Hate my new bath.. I could cry..

[eggsinonetamborine]

We have never had any money to do anything to our houses in the 10+ years we've lived together.
We had a shell suite style bathroom that was in when we moved, not exactly modern but worked ok.

We have saved and had a new bathroom fitted this one

www.victorianplumbing.co.uk/turin-l-shaped-1700-complete-bathroom-package?sku=TRCBS-RH

It looks lovely. But I'm a huge bath person.. it's my comfort.. and the bath is the most uncomfortable thing I've ever laid in.
It's so narrow there is no where to put my arms.. and where I would rest my head just hurts my neck. I come out feeling more stressed than when I went in. I could cry.
What can I do?
Please say someone else has been here 😢

I have that bath and don't find it a problem - the problem with it for me is my bath board is too narrow to fit along the wide bit and often falls in! I do get what you mean though - I'm a size 16 so not small but maybe it depends on how wide your shoulders are - it is narrow at that end. TBF it was the cheapest suite on the site so I didn't expect luxury.

My daughter bought a set like this from Victoria Plum and she hates it. She hates the toilet too, it’s very square like the bath and one of her kids refuses to sit on it for fear of falling in.

I’m a bath person so I feel your pain.

Give it time, it could just be the change. But if not I think you may have to go and find another bath.

I’ve been there! I got a new plastic bath when the enamel was coming off my old one and it was rather scratchy. Whenever I get in the new one, I find my arms are pinned to my sides so can’t really wash properly. I can’t really work it out because this bath takes up the same external space as the old one. Needless to say, I used to be a bath person but now I’m a shower person!

Can you get the old bath fitted if cost us an issue? Then sell on the new one?

Could you buy (or DIY / or order custom made) external arm rests?

I‘m picturing something that you could essentially put over the railing so you could rest your arm on it/outside the bath.

English isn’t my first language and my vocabulary unfortunately seems to be failing me for this imaginary contraption.
Or did I manage to explain what I mean?
I could draw it, otherwise.

We have this bath and I love it, because I hate baths but the shower bit is perfect.

My DS(3) also likes to use the angle of the foot end as a slide

I bought a very similar bath. I'm a big bath person and hated it. I had to change it - nothing else i could do! I tried bath pillows etc..but could stans the thought of nit enjoying a bath again. The moral is always buy a bath you can sit in and try out first.
It was a costly mistake but I couldn't live with it!

I'm so glad you posted this OP, as we're looking at replacing our bathroom soon and I was planning on getting a bath in this shape. I will definitely insist on sitting in them now!

I'd be intrigued to know if anyone has a comfy bath like this, or if we need to look at regular baths. Shower has to go over the bath as it's a tiny room.

We had this bath and felt the same- it was far too narrow. We ended up replacing it with the same shape bath, can’t remember the bath but know it was a duracast one- the internal dimensions were slightly larger and it’s made a huge difference.

I have that exact suite. I find it ok but not great. What we had before was worse so anything was better than that!

We used to have this exact bath and I too hated it as it was narrow and there was no arm room. When we did our bathroom recently we got this bath

https://www.diy.com/departments/cooke-lewis-shaftesbury-white-acrylic-rectangular-straight-bath-l-1700mm-w-800mm/98540_BQ.prd

Can definitely recommend for anyone looking at baths, it is a tiny bit wider than a standard bath at 800m instead of 700m but if that fits it really makes all the difference imo.

I have the opposite problem! Our bath is huge and I’m only 5’2” so it’s too long for me to lie in it unless I only put a few inches of water in it!

I feel your pain op. We had ripped out the bathroom and en suite then lock down happened so ordered the first set that looked nice and fitted and had them installed as soon as possible. Loathe the bath, it creaks so much when filling or getting in as the heat expands the body of the bath and must rub against the skirt. Also too big for my 5ft 4 frame. Dh loves it as he's tall but even the noise puts him off, it's like the entire thing is about to shatter it's so creaky! I've just given up on baths and use the shower now. Actually just gave away all my gorgeous bath oils to my dm yesterday as I fear they'll go to waste.

https://www.victorianplumbing.co.uk/oakland-1750-double-ended-roll-top-slipper-bath-with-skirt

I'm a bath person too and feel your pain. How disappointing and annoying after saving up hard for it as well.

I always try the bath when looking round houses I am buying. Having said that, I do feel a bit self conscious lying there with the agent hovering- and very nearly bought a place with a similar shaped bath to yours. Despite trying it, I thought oh it will be OK- I didn't go ahead in the end for a number of reasons and am glad I didn't.

My current bath is heavenly. No idea what model and must be at least 20 years old. It's both wide and long and the incline is just right. I will definitely miss it when I move.

I have a P shaped bath but it's a curved one rather than square and it's fine.

We got ours from our local independent supplier. It wasn't much more than the big named brands, but the customer service was excellent. When we were picking out the pieces, they urged us to get in and try them out.

This even included getting us to sit on the toilets, with someone holding a board next to it to represent where the wall would be so we could see how much leg room there would be!

So if you're going to get a replacement, have a look to see if you've got an independent supplier in your area. You can YouTube how to change the bath. It won't be that tricky as your plumber would have put in all the pipe work etc.

We had one similar to this but sloped more at the wide end. This one looks very straight at the ends.

Did your plumber not ask where you wanted the taps mounting?

We put ours in the middle so you could lie back. You could change the tap position but would have to look how to fill the hole left so it didn't look ugly.

I feel your pain! I also have massive bath regret. We were recommended a new ‘modern’ low bath which I thought was great as it preserved heat and saved water. However the depth of the water doesn’t even cover my belly! Because of this I am forced to make the water scalding hot do I don’t freeze to death.

sad times. I’ve considered getting it refitted but we literally remortgaged our house for the bathroom renovation.

Oh no gutted for you OP, I rented a house for 3 years with a P shaped bath and it was impossible to bathe in in comfortably too narrow at the narrow end and too wide at the wide end! Just used it as a shower, definitely taught me to avoid them like the plague, I also learned to put taps in the middle not at one end or another (but I had romantic ideals of shared baths with my husband, before kids, that never really materialised as he hates baths lol) I bought my bath 10 years ago but also think it was a Kaldewei double ended 750 wide x 1700, I'm a size 12 but it was also comfy when I was pushing a size 18 pregnant. I'll look it up x

This one:
https://www.victorianplumbing.co.uk/kaldewei-saniform-plus-2th-steel-enamel-bath

(you can get it cheaper)
keeps the heat and is very comfy and wide

Fit a seat across the bath sides and just have your feet in the water.

Really sorry to hear that, OP.

Anyone thinking of changing their bath, please try beforehand. Every bath I've used has always been ok, until we moved into our present house. I partly think it's the angle of the bath against your back, but I half suspect it's a bit longer than other baths. I just keep slipping down, I've tried sticking my legs tightly into the sides of the bath, but that only helps for so long. I've only had four baths since moving in nine years ago.

Be wary of moving the taps to the middle - we had a bath like that in our new house and when one of the taps started leaking it was impossible to reach the pipework and taps without riping out the whole bath, along with some tiled boxing. We didn't have any spare tiles so the best the plumber could do was isolate the tap. It was the cold tap, so after that we had to fill up the bath using only the hot tap and using the boiler to control the temperature!

We have this tub... the ONLY saving grace is the taps are wall mountsled up high so i can sit in the wide square bit. Everything else about it is CRAP.

I would really recommend finding another bath and refitting its not as crazy expensive as you would think maybe £500 total (your builde mray take pity on you. Mine would probably take the new bath and use it on another job/ a friends and knock £50 off for me )

You can’t just move them. All the plumbing would need to be reposition and yes would leave a hole.

also it won’t help - I tried a similar bath in showroom and they’re awful.

I realised you needed to test baths out because they are different, but Dm and Df went round sitting on all the toilets in the show rooms until they found one they were comfortable with. Didn’t dream there was such a huge difference in those too.