Anyone here a plumber, or own a freestanding bath? Help please!

[MillyMolly123]

Evening all,

Our bathroom refit is almost complete. The plumber finished on Friday (now gone on holiday), the decorator just needs to do a couple of more days work and then we are supposedly finished.

We have a new, shiny claw foot bath - it’s lovely (lightweight acrylic, not fancy cast iron - but lovely all the same).

However, I was quite alarmed to find it moved when I lent over it to get to the windowsill above. Upon closer inspection it is not anchored to the floor at all! The plumber has screwed anchor points to the floor, but there doesn’t seem to be anything attaching the anchor points to the feet? I can actually lift the bath from the floor with VERY little effort (pic 1).

I’ve attached pics of two of the feet when I’m not lifting the bath - one touches the ground (in parts) and the others are floating on screws.

I think I know the answer to this, but does this look right? I’m going to have to call the plumber back when he returns from his jollies, aren’t I?

We have two kids, I can only imagine what would happen if one of them absentmindedly perched on the edge one day..!

Thanks

Ah, drat- pics didn’t work. Will now try again...

My bath hasn’t got feet but it’s not fixed to the floor.

Mine isn't fixed to the floor either. Claw foot bath like yours. Recently fitted.

Like you, I was alarmed to see it's not attached to the floor. It can easily move sliding on the floor with the slightest nudge. Haven't tried lifting it but I'm sure I could.

Watching with interest. It just doesn't seem right, does it?!?!?

@TheRhythmlessMan No, it really doesn’t seem right!

Do your claws actually touch the ground? As in my second set of pics, 3 of ours don’t. I spent much of last night having nightmares about the bath collapsing when someone is in it and the shiny new bathroom and kitchen below being ruined by the flood!

Perhaps I’m overthinking it all but it just doesn’t seem right, as you say.

I’d perhaps not be scrutinising everything so much if the plumber had not plumbed the shower in the wrong way round (hot is cold and cold is hot). I need to get him back about that anyway, so will mention the feet then. Luckily we still owe him £1,000 (the joiners working for the plumber chipped our very expensive new basin vanity unit, so held on to the £1K until they fix it) so that should give us a bit of bargaining power to get this all sorted.

All four feet touch the ground- had the floor levelled before the LVTs went in. Do you have an uneven floor, do you think? But because the new floor is smooth the bath moves quite easily.

Hot/cold taps can be easily sorted if you're happy to just take off the covering from the top of the taps that say C or H and switch them around but if you're annoyed the hot/cold being on the right/left then that's more complicated.

Ah, we're at the mercy of these builders!!!

@TheRhythmlessMan I did wonder about the floor not being level, a quick check with a spirit level suggests no slope, however.

Looking at how the legs have been fixed to the bath, one is at more of an angle than the other three. I think this has created problems in getting all legs to sit on the floor and the plumber couldn’t be bothered rectifying (probably as he was going on his holiday 2 days later and still had loads to finish).

The shower hot/cold mix up is not going to be a quick fix. We can’t change the indices on the taps as there is only one temperature tap, as in the attached pic. Grrrr!

Pipes are "always" cold right, hot left.

Maybe your plumber made an elementary mistake

Or the shower valve might be upside down.

Getting this wrong means that thermostatic mixers don't work.

Thanks @PigletJohn - would the shower valve being upside down be a simple thing to rectify, if that is the problem?

I’m guessing if it’s not that then it’s been plumbed back to front and the tiles will have to come off to rectify

We could just live with it, but it’s rather annoying as to get a comfortable (not scalding hot) temp via the shower we had to turn the water temp down on the boiler resulting in tepid baths.

@PigletJohn do you have any opinion on the bath feet - would you be happy if they were installed like that in your home? I’m more bothered about the integrity of the bath than the aesthetics.

I don't how how easy it will be if it's been tiled over. If it is in a hollow partition wall there may be more room to change things round without digging into the wall. Some people prefer surface-mounted mixers because it makes maintenance simpler.

As for the feet, it looks like they screw up and down so it will be easy to make them all touch the floor in their little sockets. When screwing you can get the feel, by the tightness, when they are sharing load fairly equally. It might be better to check the feet when the bath is full of water and people, as it may lie differently with the weight.

Thanks @PigletJohn. Alas, the shower wall is an exterior, super thick brick wall. I fear for the worst with this one!

We can’t screw the feet screws all the way down as one of the feet has been screwed on at a slight angle. It’s hard to describe without seeing it, but I think the whole bath needs to be taken out before the errors can be rectified. It’s good to know it doesn’t look right though (well, not good, but good to know I’m not just being fussy).

As above, we still owe £1,000 for another issue. Hoping that should be enough of an incentive for the plumber to come back and fix the errors...

"We can’t screw the feet screws all the way down as one of the feet has been screwed on at a slight angle."

if you can't screw that one down, can you screw the others up to level it?

“if you can't screw that one down, can you screw the others up to level it?”

Potentially, yes. I’ll have a proper look when I get home later. That still wouldn’t stop the bath from moving, but would be far safer!

I’ve written a list of defects/issues which we want sorting before releasing the final £1,000 - definitely going to ask for the legs to be remedied.

I just hope the plumber doesn’t get confrontational about any of it, I really don’t think we’re being unreasonable in wanting a safe and secure bath, a correctly plumbed shower, no chips in our new vanity unit and a leak free quadrant! His services certainly were not cheap.

I was going to add things like asking for a new towel ring (yes, somebody scratched that too) but more and more problems are emerging, I don’t want to come across as trying to be difficult with my big, long list