Bathroom fittings. Can't understand variation between prices

Richard Roma

My wife and I are getting our house renovated. We went looking at bathrooms this weekend, and we couldn't get our heads around the pricing.

There was various times where we saw seemingly identical toilets next to each other with vastly differing prices. We had no way of assessing relative quality.
Is there any rule of thumb we should use, or way of comparing quality?

Our bathroom is 5.6 m2. Our builder had suggested spending about €3,000 on the fittings (we've already agreed the labour costs with him), but we reckon we'll be doing well getting it for €4,000.

We've tried Daveys, Tilestyle and Tile Merchants. The Solas catalogue is the best we've seen so far.

Do BTW have a good rep?

Thanks in advance.

Calahonda52

What fittings are in the 3k?
You could spend 3k on a shower door
you could spend 3k on floor tiles

Solas is good gear for the money

Richard Roma

Calahonda52 wrote: »

What fittings are in the 3k?
You could spend 3k on a shower door
you could spend 3k on floor tiles

Solas is good gear for the money

I learned that 3k isn’t feasible. The shower alone costs close to 2k. Shower, toilet, sink, press.

colm_c

We renovated 2 bathrooms (ensuite and small under stairs), fixtures were 3k excluding tiles.

It's possible to get the fixtures for 3k, you need to shop around, we got stuff from: Amazon UK and DE, soak.com, ikea, chadwicks, ebay and b&q.

Conservatory

It’s like asking how much a car costs. Different quality and more fashionable designs. Some overpriced piss takes sometimes too.
Some clothes designers do the odd bathroom ware and add a couple of grand into the price for their troubles.

jmBuildExt

Just fitted out our place with stuff from soak.com
Cant speak for its longevity yet - but its good value and the service wasnt too bad either.
Did bathroom and downstairs wc for half that budget. (2 toilets, 2 vanity units+sinks, L shaped bath and matching shower door, 2 rain head thermostatic showers (one for separate ensuite), all associated taps)

As I say; its only gone in, but the stuff looks to be robust enough certainly the toilet/sink/bath should have no probs...
re the shower and taps they may be cheap on the inside - i dont know for sure - will have to wait and see how long they last.

Dtp1979

I’m fitting bathrooms a long time. When it comes to ceramics, I can honestly say I see no difference between the cheaper stuff and more expensive stuff. Price and quality comes in to play for taps/showers and shower doors.
Whatever brand of shower you go with, make sure it’s one kind of bar mixer with 150mm pipe centres. That means that if the shower goes caput down the line, whether it’s cheap or expensive, it’s only a 10min job to change a new one. No ripping up wall tiles

Treepole

I've used Bathshack in the past when the budget was very tight on a job and couldn't fault them.
Viewed the stuff in a showroom in Cork and then ordered online. (Also I ordered it from their Northern Irish site and paid in sterling, saved €300 versus the euro prices after exchange rate conversion on the credit card).

goz83

Dtp1979 wrote: »

I’m fitting bathrooms a long time. When it comes to ceramics, I can honestly say I see no difference between the cheaper stuff and more expensive stuff. Price and quality comes in to play for taps/showers and shower doors.
Whatever brand of shower you go with, make sure it’s one kind of bar mixer with 150mm pipe centres. That means that if the shower goes caput down the line, whether it’s cheap or expensive, it’s only a 10min job to change a new one. No ripping up wall tiles

Ceramics is a tough one, but usually the difference is the colour. Some whites are dull and what I refer to as "public toilet white" and other, more expensive ones are usually brighter. The cheaper pans get discoloured in the water zone where the expensive ones will stay white. The cheaper ones will have plastic bolts and the expensive ones will be steel chromed with rubber washers.

With all that said, I have seen cheap crap being sold at premium prices because the untrained eye won't see quality and people think spending loads of money equals top quality.


@ the OP,

when buying taps, be sure you get taps suited to your plumbing. If you have a pump, you'll be ok. If you don't make sure you get taps suitable for lower pressure, or you will suffer from it. A high pressure tap working without a pump will take forever to fill a bath.