lauraland wrote: »

I cant see your pic. Are you changing the layout at all, such as moving the toilet? I'm getting mine done 2.5 x 1.9m at a cost of 3k, and they will have it completed in a week. I would get a few more quotes if I were you, just to compare.

We are not moving anything. Everything is staying in the same place, the only sort of extra pipe work we need is some pipe work so we can have a mixer shower installed instead of an electric.

The guy we got round isn't just a plumber he also fits bathrooms. He replied to a MyBuilder post and has 100% feedback and has photos of bathrooms he's done up so he can tile.

I just dont get the MASSIVE price for tiling and plastering when he said it would be £300 to install the bath etc.

We have another chap coming round tomorrow night to look and give us a quote.

Richie_C

lauraland wrote: »

I cant see your pic. Are you changing the layout at all, such as moving the toilet? I'm getting mine done 2.5 x 1.9m at a cost of 3k, and they will have it completed in a week. I would get a few more quotes if I were you, just to compare.

£3/4k is what we were looking to pay.

As I say nothing fancy, not moving anything around and not even tiling the whole room, cant imagine why it would cost more.

lauraland

It definately sounds like a high quote. I'm not moving the toilet, but everything else is getting moved so theres a bit of pipe work involved in my quote. Full floor is getting tiled, and around the bath and sink. I'm also getting new wiring for the shower.

Hopefully you'll get a more reasonable quote from the chap tonight.

Richie_C

Well we had a chap round on thursday night. He was here for well over an hour (a lot longer than the other guy), he took measurements for everything and said he would get back to us by next Thursday giving us a full quote and he will break it all down and show us how much each individual thing costs every down to how much the grout and sealant will cost. So for now this guy seems A LOT better than the last chap who took no sort of measurements and to the best of my knowledge picked a figure out of thin air