Advice from Property Developers: The cheapest quote I've had for doing my bathroom is £7K - so how come on all those Property Developing programmes they can do bathrooms AND kitchens for about £3K?

[hotmama]

It's not as if I want anything particularly spectacular - new suite/shower/fully tiled/halogen lights.

In last nights Property Ladder they did 2 bathrooms and a kitchen for £3.5K. O.K. this was without labour - but how come?

Any top tips.

TIA

I think the guy last night was a carpenter - so he probably built the kitchen himself. The rest is down to buying cheap parts (eg in the sales), and doing the labour yourself.

The old adage - you can have any two of the 3 - cheap, fast, quality - but not all 3.

I got 3 quotes for mine and they varied from £5,000 to £1,500. Seems to depend on the size of the company doing the work. Dolphin were the most expensive and the cheapest was a little local firm of two blokes.

The kitchen was nice though!

But 2 bathrooms-I can't even source the basic equipment for that.

Just that - labour costs! DH is a gardener and when the garden makeover programmes were at their peak was forever getting comments about prices because they only ever showed the prices of materials, not the labour for a team of ten people rushing around to get it all done in 24 hours.

So getting an independent plumber may be the best option? Stupid alert - but do they sort out the electrics/tiling etc and subcontract or can they do it themselves?

My little local man did mine for £1,500. That included a new bath, toilet and sink, all with them built in kitchen style units around them to hide the pipework. He also lowered the very high ceiling and fitted flush lights in it.

Last nights property ladder I'm sure was not telling the whole truth vis a vis costs

we know a plumber who has just built hos own two houses and sold them and he is just starting to renovate a house about the size of that one last night in our road. I went round it with him last week and he reckons it will cost him around 60k

You can source baths, sinks etc much more cheaply if you go direct to builders merchants. you can't get the right fancy stuff there but you can get perfectly good design (Ideal Standard) etc. If you do a bit of digging around you can also buy tiles and flooring direct.

It also costs much less if you project manage it yourself, find a plumber to plumb, electrician to wire, and tiler to tile, rather than get someone to do the whole thing.

also, some of them can do it themselves, some of them contract out.

a word of warning - people who can do good tiling are hard to find, plumbers who can tile to an acceptable standard even more so - ask to see examples.

my bathroom didn't cost mega money, all materials including floor and tiling cost about £900, I have the added benefit though of living with a dolphin fitter, its the labour that bumps it up

Make sure if you do project manage yourself that you pull together a schedule and get all tradesmen to agree to it before starting. Otherwise you'll get into extra costs because of return visits etc.

I'm always amazed at the low costs these tv shows quote - we've never been able to achieve anything like it, and we can access some materials at trade prices.

exactly fairy jay

that hpouse last night was "dressed" for £500.00 well they had two sofas in the living room, they had double beds and kitchen table and chairs etc etc all new

they had two bathrooms with expensive looking baths..large freestanding slippers style..and at least one shower with a proper shower door and he had never done any plumbing before

now he got 2.5k from a neighbour for running a sewer piupe into his garden which in the programme they said then paid for all the plastering but later on he said that it had paid for the bathrooms?

and the garden was fully landscaped for 1800, the materials alone must have been more than that

and his dad fitted the carpets fro free but no mention of buying them ewas in the cost

nor the cost of sanding and sealing the floors which even without labour costs money for hire, sundries and sealant

We had our bathroom and ensuite completley redone for 7k by a local maintenance guy, including all fixtures, taps, heated towel rails, flooring, rebuilding a stud wall which had rotted due to water seepage and both fully tiled. Several plumbers thought just to do the main bathroom was too small a job and too much hassle for them , so quoted outlandish amounts and we ended up getting both done for the same price as one quoted just for the main bathroom

our kitchen was £1,000 from Ikea (all cupboards, plus sink/taps, extractor fan & work surfaces) and we paid someone a similar amount to fit it

I think it depends where you live..here any building work is very expensive and you will wait up to a year to get someone

oh i so agree, hotmama, those quotes on tv seem very very low to me.

My bathroom cost £5,000 three years ago. It is very small and I bought quite a cheap suite and floering and a medium range tiles. The cost seemed to be mostly labour (I am useless at stuff like that).
It is all very well to pay for the suite and fitting but I needed the tiles there removing, the walls replastering and all the tiling done as well as floor laid. When a kitchen or bathroom is done it is often the tiling,decorating, floor laying that whacks up the cost. If you can do that yourself you save loads - just dh and I are DIY incompetents

So glad you started this hotmama. I love watching those programmes but they always make me feel ripped off at how they manage to do any of the work at the prices they quote.

RubyR, you make me feel better always thought it MUST be made up!

i di a bathroom 14 by 12 ft in floor and walls travertine wiyh two sinks - freestanding bath etc for 5/6 k - shop around then buy bathroom from plumbers merchant is my advice!

Hotmama where abouts are you?

I think sourcing and buying stuff is easy..it's getting decent builders to join everything up to get a decent finish that is the problem

Nottingham.

Think I need to find a fab little independent plumber.

DP has looked at the internet and trade suppliers and knows we can get the stuff cheaper. I don't fancy paying a premium for mark-up prices and contributing towards the cost of a fancy showroom!