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Best bathroom suite for £500 budget?

7 replies

Curiousthinker · 07/05/2018 20:11

Can anyone recommend a good place to buy a suite for £500 or so (not including taps) as well as any brands or such i should try to go for (as in good quality). I like straight bath/loo/sink style.

There's a betterbathrooms showroom nearby, can anyone recommend them?

OP posts:
PigletJohn · 07/05/2018 22:04

as far as I can make out, bathroom showrooms charge higher prices than plumbers merchants.

You can get a white bits anywhere, and they pretty well match.

Modern WCs have low water content and often don't flush well, which is a source of much sadness. I'd go for an established British make such as Twyfords. I got a fairly rare one recently from QS at a good price. Most have a Horizontal outlet. If your soil pipe goes vertically through the floor, you need to choose one where wall-to-pipe-centre distance matches, which may be hard.

Unless you have a novelty-shaped arse, don't buy a novelty-shaped WC. Square and rectangular seats to fit are incredibly expensive, if not unobtainable in a few years.

Please don't box or tile it in so it can't be maintained without smashing something. Cisterns with a button on the lid are often difficult to maintain. Ask the salesman to take the lid off and time him.

Look at the thickness of the bath. They are mostly acrylic these days. Cheap ones are thin. Better ones are "reinforced," though a Carronite one will be outside your budget. Think of a thin one as disposable.

If your bath comes with a flimsy plastic front panel, save time by throwing it straight in the skip, rather than doing it in a months time after it has cracked from your knees pressing against it when you swab the bath. A painted chipboard one might cost about £100. The panel must be retained by a couple of screws so it can be swiftly removed to tighten the waste or to dry out spillages. Don't allow anyone to glue it into place with silicone or tap it with tiles.

Don't get a bath with the taps or waste in the side against the wall. How will you reach them without removing the bath or knocking a hole through the wall? A simple rectangular bath is cheapest to buy and easiest to fit. Examples

Don't put a cabinet or shelf above the basin, because sooner or later a glass jar or bottle will fall out and crack it.

For taps and accessories, nothing is as durable as chrome.

Maverick66 · 07/05/2018 22:50

Wow! That is a very comprehensive answer pigletjohn.Smile

greenlanes · 07/05/2018 22:54

Thank you pigletjohn - I am on a similar mission but looking for a shower not bath, but your advice is most welcome :)

LOVELYDOVEY05 · 08/05/2018 15:01

If loos with buttons on the cistern are hard to maintain what else do you suggest?

PigletJohn · 08/05/2018 16:06

some of the buttons can now be unscrewed by rotating the surround ring with the fingers, which is an improvement from needing a screwdriver and to move the buttons out of the way.

you can still get cisterns with levers if you want to. Apparently they are not considered stylish enough.

lolalotta · 30/05/2018 13:20

Following

villageshop · 30/05/2018 23:39

This is great info, thanks. We are moving tomorrow and will be doing our bathroom and just want pain and simple.

I hate the modern push button flush and so do lots of my female friends. The young ones because of their manicures and my older friends find them difficult because of arthritis or weakness in their fingers.

I also find them hard to push in and also think they're not very hygienic - all the germs trapped in the bits that push in. At least with the traditional push down handle you can wipe it over easily to disinfect. (Not that I'm OCD or anything!).

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