Fitting downstairs toilet - is it possible?

[Vicki126163]

Hi everyone,

I have found the (almost) perfect house on right move and I’m interested in buying.

It has 1 bathroom upstairs but I’d like to fit a downstairs toilet due to disability. There’s lot of generic info on the internet with ifs and buts. Not sure what applies to this house. I’m wondering if it’s doable, would I need permissions, how long would it take, what could go wrong and how much it would cost?

I’ve attached a couple of pics and floor plan. It looks like the store room is part of the garage and where we’d look to do it.

Does anyone have any expertise or advice they can share?

Thank you in advance for your help!

It’s a shame that the bathroom is above the kitchen, you could get some quotes to put an additional loo, perhaps under the stairs? Not sure how easy it will be to connect to soil pipe though. Perhaps a Saniflo toilet be an option? My plumber always says anything is possible, but comes at a price, of course.

If you are needing the extra loo for your disability, would you consider a bungalow rather than a house. I have a disability, moving to a bungalow is the best thing I have ever done.

Good luck with your move.

Definitely doable. We fitted a downstairs toilet under the stairs in a Victorian terrace where there was none previously . The soil pipe was fitted to run under the floors out to join the soil pipe in the side return space. Our plumber also said anything in building is possible if you're prepared to pay for it!

PS I had also worried about the possibility of this before we bought our house!

My brother in law's old house was this exact layout. There was a toilet in that littlembit by the garage. There wasn't a door from the store room to the garage but there was a door behind the stairs through to it.

Can only find a picture from after they extended but this was their downstairs layout having knocked together the kitchen, store room and rear reception

Don’t do a saniflo if you can possibly avoid…they really don’t cope well with anything other than liquids!

Thanks all - really appreciate your answers. Sounds as though it’s doable… I was thinking of fitting in that store room adjacent to the garage. My main worry is that it would take ages and get stressed with all that going on. I read something online saying it can be done within a week, but not sure if that’s ambitious or something could go wrong in these type of works? The house is cheaper than our budget so we’d have 10-15k to pay for that work.

I mean anything is possible but it depends on your budget. Most houses will use just the one soil stack so usually bathrooms, toilets etc will be found on one side of the house only. But it’s not impossible to put something on a different side or alternate location provided you can still get everything to run to the drains correctly. The bathroom is above the kitchen so your soil stack is more than likely on that wall that the “store room” joins on to. It may even run down a cavity between the two (we have one like this- nightmare if anything goes wrong in that cavity but handy for being able to have toilets backing onto each other basically). You’ll more than likely be able to do it, but you’ll need a plumber to give you a rough idea on costs (if you can get hold of one!!!)

We've just built a downstairs shower room, or should I say, the builders did. Planned a cloakroom with a toilet but under permitted development could go a bit bigger so have a shower room instead. Ours is an extension. Foundations and building work took 5 days for a 2m by 3m build. Two days to do plumbing and a day for electrics. Then a couple of days to do interior stuff to the point of plastering. We installed the toilets/sink/shower and laid the floors, tiled, decorated etc ourselves. This we did over a week whilst working full time.

All in it took around 3-4 weeks and the building work, plumbing, plastering etc to the point of first fix cost 10k.

Your plan is definitely doable if you're not extending and don't need to factor in building time.

I don't think it will take long. A few years back we had a downstairs toilet put in (bit complicated as wasn't on an exterior wall) at the same time as knocking out a wall, having a steel put in and complete kitchen refit including replaster, full electrics and units. The whole thing only took 6 weeks but I think they could have done the toilet alone in a week.