Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think £5000 is too much for small bathroom

34 replies

seoladair · 11/02/2014 14:34

Please give me your wisdom. Is £5k too much for an 8x 6 bathroom? (New bath, loo, basin, fan and half tiled, the rest painted)
We were going to buy units from homebase but the builder said he could get units more cheaply for us. Are we being naive? We're in Londob btw.

OP posts:
NotSuchASmugMarriedNow · 11/02/2014 14:35

Best to get 3 or 4 quotes and then compare prices i'd say.

MooncupGoddess · 11/02/2014 14:37

Mine cost £4600 all in for a similar job, also in London, so I don't think it's ridiculous, but do get some quotes to see if you can get a better price.

strongandlong · 11/02/2014 14:40

Depends on the prices for the fittings & tiles, but sounds about right to me. We paid about £6k for a slightly smaller room. Fully tiled, new lighting and the walls needed some attention, so that added to the cost. On the other hand, we're in south wales, so labour rates much lower. We chose moderately expensive tiles/fittings but not top end except for my beautiful and ridiculously expensive floor tiles, but we only needed 1 sq m of those.

meboo · 11/02/2014 14:42

just had mine done for £1500 new suite fully tiled and painted. Great job.

squeakytoy · 11/02/2014 14:43

Ridiculously over priced even for London rates.

SamG76 · 11/02/2014 14:43

YANBU - That was my view as well, but we got lots of quotes and ended up paying about £6.5K (in London) for moderately expensive fittings.

MoreBeta · 11/02/2014 14:45

I got quoted £21k for a 15 x 8 shower room. We politely declined but it was fairly spectacular.

We just spent £5k on a bathroom 10 x 12 using recycled porcelain fittings but paid for plumbing, floor tiles and wood panelling, windows refurbished and shutters, electrics and painting.

TBH depending what needs to be done it doesn't sound too bad for London. It is true you can get very good fitted furniture for bathrooms now if you get it at trade prices. Check around the internet - there are good deals on some quite high end bathroom stuff out there.

lynniep · 11/02/2014 14:50

We spent that on similar. B&Q did it. Never again.

volvocowgirl · 11/02/2014 14:51

Mine is very slightly smaller and cost £2k last year (which included ripping out the spaghetti junction of unnecessary pipe work and replacing with simple new stuff (I know none of its on show but it really was all over the shop). We had tiles from floor to ceiling on 3 walls, a handmade bath panel, new suite and bespoke storage units built in by a joiner. One wall which wasn't tiled floor to ceiling was also replastered.
We're not in London but the price difference seems extreme!

pointythings · 11/02/2014 15:01

That sounds expensive. Our is that size and it was £3k - that was with sink, bath, mirror, basin unit, new electric shower, all plastering and painting, new radiator, floor, fan, lighting and retiling with posh tiles. We're in the wilds of Suffolk though and the guy who did it for us is local, only works word of mouth and has more work than he can keep up with because he's both affordable and brilliant.

clairemum22 · 11/02/2014 15:43

Ooh pointy things,could I have his name and location please?!

pointythings · 11/02/2014 15:49

Have pm'd you, clairemum Smile

HobbetInTheHeadlights · 11/02/2014 15:49

We were quoted this much by all major big firms - B & Q was one quote.

We got a local firm who did it for just over 3 K - half tiles half plastered. They did a good job and it was done in five days - everyone else said 2 weeks - 10 days.

I'd at least look round a while longer - took us ages to find the local firm.

Megrim · 11/02/2014 16:44

Seems reasonable, it will also depend on the price of the fixtures and fittings you choose.

Our builder quoted a price for ripping out the old bathroom, moving plumbing (this can add a fair bit to cost), installing built in units, installing new wall and floor tiles, underfloor heating, new lights, extractor, all plumbing and electrics, for a price of around £3500, and gave us an allowance for the toilet pan / seat / cistern, bath, sink, pedestal, taps, shower and screen - £1500 covered those elements (plus VAT), you'd be amazed how much these bits add up. Tiles he gave us an allowance per square metre. If we chose fittings and tiles more expensive than the allowance, we paid the extra, if they were cheaper he reduced the overall price accordingly.

Whole lot came in at £5500 plus VAT. Took about 10 days. He may be a bit more expensive then some but he uses time served trades and we know if there's ever a problem he will sort it out. And it's hard to get good tradesmen here just now.

Original poster
seoladair · 11/02/2014 18:28

Thank you. The plumbing doesn't need to be moved so it should be a straightforward job. But judging from your comments it's not too bad. Tesco Finest had quoted an outrageous sum, nearly £7k! :O

OP posts:
Babyroobs · 11/02/2014 18:37

We have a very small bathroom which we have just done for about £1500, although my husband fitted the toilet and washbasin himself. Everything stayed in the same place, so no plumbing work. The suite is from Victoria plumb and was half price but seems very good quaity. Tiling cost us about £200 ( local tradesman).

akachan · 11/02/2014 18:39

Sounds about right I'm afraid (or at least in line with the quotes I have just had for this).

SheRaHasTheAnswer · 11/02/2014 18:52

I think the trick with finding a good bathroom fitter is to go to a local trade supplier and ask for their recommendation.

fluterby · 11/02/2014 19:34

We found it far cheaper to order the basin, bath and toilet and ask a plumber to fit them. Then just tiled and painted ourselves. The labour was around £600 for fitting all three in the same places.

MoreBeta · 11/02/2014 20:37

As others have said getting a good tradesman is the key. Buying fittings is easy off the internet now.

I got a good tradesman who specialises in bathrooms to fit our shower room. Very highly recommended but starting from scratch and its all modern fittings so one person can do it.

However, to restore our Victorian bathroom I had to get a really good heating engineer, electrician, joiner, tiler, a specialist sash window restorer, a specialist in fitting shutters and someone who specialises in restoring iron baths. One person could not have done it. I project managed it and found al of them myself through talking to neighbours. It took me 6 month to find the trades I needed at good enough quality.

Tiredemma · 11/02/2014 20:40

I ordered all of my bathroom off Victoria plumb and got tiles off the internet (came to £1700). Had it all fitted by a plumber who was recommended to us- he charged 2.5k

Tiredemma · 11/02/2014 20:41

That included knocking down a wall between toilet and bathroom to make bathroom bigger

TSSDNCOP · 11/02/2014 20:42

Ours is the same size and was 7k but that included actually building walls and running pipe too (it was part of a bigger room initially

Get 3 quotes and go with the middle one.

LittleBabySqueakSqueak · 11/02/2014 21:27

I paid about that 5 years ago. B&Q would have been about £1000 cheaper but I was warned off their quality by a friend who'd had a bad experience.

WelshMaenad · 11/02/2014 22:18

We're in South Wales and just paid slightly over 2k for similar sized room, including special nonslip flooring fitted bathtub style, handled bath (we have a disabled dd ) vanity sink and custom built back to the loo which was tiled and fitted with a work top. Bathroom as fully tiled, no painted surfaces. The tiling is a work of art, I love it.