Installing your own bathroom, anyone done this?

[BillytheMountain]

Hi,
We're thinking we can probably do this, have you done so and got any tips to share?
We're not moving any piping but need to replace flooring (to find and fix leaky pipe), install bathroom suite, tile.
Have done fair amount of DIY but looking for any pointers or things to avoid that could save us a lot of pain once we get started!

Anyone?
Any tips on general bathroom refurb appreciated too!

We're thinking about doing ours next year but my FIL is a gas fitter and experienced DIYer so knows what he's doing with pipes etc.
We have a separate loo downstairs, so it's not too much of an issue if upstairs is out of action for a few days (even if we end up paying for the showers at a local leisure centre). I'd be more concerned if it was the only loo.
Be careful with fittings, I've heard that international fittings like those from IKEA are not a simple swap.
Buy good quality taps, they aren't worth scrimping on (our current ones are all bubbled and weird where the finish wasn't good quality).
If you have never cut tiles before, buy a super cheap pack / few loose ones to practice on rather than making your very first attempt on your pricier ones.
Sometimes it's worthwhile paying for good finishing touches - a professional mastic job, for example, looks so neat and I doubt I could replicate it without weeks of practice.

Hard to say in general, if you're competent at DIY then just take your time, measure twice cut once and all that, and if you're saving money by doing diy then spend half the difference on great quality materials.
Apart from that good luck!

My dh completely refitted our bathroom, changed all the plumbing, fit the suite, tiled walls and did flooring. He's just a self taught enthusiastic DIY er, used a lot of YouTube tutorials for techniques. We went for tricky hexagonal tiles too. I would say it saved thousands of pounds, yes the tile spacing is a bit uneven if you look closely, and the silicone sealant is a bit wobbly and not completely neat, but it's nit-picking when the overall effect is lovely. And if you save money on labour you can afford to get nicer tiles and fixtures. There wasn't anything really difficult, so if you feel confident I would go for it!

It's a lot of faff - even worse than kitchens since all the items you need to fit have dependencies on piping so have to be accurate.

Be prepared to spend a bunch of time building out box frames for things - the bath will need framing, boxing behind the sink perhaps, getting the height of the loo or depth of the cistern right, raising/lowering the shower floor...

I helped out with ours when it went in, we have a friend who's an experienced fitter (who we paid going rates for) and he was happy to share. There's a lot of experience needed to get anything right first time!

It's totally doable, but prepare for it to be really exasperating on occasion, as you take the loo out again and make another 5mm adjustment to the wall mountings...

This is really helpful thanks all.

It needs doing as a pipe is leaky, and we're enthusiastic cos the bathroom itself is really tired, bit fugly and not our choice.

Can't afford to get builders and we're generally okay at DIY, put a bathroom in another house but that was years ago.
Am very aware that pipes and plumbing is a speciality and point of this exercise is to mend a leaky pipe...

DH has been investigating, and is factoring in a wooden frame work. And YouTube will be our friend too.

Problem is we have only one bathroom, so need to sort some sort of alternative portaloo I guess? Any tips there

Existing tiles are horrible, but appear quite difficult to get off the wall though. Any experience of boarding over? I think we should really strip it but wondering if it's an option these days?

katonic that's encouraging! Your DH sounds pretty amazing tackling the hexagon tiling!! Super impressed

spoonblender the enthusiasm becomes reality when you remember the sheer frustration and blue air these projects generate

You can tile on top providing the existing ones are solidly fixed. Obviously you'll lose a bit of space so might be a concern if you have a small room already.

It’s not that difficult, especially if you’re leaving the fitments where they are.
We’ve done several, I’m using the ‘royal’ we, as I’m usually the mate to DH expertise. He uses plastic pipe work these days as far as possible,as soldering the olive joints on copper piping was a bit of a faff. Purists will be along and say use copper.
The only real problem you could come across is the age of the previous waste pipes.
Diameters of pipes are now in metric and old waste pipe work ( soil pipe from toilet, waste water pipes )may be in metric. You can get converters to reduce the dimensions.
Toilets can be changed in an hour or so, make sure you have everything you need to hand and have carefully planned the procedure.
Top tip, run water through every join in the pipe work with a bowl underneath and before you connect it to the taps and mains. Also put isolating valves on all the water inlets to the taps and of course make sure the sanitary ware will fit the bathroom dimensions 😊
As others have said lots of you tube videos, study well before you begin

• older waste pipes not in metric.

In our previous house we refitted the bathroom moreorless ourselves.

Had a plumber do the toilet, bath, sink etc. DB who used to be a builder and fitted the bathroom did the tiling etc though that's not what he normally used to do generally. We were quite lucky as my aunt used to own her own tiling/bathroom company so we got bath, sink, toilet and really nice tiles at trade price and she also gave an extra reduction as family.

Pipework as far as I recall was not hard to replace and plumber did this.

if it was me and you want this long term I'd take off original tiles and tile over, yes it takes longer but in my opinion better finish etc.

we also had a downstairs toilet.

Second time round we got it fitted by a bathroom fitter, more expensive though.

We have done two bathrooms, a cloakroom and an en-suite, Dh cuts the tile, I tile it. I have also tiled a kitchen, cloakroom etc and a floor.

So as a general step by step guide as to the order of things we followed this tutorial but then YouTube is a massive help. I can recommend both PlumberParts and UltimateHandyman.

Fit isolation valves on every pipe. We used push fit plastic - our house is all plastic pipework anyway just radiator tails are copper, that was the builders not us.

Think about your tiling carefully. Draw it out on paper, every wall you will tile, think about height of windows, bath etc. And good luck.

Wish this site had the edit button, you can get push fit copper to plastic fittings.

Always get more stuff than you need rather than keep going back and forth to Screwfix or wherever.