Does anyone have any experience of Dolphin Bathrooms

[rainbowskittle]

Hi all, we are having a Dolphin Bathrooms man come round tomorrow morning to measure up/give ideas re new bathroom. Has anyone used Dolphin, and if so, would you recommend them? Thanks in adv for any advice.

They quoted my elderly parents £9000 to replace their bath with a walk in shower and fit a new loo and basin. Eventually came down to £5000 in double glazing salesman style.....you know the whole "I'll just phone my boss to see if we can drop the price" type of thing.
They eventually bought what they needed from The Bath Store and had the work done by a plumber recommended by them. It cost them about £2500. Their bathroom is lovely and when the loo seat stopped "soft" closing they replaced it the same day...sent someone round to do it.

I don't know about dolphin but I had a moben kitchen man once. They are the same company. He tried to push all their dated stuff onto me and wouldn't give me a price for the units I had chosen then he yelled at me for wasting his time and stormed off.

unless you have lots of cash spare then choose a bathroom from B&Q and find yourself a plumber - it will cost about 20% of the price of Dolphin and be done in 20% of the time

Be afraid

Be very afraid

Took them HOURS to leave and wanted us to sign then and there. Was extremely overpriced in retrospect, but we were young, foolish and on a tight deadline.

Fitters we got were excellent (from other online reports, we got lucky) but the materials were actually quite cheap and badly made. A plastic bit on the shower broke almost immediately (but to be fair, they were good about replacing it) as did the hinges on the toilet seat.

Replacement hinges on the toilet seat broke again, just after the year's guarantee (and believe me when I say we're NOT a heavy family - it didn't get massive wear and tear!) and it cost us £114.80 to replace!!! We'd have gone down B&Q and got a cheap toilet seat which would probably have lasted better, but at that point we were putting the house on the market and wanted the "proper" one to help the house look its best.

Wouldn't go with them again

I got a quote from them for a new bathroom in my (poky) flat. he quoted £20K and then when my jaw dropped said it was 25% off week and it would be £15K.

He didn't seem to know what he was talking about, I asked if there was a different way of arranging the bathroom as I wanted one of those baths with a wider bit at one end where you stand to have a shower. He said it could be done if you hinged the door the other way. I pointed out that then the door wouldn't open properly, and you wouldn't be able to get at the airing cupboard. He didn't seem to think that I should worry my pretty little head about little details like that .

I would say get a quote by all means, be prepared for a bit of a hard sell (especailly at the mo), and maybe he will have some ideas that you haven't thought of (like blocking up all your doors )

Still exciting though! Have fun

Thank you all for response, some of the prices sound absurd - £20000 for small bathroom! Looks like a new bathroom might not be happening after all! Guess the general consensus is don't go there. Lol at Iotas Cat. DH will be here tomorrow morning so with any luck will be able to deal with hard sale tacticts (whereas if it was just me I would probably sign on dotted line immediately for fear of hurting saleperson's feelings)! Thanks again.

Asj around for recommendations of plumbers/any people who have had bathrooms done recently, get the catalogues from a local bathroom showroom so you can order suite etc direct.

Have fun tomorrow forewarned is forearmed it might be quite funny. Come back and tell us the quote

*ask

I would avoid Dolphin. They are very overpriced. I saw something about them on TV - maybe watchdog or similar - and the people they were employing werent plumbers, so not surprisingly the work was done to a very poor standard.

If you can get a word of mouth recommendation for a local plumber that will work out a lot cheaper than dolphin.

i know someone who got right royally messed up by them. ended up firing them on the job.

In our new house we got our kitchen from Wickes (and got separate fitters - our extension builders to fit) and was very impressed with their range, price and lack of hard selling! I know they do bathrooms as well - might be worth a look?

Oh Kiddiz - sounds just like my elderly in laws. They were charged £6,000 for a walk in shower. The shower itself was a cheap electric one that would cost about £80 and they have had nothing but trouble with it. They wouldn't come out either when they had problems. I don't recommend them at all.

Oh just to add that £9000 didn't include the the actual shower, only the cubicle. They already had a good quality shower unit over the bath. They are getting on and finding climbing in and out of the bath hard so wanted a walk in cubicle. I think the dolphin salesman did try to persuade them that they needed a new shower even though there was blatantly nothing wrong with the one they had.

Where are you I can recommend a fantastic plumber, our huge bathroom cost £4k to do ourselves, get dolphin around to give you ideas and then say you'll think about it ;)

Dolphin quote mad prices. Get a local plumber in (use google to find one) then ask for at least 3 contacts you can ring for references (previous customers).

We got a fab bathroom with Italian tiles blabla for 2k as opposed to Dolphin's quote of 10k.

Hi all, sorry for delay coming back, you were all definitely sending good karma my way - Monday morning the Dolphin people rang to say that their sales person had been taken ill in night and was unable to come! They tried to get DH to book another appointment there and then, but armed with your words of wisdom he said "thank you and goodbye". Sorrento, I am near Reading, if that's anywhere you would leave to hear about your plumber (if you know what I mean!).

By the way, I'm not smiling at poor salesperson's illness, just at my getting out of having to talk to him (don't want any of you to shout at me).

good luck with it rainbowskittle

we had someone around to give us a quote a few years back. He was apparently "very important" . He smelled of cigarettes, and was condescending about our apartment and came out with all sorts of shite. He then told us that a new shower cubicle, loo and sink would cost £20,000, and basically insinuated we couldn't afford it (bear in mind we were living in a lush 3 bed apartment in SW London, which was beautifully decorated and furnished, which one would think might imply we had the odd penny or two).
I couldn't get rid of him fast enough, and would rather bathe in a public toilet (literally!) than let them darken my doorstep again.