Small bathroom housebarrassment installation quote £5000?

Arklight

We live in one of those smallish 1960s 3 bed semis where the 3rd bedroom is a bit bigger than a box room, but not by much. 

If you know what these are like, that should give you an idea of the bathroom. Small.

A large, national DIY store that offers to cure us of housebarrassment quoted us about £2500 for the new suite and fittings, which seems fine. 

For labour, they quoted £3700 (including installation of an extractor fan), plus we need to prepare for an additional £1000 for things that the fitter will add on, on site (plastering, wiring etc).

That puts the cost of the install at around £5000 and the total cost at £7500.

I admittedly know nothing about building, but it just seems like...a lot to install a small bathroom. My other half is fine with it and says that's what bathrooms cost. 

2bFrank

Depends on the types fittings installed, but £3700 seems reasonable for labour from a chain, if you can find a local fitter that is well recommended I think will be the best option though, albeit prob not much cheaper.

Ours was a similar size (so tiny we had to have a 3/4 bath that only just fit) and all together it was roughly £9,000 all in (but that included moving a boiler in the loft)but that was 2017, materials and labour have all increased since then. we sourced materials from cliftons (bath shower etc), tiles from tile manufacture direct and found two guys that where well recommended to fit and tile.

Arklight

Thanks - I guess that is just what it costs then!

[Deleted User]

Same here, small bathroom, 9k.
Ceiling to flooring and everything inbetween, 15 working days in total, plasterer, electrician, plumber - their labour and fitments 9k.

MaryNB

Got my 5 m2 square bathroom redone last year in the SW in the height of the DIY boom -  called 14 companies, eventually managed to get two quotes, both for approx. £2.7k, labour only. 

Labour included removing wall tiles (about 9 m2 area) and replacing with metro tiles, remove laminate flooring and replace with vinyl, box around a new concealed cistern (they tiled the sides of box), install new bowl, remove sink to tile behind it and reinstall, new mdf boxing around pipework, replace shower door. They didn't touch the shower tray, no electrics, no plastering, no major plumbing - none of the fixtures were moved around, I did all the painting. 

Arklight

OK, £4500 to do the lot doesn't sound that bad then. I had no idea...

plumb1_2

I’ll do it for £5k if your in the NW
The problem with a small bathroom is that only one person can work in there at the same time.
With one of the sheds doing it, it might get subbed out to several people.
Best to get a local plumber to quote and install 

ChilliBob

We just had our en-suite done. Labour was about 4.8 (London prices). Materials needed from those guys was about 500 quid. Our bathroom stuff was quite a bit more, about 8k, but that's just down to the individual products you want really. They are pricey

I actually think the labour isn't too bad, the fitters need to know multiple trades and often don't know exactly what they are dealing eith until they rip out etc.

Fixtures and fittings, these really are a pi** take, when a bathroom shop gives you a list price discount of say 30-40% without you even asking, and it's still pricey lol

Arklight

Update: brother in law, who's a plumber / builder, did this for us. He did it for £3700 all in - so a saving of about £1000 on the bathroom place. 

I had no idea how much work was involved. It took about 3 weeks and was way more involved than I realised. E.g. floorboards up to hide pipes, having to relevel walls that were sloped before tiling them, burying wiring and routing isolators outside. 

The results are amazing; everything is fitted perfectly. I think a fitter would have charged a lot more than £1000 for all those extras, if they had done them.

So I guess bathrooms are just expensive.