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Bathroom refit hell in South East London

13 replies

noidles · 08/07/2014 13:03

So really I have two reason for posting this - firstly to find out if I'm being mugged by the guy who has already quoted for our bathroom refit. If we are being mugged, then I guess I want to know if anyone else has any recommendations of bathroom specialists in the SE London area?

My DP and I are buying our first house in South East London and the house we're buying is in reasonably good condition, but requires a total bathroom refit - the current bathroom suite and tiles need ripping out. We then wanted the fitting of a new bathroom suite in exactly the same place as the old, and we wanted an L shaped bath/shower, toilet, sink and vanity unit. Our bathroom is about 8 foot by 8 foot (ish).

My friend had her bathroom refitted two and a half years ago and the guy did a really good job. She showed me her full itemised quote and it was pretty similar to our requirements - it came in at £4,000 for everything including the ripping out of her old suite, and the supply and fitting of the new suite. She had to supply tiles, but he tiled the bathroom for her and she was even able to get a discount through him on her tiles.

PErfect, we thought. so we contacted him. We obviously had my friend's quote in our head, but did also expect to pay more because our bathroom is slightly bigger and we wanted a couple more bespoke things. We are willing to pay around £5,500 and we will supply tiles at an additional cost that will be separate.

Anyway, he has now quoted and had quoted £5,000 for the labour alone, and then £2,200 for the fittings. When I challenged him on why the labour alone was £900 more than my friend had paid for everything he gave me some line about costs having gone up by 15% since she had her bathroom done. When I said I'd have to get alternative quotes he said if I was to pay cash in hand he could knock £1,000 off the labour.

Does anyone think this is reasonable? Or am I being mugged off here?

Does anyone else have good recommendations of bathroom specialists in South East London? Or is there any way I can make this cheaper and make this come in at around £5,500? Or is my budget too small?

HELP!

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coraltoes · 08/07/2014 15:26

tell him someone else has come in at 5,5k, if he can match it he can start Monday and you'll pay cash. If not you'll go to the other guy.

I bet he price matches.

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VeryPunny · 08/07/2014 16:20

What's included under " a couple more bespoke things"?

Not sure I'd be happy cash in hand for such a large amount of money.

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noidles · 08/07/2014 16:39

Nothing major - so we'd just asked for one of those rain show head things, and a wall mounted sink/cabinet unit. So nothing out of this world.

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noidles · 08/07/2014 16:40

shower head i mean

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WhatKatyDidnt · 08/07/2014 18:13

I think £4-5k is about normal for labour and materials (excluding suite and tiles) in London. With some clever shopping around I am sure you can get quality fittings for less than £2.2k

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apermanentheadache · 08/07/2014 20:02

You can easily get fixtures for much, much less than he is quoting, given you don't want a separate shower cubicle.

We used Doble Bathrooms in Hounslow. They were good and open to bargaining. I think they deliver in a wider area.

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noidles · 08/07/2014 23:15

I think what we're thinking now is perhaps to source the suite ourselves, and get someone else to fit. So I guess we just need to find a fitter....aaaand the suite.

The main issue with sourcing our own bathroom suite is that I know absolutely nothing about what we need, and my DP knows even less. The guy who quoted us sent us a list of suggestions with costs, and then a link to a brochure so we could decide for ourselves if we likes his suggestions or not. I thought we could use this as a guide, but I've been trying to match up his suggestions and costs with the brochure he sent, but in pretty much every case the price he's quoted is way higher than in the brochure...so either he's being cheeky (again), or there's added fittings he's including with each cost. And I would have no idea what these additional fittings would be. But I guess if we go to a showroom, maybe they'd be able to help?

Thanks for the Doble Bathrooms suggestion. I might pop along this weekend.

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minipie · 08/07/2014 23:50

For the labour... building labour costs in London have gone up a lot recently (in line with house prices basically!) so that amount for the labour isn't too surprising though I expect you can get it a bit cheaper, esp since it sounds like a pretty simple job.

fittings - definitely get them yourselves. I'd suggest a visit to burge and Gunson in morden, sit down with one of their staff, they can tell you all the hidden extra bits you need and their prices are good too.

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noidles · 09/07/2014 12:48

That's amazing, thank you. I think we'll take a look at the suggested places over the next few weeks. Morden is a bit closer for us to get to so we might take a drive down there this weekend.

So I think for fitting around £3.5 to £4k is fine, and then we'll try to get the fittings for between £1,500 and £2,000, plus the tiles on top.

I think that seems good, and will make things a little more bespoke I guess.

I think my main gripe is just that my job is nearly identical to my friend's and he's charging around £3.5k more for it. Totally understand costs have gone up in two years, but surely not by that much!

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MummytoMog · 09/07/2014 13:48

Good god, how much???? And people ask why I fit my own bathrooms as much as possible. I paid someone to fit our en suite and they did a crappy crappy job, which I spent the next two months making good:

He didn't fix washstand to wall, seal under sink so washstand started swelling from drips, didn't replace washers in waste pipe under freestanding bath when they caught them in the thread so it leaked, lost washer in shower hose so it leaked, fitted feet wrong to freestanding bath and then sanded one down to make it fit. It still didn't fit and I discovered this was because they had shoved silicone in between bath and feet to try and stop it wobbling. I could go on.

What might work as a reasonable compromise is to do the grunt work myself - so disconnect and remove the old suite yourself, chisel off the old tiles, take up the old floor, source the new suite yourself and have it delivered ready to go, ditto taps and shower heads etc. Then find a plumber who is happy to fit and a tiler who is happy to tile. Most plumbers will be happy to give you a list of what you need to buy, and similarly a tiler will be happy just to supply grout and adhesive, with you sourcing the tiles.

There aren't many extra fittings for a bathroom really - waste traps are about a tenner, tap connectors are about 4 each, a bit of copper pipe, waste pipe, connections and some isolation valves might come to 50 for a bigish bathroom with basin, shower and sink. If you have fancy chromed wastes on your shower it will be a bit more too. But really, you need to spend a bit of time digging through bathroom websites, reading up on bathroom installation and costing things yourself. And getting more quotes. I've had success using rated people to source builders/gas fitters.

I put a new bathroom in at the weekend - builders put the water supply in and fitted waste pipes into the external wall. I used a cast iron bath I brought from my old house (needs re-finishing, but that's on the budget for later in the year) and bought a nice traditional WC from eBay (80), an 80cm Hemnes washstand from Ikea's bargain corner with sink (85), niceish tap from eBay (20), reused the taps from our old bath (were about 60 for a shower mixer though), bought an oval chrome shower rail from eBay (130 incl delivery), two shower curtains from Ikea (10), 6sqm of vinyl floor tiles from Gerflor (45), some wood and T and G cladding to box in the waste on one wall, with a nice shelf on top (60 from Wickes for 1.2m high by 2.75m long), some waste piping and various compression connectors to connect the wastes of the sink, the bath and the loo (40), a few flexible connectors (15) and a bit of copper pipe (10). Paint was about 60 for bathroom paint and satinwood. Obviously I have all the tools already for cutting wood, pipes etc, or the start up cost would be higher and I spend a lot of time looking for things cheaply. But the savings are HUGE. I couldn't afford to pay someone to do my bathroom, but I can afford the time to do it myself.

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TooSpotty · 09/07/2014 15:27

We currently have a quote for 4,800 to rip out our old bathroom, do structural work (including an RSJ), and refit the bathroom - materials excluded. So your quote sounds excessive.

Also the cost of supplies. Go and look in the warehouse at CP Hart - it's clearance for good brands. You can get a good quality bath for 200 for example. You have to have to collect it pretty much immediately so you need to be ready to go, but they have a LOT of stuff there.

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RuddyDuck · 10/07/2014 03:30

If you pay cash in hand in order to get a cheaper price then you are colluding in fraud.

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AudriusStonkus · 15/11/2018 10:33

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