For context we went with a bathroom fitter who supplied (I sent links to what I liked) and fitted, doing electrics and plumbing, and then he gets someone else in to tile and plaster. He quoted one price at the very beginning for everything.
He’s been really organised and patient and professional and has ‘the customer is always right’ attitude but we’ve run into a major issue.
We were a week in when the tilers came to tile bath and shower area and they were complaining about the out of plumb wall. (One wall is a stud and the other was left as is, on the worst point where the shower screen would end it was about 3.5cm-4cm out). They did the tiling up to a point but were concerned about the out of plumb wall so they stopped. I said I didn’t mind, I thought it still looked amazing and it adds character (Victorian property so never a straight wall!).
we are having a square 90 by 90 frameless shower enclosure that was very expensive 😭 but I really wanted the look of the frameless. He chose the tray but we picked the enclosure.
Bathroom fitter also said it would be fine, shower enclosure would adjust. I checked and it said only 2cm adjustment available for out of true walls, so I asked him if he’d mind straightening the wall as I didn’t want the enclosure to look rubbish/there to be a random piece of something on the end to make it fit. He said that was fine, he would dot and dab it. So he came back in the evening to do it (and the tilers removed some tiles) .
So now we have a straight wall. However an even bigger problem. The shower tray was obviously already installed but with the extra depth (12mm plasterboard I think) that the fitter has added on by straightening the wall, the tray is now 87cm which is the minimum adjustment for the enclosure. I can’t find another enclosure anywhere similar. I wish we’d thought about this before asking him to straighten the wall but we’ve never fitted a bathroom before so obviously don’t think of things like this.
If he’d straightened the wall in the first place and then added the tray it would have been fine but again we didn’t know it was so significantly out of plumb.
He’s going to get the enclosure out today (he said it was my call as it’s £1000 and non returnable once you open it!) and we’re going to see if he can trim down the profile slightly.
I think he feels I’m to blame for asking him to straighten the wall when he said he didn’t need to (he’s been nothing but polite and professional). But I kind of wish he had checked that the enclosure would still fit after he’d straightened, I guess he was tired and probably frustrated at the end of the day and just doing the job he’d been asked by me. However the tiler definitely said it was the right thing to get the walls plumb.
The only other solution I thought would be for him to remove the dot and dab plaster and do a different method of straightening the walls that doesn’t add significant thickness to the walls but I worry that’s just really messing him around, he came back on an evening for 2 hours to do the dot and dab and I just felt awful for them 😞
Or can you send back dot and dab?
The other question is can the shower enclosure sit literally right on the edge of the tray? I’ve seen things that say it needs 1cm border.
I’ve been so focused on the little details I really can’t believe I had this major oversight 🤦♀️🤦♀️ any advice appreciated