Choosing a bath

[Babynamelist]

I'm looking to change the bath in our en suite bathroom. I've never bought a bath before and am a bit overwhelmed by the price differences between them. What is the difference between a £800 or a £200 bath, say? We have quite a healthy budget but I don't want to splurge unnecessarily. I do want a good quality, comfortable bath though. I quite like the look of this one:
victoriaplum.com/product/cayman-d-shaped-doubled-ended-back-to-wall-bath-cay1779d
What do you reckon?

[concertplayer]

Ergonomic Designs are highly rated on Trustpilot. They seem to offer
well-known brands( Roca, Armitage Shanks, ideal ) at good prices with free
delivery over £1oo Plumbcentre is a good starting point when
it comes to looking at the top brands but I would not buy from them.
I believe it is the thickness of the material used that determines the quality,
sturdiness you do not want a flimsy bath so I guess the better the material the more expensive it will . There will be others on here that know more than me.
Designer stuff eg Hudson Reed expensive so avoid
You did a wise thing to look at the shape first
Will you want to put a shower over it?
Good taps can add alot but Buy British as foreign ones do not match
the water pressure here

[specialsubject]

That bath doesn't look very comfortable as it appears to have steep sides, not good for a session with a good book. Best bet is to go to a showroom and climb in!

It is all in the installation - proper support is essential.

[Babynamelist]

Thanks for the speedy reply Concertplayer. That's really helpful. I'll start focusing some of the names you've suggested.

I think the D-shaped bath is the way we want to go - will suit the space the most. We have a separate shower but will need to put mixer taps with a handheld shower attachment on the bath.

[wowfudge]

We fitted one of those in our old bathroom except it was from B&Q and called a Helena bath, but it's the same one I believe. Just watch the price - it probably doesn't include the shaped bath panel. Decent quality - it's acrylic with fibre glass reinforcement. More expensive baths can be made of thicker acrylic or metal.

[wowfudge]

It was extremely comfortable and perfect for a deep bath! We had deck mounted taps on ours. I miss it.

[Babynamelist]

It's tricky, isn't it, Special? There are all these online possibilities but you still need to go and have a lie down in a showroom somewhere! We're a little limited by bath size too. 1700 x 700 ideally. I also didn't want too deep a bath as we have a sloping ceiling over it and I didn't want everything to look too closed in!

[Babynamelist]

Good to know Wow. The bath will be going into a corner so I'm hoping to minimise the gap at the bottom (so there won't be an award spot where I can't clean). Did you ever notice such problems? I'm trying not to buy a 'normal' corner bath where only one end is curved to try and make the bathroom look a little more stylish and contemporary.

[HollyMaingate]

Carronite is the best in terms of acrylic baths if you can stretch to one. As solid as steel but not cold and available in all sorts of shapes and sizes unlike steel.

[Aftershock15]

We have this one. It's steel and passed my 'tap test' - it doesn't sound tacky when I tap it. Nice shape too.

[wowfudge]

We were going to push the bath into the corner for that reason but decided it would look better if it wasn't and would in fact be easier to clean around. It meant it was closer to the loo, but it wasn't right next to it. Meant moving the pipework though.

It was a real feature. I think we had the slightly wider one. Because the panel goes in towards the floor it doesn't look too imposing.

[wowfudge]

Ah - might as well post a photo of the old bathroom so you can see what it looked like OP.

[wonkylegs]

We have a kaldewei steel bath which I would highly recommend. We had one for 10yrs in our old house that looked brand new after that time so when we redid the bathroom in the new house we bought the same one again we have a 1800 long one which is fab & huge.

[Babynamelist]

Thanks for all of your thoughts. Much appreciated. And Wow, your old bathroom looks wow!

[wowfudge]

Thanks - it's the one thing I miss about the old house.