Builders/Portaloo

[edensparkles]

Hello, been quoted £700 for a portaloo for use during our extension.

Would it be better to spend that £700 on turning the downstairs cupboard into a toilet and they use that instead? We were planning on turning it into a small toilet anyway.

Why cant they just use your loo? or get a porta potti for downstairs for about £50 (but make them empty it daily)

Hi OP, we added a downstairs WC during our reno works and also hired a portaloo for the builders.

The WC wasn't operational for the majority of the build, so they couldn't have 'used it instead' for the first 2 months!

Also honestly I just wanted the builders to feel we were taking decent care of them. I wouldn't work somewhere where I had no privacy to pee, why should they? There is a fair amount of competition for good tradespeople where we live and I didn't want to give them a reason to bugger off on another job with a proper loo for them!

In the great scheme of things £700 is not a lot of money (but it might be worth getting another quote to compare).

Note that a portaloo hire includes the emptying/servicing
A porta potty is a basic version - and I wouldn’t expect builders working on my home to put their quality of work in line with being handed a camping porta potty with instructions to clean it themselves

You can often buy a vgc portaloo on Marketplace for around £200. I imagine to empty would cost £50 or so, you'd perhaps need it emptied every month?(unsure of capacity) , plus the cost of the chemicals. Then afterwards clean out and sell your portaloo.....is it worth it?

This is their place of work, for goodness sake.

We had to hire a portaloo when we built our house, but as soon as we had plumbing sorted, DH quickly bought a cheap toilet and sink and made a door out of some old wood lying around for one of the bathrooms and got rid of the portaloo.

Thats what I'm saying they can have a nice warm toilet inside the house. Or a Portaloo.

For people saying you should let them use the house loo, what if that's not convenient? With ours we blocked off the lounge and upstairs to separate the works from where we were living. This meant to use our loo they'd have to come all the way around the front, through the front door and upstairs, either taking boots off or traipsing mud upstairs! They insisted on and preferred to just have a portaloo round the back.

By all means discuss the possibility of using a loo in the house with the builders, but when they're working outdoors in all weathers you should be under no illusions that having them trailing in and out will result in that loo and the route to and from it getting REALLY DIRTY (muddy etc).

The builders will not want to take their boots off every time to come in and out, and nor should you expect them to - safety boots are an essential piece of PPE on a construction site and you shouldn't expect them to risk their safety (not to mention the loss of income if they stood on a screw/nail and were injured).