Price for new central heating system and bathroom

[okilydokily]

Hi. Hope someone can help in terms of a ball park figure. We need a new boiler and the person who came round to quote us said we'd need new radiators too (in the older part of the house - rads in extension are fine). So they've quoted £2500 for that, not including labour. For a replacement bathroom (replacing a normal bath with a shower bath, new fitted furniture and new toilet/sink etc, plus half tiling the walls and adding a heated towel rail, plus new flooring) it's looking like £5k including labour. Does that sound reasonable? It's a friend of a friend, so this price is supposedly "mates rates". Any help gratefully received. We're in the north west if that helps.

We have just replaced our boiler and bathroom, and are also in the north west!

Quotes we had to replace the boiler were between around £1800 and £2300. We ended up going for the most expensive one. The quote will generally change in price depending on which boiler you go for, work Worcester or Vaillant being the best. We went for the biggest Worcester one for residential use and it's been great. That price didn't include replacing any radiators so sounds like you have a good deal but check what type of boiler it is and how long the warranty is.

For bathroom ours ended up costing around £6k in total I think. Of that around £4K was the labour and around £2k for suite, tiles, radiator, taps etc.

I sourced all the stuff myself.

We had a range of quotes and I think in general they came in around £3-4K. Some people just quote for the fit and things like the plasterer/tiler/electrician/plasterer can all be separate. Some can do some of that stuff themselves etc

The guy we used was one of the more expensive quotes, but we had a nightmare trying to find someone to do the job and by the time he came out I was ready to throw in the towel. He came across really well and I'm now so glad we used him as he did such a good job and was a total perfectionist. He is coming back to do our other bathroom in March. I'm glad we spent a bit more on him than a few hundred less for a shoddiest job.

My advice would be make sure you like the guy and feel comfortable making requests, minor changes etc. There will inevitably be decisions you have to make during the process such as positioning of things, edges, and you don't want to feel bullied into making decisions.

Price of new boiler wholesale, £600 to £800 for a good one.
Price for radiators, depends on how many and whether they are box standard ones.
To fully tile a bathroom, Inc 3 piece suite and towel rail, £1000 to £1200 for good quality items.
My father was a plumber and, 13 years ago, when I bought my old house, it had no central heating. It cost me £750 for everything, Inc pipes and valves.
When I did the bathroom 3 years ago, fully tiled, Inc floor and new bathroom suite, it cost me £1000.
Hope this helps.

I won't give our costs as an example as they are not in the normal range - v. V. Large old system and we replaced everything 18 rads, pipework, boiler, controls & cylinder.

However I always advise clients to get 3 quotes (even if one is a mate / somebody you regularly use) - make sure they are quoting for the same thing.

Good makes of boiler - Worcester bosch, Valliant, Viesmann (more expensive) & recently Ideal are back to being good.

For regular rads I prefer to specify stelrad or myson as some of the cheap Chinese imports can start to rust in a few years whereas I have 30yo Mysons that are still going strong.

I would also get other quotes, I am not keen on mates rates as it blurs the lines of contractor and customer. Is it the same guy doing both?

Thanks all, for all the really useful info! I've since found out that the £2.5k for central heating system does include labour. It's an Ideal boiler with 7yr warranty. The guy who would be doing all the bathroom work is a tiler. He's a v good tiler and a nice, trustworthy guy. One of his relatives would be doing the central heating work. In a way that's a bit of a comfort - we shouldn't have the worry of being scammed by cowboys. But I also do worry about blurring of lines, as Boulshired says.
I should have added that the bathroom needs to be dry lined and electrics redoing. The tiler will do all that. A new plasterboard ceiling needs to be put in too, and spotlights put in. So the £5k covers all that.

Good to know re decent brands of radiators, thanks.

I almost feel obliged to use this guy because he's been round about three times to measure up and chat to us about stuff!

PS it'd be 5 new radiators we'd be getting. 3 large, 2 small.

Just to give you an idea on price. Ideal Logic 30, wholesale price £550, 5 standard radiators, £550 - £600. Time scale to fit them, 1 and a half days, tops.

Sounds pretty reasonable to me OP