What's reasonable price for bathroom re-fit

[SueSouthLondon]

Further to threads on this topic from 2016, what's the current rate for the labour?

My fitter charged £1500. That was for stripping out the lot, refitting like for like but moving taps and shower, tiling half the wall space, tiling floor, false ceiling with spotlights, towel rail, electric UFH, fitting x 4 shelves and some new skirting boards. He thought it would take a week, but ended up nearer two.

Thanks Private Porcupine! Can I ask if that was in London?

I’m afraid not, considerably further north

Ours was £800 labour took 3 and a half days to do. Full rip out and re tile most of the bathroom.

We are in South London and costs are 2800, down from original price of 3600 as we’re getting a lot of other stuff done. That’s for 2 week’s labour, including stripping current bathroom, moving toilet, putting in separate bath and shower, tiling and new flooring.

A lot depends on what you want. Kind of like how long is a piece of string? If you think that you want nothing moved then break it down by jobs. Of course things can be cheaper if your builder can do the lot and doesn’t need a seperate plasterer. Also if they don’t have a lot of work they may price it lower.

Demo of a small-medium bathroom- 1 days labour + skip for disposal (in London that’s anything from £150-£250/day+£250/skip). If you only want a small amount of re-wiring or moving of pipes they may be able to fit this in the same day. If you’re talking about a whole new lighting scheme or they need to rip up the floor to re-route pipes you will probably need another day.

Re-skim if it’s a small room maybe your guy can do it the same day he demos but probably another days work. Materials cost is negligible (£20-£30). Leave that 2-3 days to dry.

Tiling & grouting is another days work, +tiles (if you use standard metro tiles 200x100 you can get them ~£10/sqm. Fancy tiles can cost a LOT more- remember to allow 10% wastage), and can probably also lay flooring as well same day.

Then 1 day to site & fit bathroom furniture as well as paint and finish. Materials can cost anything from about £600 for a standard suite to silly money. If you price match and look for discounts or your builder gets good trade discounts you can get a nice bathroom for ~£1000-£1200

So- 4-5 days work + 2-3 days in between for plaster to dry. I’d say in London £750-1250+VAT is a pretty fair guess for labour. Materials can cost a lot or a little but for a moderately good standard of finish I’d say at a minimum you’ll spend £500-600 on bathroom furniture and £200 on tiles, +another £400 on incidentals (skip, new switches, pipes, wiring, plaster, lights, etc.)

So for a small-medium bathroom I’d say you’ll spend £2-3k for a refit. Potentially more if it’s bigger, or you buy nicer fittings/tiles. This is based on my experience doing two bathrooms in London in the last 6 months. If you have a bigger bathroom (say 5msq or larger) then the costs will increase (potentially a second skip, or more than 1 day for demolition, more tiles, etc etc.). For a large bathroom I’d guess that it’ll come in around the £4-£5k mark.

I was recently quoted 3800 to rip out dispose and then fit new bathroom including top to bottom tiling. Greater London. Still collecting quotes so watching with interest. The bathroom is 2.4mx2.5m

Thanks so much, all really helpful. I've been quoted £4.5k for labour only, that's moving & adjusting pipework, installing sanitary ware, removing old tiles, re-tiling, adding new suspended ceiling for lights. Flooring not included in that work, - bathroom about as small as you can get a bath, WC & basin in.

£4.5k for labour only, even if it takes 2 weeks is £450/day. That seems very high. If they’re getting two guys for the job then £450/day is still high (£250 for main labour + £100 for navvy) but should definitely not take more than 1 week. I would be asking how long the job will take. £4.5k for the supply and fit cost for a larger bathroom is a decent price.

I live in an area where there is too much work, our plumber is charging £1500 + vat to rip out and reinstall the smallest ensuite you’ve ever seen. That’s just labour....and we know him!!!!

I hear this one week bathroom re-fit quite often and unless it is a really the simplest and straightforward of fits, in my experience is rarely achieved. It's a small space and you can't flood it with workmen. And if one man can do a quality job and re-tile a whole bathroom in Metro tiles in one day then he deserves £250 a day if you ask me. There is always problems to be overcome in bathrooms, pipes to move, flooring and walls to sort out,wiring and extractor fans to name but a few. It usually just takes the best part of a day just cleaning, sealing, finishing and fitting accessories. It's usually a full two weeks. I would say £15k to 2K for a decent job.

Saying that, although 4.5k does seem high, a friend of mine charges around that. He spends time on working out the design and style to suit the individual customer, his workman are first class, the finish is perfect and his after sales is second to none. Being honest if I could afford his prices I would have him do mine. So I guess like any product there are a selection of price ranges, just take care not to end up paying Mercedes prices for a Ford Mondeo. ( No inferences to the quality of Ford intended)

That was obviously meant to be £1.5k but if anyone want's to pay me £15k labour to do their small bathroom I am available anywhere, anytime even Christmas day. :)

Thanks again, HiddenMNetter, Killer Queen & Kitchen Guy!

Bathroom is 3m 40 x 1m 50. From all your posts, I realise it's tricky to do this work to do in a small space. I'm not penny pinching, but don't want to be fleeced! If anyone wants to 'message poster' to me, I could really do with recommendations for a plumber, or plumber + tiler.

Just had quote for a small new bathroom refit. It is like for like and is 2k for all labour and supply except the actual tiles .

Whereas I've had a quote for £8k to strip out / refit an ensuite shower room so small that I can touch the walls across the room and £7k strip / fit on a 2m square ensuite. I'm going back to them now to ask how this breaks down (we are not London fyi). Total cost including new kit is fifteen freaking grand, and while it's not the cheapest stuff, it's hardly super high end.

I paid around £600 (Lancashire) but that was a fairly simple refit. Just had the bath, sink and toilet replaced, nothing was moved. It did turn out to be more complex than initially thought but didn't take long. May have been cheaper as the plumber was already coming out to fit a new fireplace downstairs (also gas safe/whatever it is now registered plumber).

Finding way of getting an old enamel coated iron bath out of the house was far trickier, as no one could lift it! Had to be smashed in situ which was rather noisy!

I should have said that my price obviously didn't include the bath sink and toilet. I bought those from Victoria Plum in a sale. Then they sat in my dining room for weeks while I tried to find a plumber!