Would I be completely insane to consider trying to plumb in my bath & shower myself?

[Barnabee]

Can't get hold of a plumber or tiler for love nor money. I'm now considering whether it's possible to fit my own bath/standpipes/taps and Victorian-style exposed shower valve plus about 2sqm of tiling. I've never tried any of these jobs before. Am I completely mad to consider it? All the 1st fix pipework is in position, although the shower valve will need the connections changing from vertical to horizontal. I don't know whether the pipes in the wall are plastic or copper. Am I insane to even consider this?

Yes it's possible BUT they are all jobs where either you will see any f ups or the f up will cause damage elsewhere eg by leaking.

Me and DH have done all those jobs before and could do what you describe but it's a lot of work to get it looking good and working well. We would probably expect to spend all evenings and weekends for a fortnight on it (and be happy if we finished sooner).

Unless you have someone who can instruct you and help if you mess up then I would leave it.

Have a look at the youtube tutorials and then decide

@Barnabee
I have removed a shower cubicle & plumbed in a bath (more on which later). We have used for the walls something like the click vinyl tile you get for floors, but for walls, it has been very easy to do for quite a good look. wetwallworks.co.uk/wall-panels/wet-wall-range/solidcore/
If we’d gone for tiles I would probably have paid someone for that bit considering the time input & likely finish. So it might be worth researching a bit round alternatives/working out what you can do v time/cost.

Do your planning very well. We have a habit of plunging ahead & then having to sort things on the hop. This is bad.

The annoying thing with bathrooms is 1) they’re often small, so you’re working in tight spaces with things you are not familiar with.
2) until you’ve taken all the old stuff out, you don’t know what horrors you’ll find underneath and thus how much extra stuff you need to do. This can make planning a little bit hard.

On which note @hannahcolobus I wonder if you could advise?

Installed bath with mixer tap & handheld shower head intending to put that shower up on the wall. Pipe isn’t really long enough & the pressures not great & the changeover button is a bit of a fiddle.

So now I want to change the taps for ones with no shower & add a mains shower bar at the end of the bath. Could you look at my shit diagram below & tell me if the fixings I’m looking at are right? I have the old mixer bar (copper pipe lengths attached still) & shower I can fit back on.

Many thanks in advance.

1. www.screwfix.com/p/jg-speedfit-plastic-push-fit-equal-tee-15mm/50422
2. www.screwfix.com/p/jg-speedfit-15bpex-41640-push-fit-pe-x-pipe-15mm-x-3m/46140

Bath plumbing is pretty basic, shower plumbing is bit more complex. Depends on what kind of pipes/first fix you have inside the wall already.
You can mess around with bath taps without ruining a wall.
With showers you can find all manner of dodgy things behind the wall that end up making it a more complex job.

Yes you would be mad

qe attempted to plumb in a dishwasher. A bloody dishwasher. I’m now on day 4 without the use of my kitchen sink, washing machine and still no dishwasher. I thought it would be easy. Wish I’d paid for a plumber.

You can learn to do it

I strongly advise having all your pipes and taps, and especially connections, where you can get at them by undoing a few screws.

Much sadness occurs when a wall or tiled floor has to be smashed open for repairs or replacements, or when a bath has to be taken out to change a tap.

Ah sorry @hannahcolobus ivr just realised it posted upside down, try again.

We've done a toilet and are about to do a bathroom based on YouTube tutorials, no previous experience. Quotes from trades were so high and hard to get that we've decided to jusy give it our best shot! Removing and reinstalling toilet and sink were easy enough, so we figure a bath is just like a big sink... Famous lady words 🤣 I say go for it!

@mummabubs any recommendations for YouTube channels?

I'll try and see if I can find them. There's a good plumber with an Essex accent (helpful I know 🤣) who was great for plumbing and floorboards. We haven't really gone with one specific channel, more watched lots of different videos with different methods and then decided which suit our skill/ confidence level.

We've done bath/toilet/sinks/dishwashers ourselves (youtibe is your friend), and plumbed the shower tray in too (but not the actual shower head bit, a plumber did that for us). Mostly fine, lot of swearing en route though!

Top tips:

40mm plastic plumbing fittings (usually used for waste) come in two different types come in two types - Push Fit and Solvent Weld. The two are NOT COMPATIBLE!!! (They have slightly different external dimensions - learnt this the hard way.) So try to stick to one system or the other - I would recommend Push Fit, as you literally just push the pipes in to the different fittings and you're good to go - no solvents/sticking to go wrong (though solvent weld less bulky and looks better if you're a pro I think). If you need to swap between the two, compression fittings fit both systems.

There are also push fit fittings for copper pipes - totally not worth trying to learn to weld copper pipes as an amateur.

LS-X leak sealer will be your friend. It doesn't set solid like silicon sealant, so you can use it on stuff that you may later need/want to take apart.
www.screwfix.com/p/fernox-ls-x-leak-sealer-50ml/23614

Good luck!

It's essentially wet Lego. Read the things and watch the videos. Just don't seal it all up until you know it doesn't leak!