Bathstore.com - any good?

[Madigan]

has anyone got any experience of the products from bathstore? are they good quality?
Need to kit out 2 bathrooms (shower, bath, sink, loo) with about £3k to spend on each - any suggestions where else I could try for good quality stuff if Bathstore not recommended?

Has anyone bought the Norfolk showering bath with traditional feet from The Bathstore? It's got the free-standing look as it's got traditional feet on the outside, but two corners are square so you can fix it to the wall and have a shower screen.
It sounds perfect, but I was just wondering if it works well in reality?

AVOID the Bathstore.com like the plague.

I bought a sink, toilet and bidet from Bathstore, Ipswich a couple of months ago. The basin is chipped and they are refusing to do anything about it, as we didnt report it within 14-days.

The basin was covered in an adhesive film, which we left intact until our plumber was ready to install - being responsible, we wanted to protect the basin whilst it was being stored, prior to installation.

The plumber also had to chisel a channel into the floor, in order to accept the waste from the bidet!

Customer service is non-existant once the sale is made, especially if you have a problem - they effectively wash their hands of you.

We bought all our bathroom and toilet fittings from Bathstore and it was all really great. They have really nice modern stuff of reasonable quality and good price. Got it all in the sale, but they always have a sale on! Got massive shower tray and screen for 500 quid when similar in Wickes was 2k!! We are really pleased with it now it is all in.

Agree about flush being weak but we got a slimline small tank toilet as we only have a small space and yes, I think they are all rather pathetic now due to water saving etc.

The problems with the plugs are with the click-clack plug I think, and you dont have to have those, they are extra, and just look as if they are going to break

They did tell us when we bought that they will only accept returns within 14 days.

A first and disastrous purchase from my local (Hereford) Bathstore. Never again.
I had to make two 30 mile round trips to the store to collect the ordered Savoy Legend close coupled toilet. The delivery had not arrived and after waiting several hours I returned home to be then told the product packages had arrived at 5.30 pm - the delivery driver had traffic problems - I was told. I had booked a plumber for half a day for the installation for the next day. Halfway through we found that the wrong pack of fittings had been included. I tried for about an hour to contact technical support - the usual 'all our staff are busy'. It had not been helped by the fact that the instruction leaflet gave a telephone number which was unobtainable. The Hereford store could not help, but gave me another more recent number - the one that was busy for an hour or so before I gave up. The Hereford store did eventually manage to ascertain that we should have been supplied with different type of bolts to attach the cistern to the base. They then said we would be sent out correct bolts, but they would not come for five days. Why on earth could some customer aware person not arrange to put the correct parts in a jiffy bag and post to me to arrive the next day. In the meantime I have to wander through the house several times at night to find another toilet. I told the store I wanted to complain but was told that the manager would not be in until two days later. I tried to contact him then, was told he was on the phone and would call me back. At the time of writing this he has not done so.
In the meantime I found a leaflet inside a box which stated 'Please make sure you get the right Savoy close and Low level Dual cistern fitting - 41100060120. Please throw away the metal plate and the two bolts supplied with cistern fitting'. Can you believe that? Send you parts and tell you to throw them away but don't include the correct parts. The part number quoted is the same number printed on the bag of fittings. What on earth do they think you should do - open up the boxes and bags of fittings and do a trial assembly in the store.
Please be warned that Bathstore is shambolic and unhelpful. If you must use them, open up the boxes instore and get them to check every part and fitting. Take nothing on trust.

I would not - our installation started in March and still not finished. Mix of those who are installing, we paid Bathstore to supply so we didn't get a headache - big mistake. Part products! Came home to a leak from the bathroom - they will now have to repair the kitchen ceiling - and we're still no there. Rep came out yesterday and said 'things will get loose' - err second time for some of their accessories, since March and we have no children! And by the way 'did they leave allen keys with you so you can tighten the products yourself'! Unbelieveable! I'm sure other stores have different installers but the products are the same - real shame as a friend recommended them, he does live in a different area though. Total cost was the best part of 15k. Wish us luck in claiming compensation.

We bought a house with a bath store bathroom. All the plastic metal bits in the shower enclosure that cover up screws have snapped off!

I've had success online with plumbworld, and plumbcentre have been good with price matching online companies.

We're doing 1.5 bathrooms next month, and probably most of our stuff will come from a local merchant who seems, so far, pretty competitive. Except for aqualisa showers - for some reason no-one can ever get close to the online prices.

Purchased a MyPlan 400 mirror cabinet for our bathroom from Bathstore in June 2015, 18 months later we noticed there was a discolouring on the bottom of the mirrored door, on closer inspection we could see it was the silver backing of the mirror peeling away. Feeling confident that there would be no problem in sorting this out as this unit was sold as sealed against water egress and had a life time guarantee. However the response to our complaint was not as we expected....

"Hi
It sounds like Foxing - all of our cabinets are sealed so that water cannot get behind the glass but that sealing can be damaged by chemical cleaners, rough pads, or letting water remain on the surface.
The water then physically destroys the mirror backing
Unfortunately, this means it won’t covered under the warranty, and we won’t be replacing it free of charge.

One we have never used any "chemicals" on the cabinet, and who in their right minds would use "rough pads" on a mirror??? As for leaving water on the mirrors surface we purchased this to go into a bathroom which is inherently wet and as this unit was supposedly sealed against water the only water that came into contact with the mirrored door was condensation and if this is classed as water being left on the surface this unit should not be sold as a bathroom cabinet.

Definitely will never use this company again.

Same issue with bathroom mirror bought from Bathstore. They fob me off by telling me it's foxing. And not offered replacement. It's intended to be bathroom furniture! Should be able to withstand normal condensation in the bathroom! Only one way to describe it-- poor quality!
Their gaurantee is a con! As they always find an excuse for any issues you encounter with their products. Or they deny the product is under gaurantee!
I bought bathroom 5 years ago. Problem with a part. Was told the 10 years gaurantee didn't exist back then! Utter rubbish! Luckily I've kept the brochure from 5 years ago to prove.
Customer service non existant! Also have another issue that still unresolved after 4 months!
Also arrogant store manager who doesn't listen and just want to argue with the customer.
Never Bathstore again! My advice, stay well away from them!

We've had our main bathroom fitted about 2 years ago, all bought from Bathstore and fitted by our own plumber. Cost around £2.5k and tbh, I'm not thrilled with the quality of it. Loo flush not great, cupboards not great quality, panels are already blowing out with water, taps not great and serious issue with bath plug system. Bath screen wasn't cheap and is permanently in the way. Considering what we paid, it's not the quality that I would have expected and I wouldn't use them again. Our other bathroom we did using Kohler bought on DH's local builders merchant trade account and the quality is amazing. And it cost considerably less! Lesson learned.

I personally wouldn't go there for anything. I've used Victoria Plumb and had no problems at all.

There appears to be a number of Bathstore threads here and so I am 'covering all the bases' by posting this message on all of them. That way, anyone considering a Bathstore purchase should be given the chance to read about my views and experiences. I class myself as a very knowledgeable and competent DIY'er and have installed 7 bathrooms from scratch in my time. I set myself a high standard of workmanship and feel therefore I can speak from a position of a fair amount of experience.
The quality of Bathstore products is typical of the mass production methods they employ. The carcasses are melamine faced chipboard so are no different to many other suppliers. Therefore, when you look at their prices, they appear to me to offer poor value for money. After discount a typical cupboard carcass is over £100 which, when you consider what it's made of and the quality of the finish seems a lot.
Move on the the fascias and things only get worse. The one I have just installed on behalf of my daughter was the Portfolio range and a 600mm fascia pack (two small pieces of veneered/painted chipboard), after discount was £228; an absolute rip off in my opinion.
I suspect they really want you to use one of their approved fitters. Therefore beware if you are planning DIY or using an independent. The installation instructions are incomplete and fail to cover all of the processes required. There is no dedicated support team; instead you need to speak to the supplying store. In my experience, the two stores I used were staffed by teams who knew nothing about the installation process. If you're lucky, you might get to speak to one of their fitters if they are in the store at the time of your call. However, don't count on that solving any problems; the gent I spoke to seemed to know very little and gave the impression that he wasn't to happy to help 'an amateur' anyway.
To sum up, in my opinion, Bathstore initially impress with their showroom displays but drill a little deeper and they seem to offer very poor value for money and are not 'tooled up' to give quick support during independent installation. So, shop around and you will almost certainly find something better.