Bathroom Refurbishment

tuisginideach

I plan to refurbish the family bathroom (20+ years old) - mainly to increase the size of our (electric) shower (we may remove the bath) and with, naturally, toilet, whb, towel rad and/or ordinary rad etc. I am not one for ridiculously fancy items - I just want a nice, good quality, easy-to-clean set up. I'd love to hear people's recommendations - did you make changes that you are thrilled with/regret or are there things you wish you had changed? Thanks

budhabob

Hi there,

We did similar to potentially an older bathroom 2 years ago. We did rip out the bath and put in the biggest shower enclosure that would fit the space.

We previously had an electric shower but the OH was not overly impressed with the pressure so we went with a pump instead with a rain head & normal head option. I love going for a shower now so it was a great decision.

We went with tiles floor to ceiling, and 4 spot lights which make the room seem a lot bigger.

We also went with a towel rail - my recommendation would be to go with an anthracite towel rail, chrome is terrible for actually heating the room whereas anthracite actually puts out a lot of heat.

We also insulated the external facing wall.

Best of luck

black & white

+ 1 on the chrome towel rail, I got ours taken out and replaced with a rad a year after we renovated our bathroom. Absolutely FA heat in the bathroom, despite the rail being extremely hot to touch, I had specced a larger than normal one too.

Masala

We built in a Fan in ceiling running steam out a flexible pipe across the attic to a vent in the external wall. You need to get rid of the shower moisture

Also....watch for those new toilet cisterns. Cos they hold less the flush is somewhat weak and so not as powerful to flush everything down on first flush.

Similarity... watching a thread here on Boards whereby these new toilet bowls go right to the bottom and now they can’t get access to the toilet seat that needs replacing...... suggestions are to ‘remove’ the bowel!!!!

D3V!L

We are currently gutting our main and en-suite. A lot of the bathroom shops that popped up recently have very over-the-top stuff and would look out of place in the average home. We went for chrome towel rails, a double-length shower to replace the bath, and a wall-hung toilet.

The rest of the stuff came from IKEA, the mirror cabinets, sink and vanities. We saved thousands on them over buying from the bathroom renovation shops and the quality was second to none. IKEA units have pine for the vanity carcasses whereas the "fancy" stuff was MDF.

This is our first home and nothing would have prepared us for the mess !!

Living Off The Splash

We would like to double the size of our existing shower. Turn it in to a walk in shower, rather than the cubicle that we have at the moment. Our existing shower has a fixed head unit. We would like to change this to a flexible hand held unit. I assume that we will need to replace existing tiles on the wall to put this in place or is it possible to use the existing plumbing and not damage the existing tiles? Our bathroom has existing tiles covering the 4 walls of the bathroom, floor to ceiling.

Is it possible to cut a section of our existing tiles from the wall area in the new shower area, put in place new plumbing/shower unit and then replace tiles with a strip of new tiles rather than replace a whole wall of tiles?

Finally, we have a small useless radiator in the room. Is it recommended to simply double the size of this radiator or should we look at putting in place an electric towel rail type? If we put in a new electric towel rail.....do we run a cable from a socket in a nearby room under floorboards or through walls or cable running on top of floorboards?

We are based in Blackrock, Dublin. Would love some useful tips and recommendations for reliable person to do job.

tuisginideach

Great comments, thanks very much to all. Can't be of any practical help to you, Living off the Splash, unfortunately.

black & white

Living Off The Splash wrote: »

We would like to double the size of our existing shower. Turn it in to a walk in shower, rather than the cubicle that we have at the moment. Our existing shower has a fixed head unit. We would like to change this to a flexible hand held unit. I assume that we will need to replace existing tiles on the wall to put this in place or is it possible to use the existing plumbing and not damage the existing tiles? Our bathroom has existing tiles covering the 4 walls of the bathroom, floor to ceiling.

Is it possible to cut a section of our existing tiles from the wall area in the new shower area, put in place new plumbing/shower unit and then replace tiles with a strip of new tiles rather than replace a whole wall of tiles?

Finally, we have a small useless radiator in the room. Is it recommended to simply double the size of this radiator or should we look at putting in place an electric towel rail type? If we put in a new electric towel rail.....do we run a cable from a socket in a nearby room under floorboards or through walls or cable running on top of floorboards?

We are based in Blackrock, Dublin. Would love some useful tips and recommendations for reliable person to do job.

If your bathroom fitter is careful he should be able to carefully cut out a section of tiles without damaging the ones beside it, will prob take longer hence costing a few bob more though. You might be able to get new tiles to match or get something different and make a feature out of them.

In theory you can get a bigger rad, you should speak to someone who can calculate what you need, based on the size of the room etc, and make sure that your pump/tank/boiler etc are capable of higher output.

For the electric towel rail, there are strict regulations on electrics in bathrooms so speak to someone who is familiar with them, I can't see you getting away with running a cable across the floor for example but check with someone who knows for definite.

garv123

Make sure the toilet you buy actually flushes!! Big flush little flush wasnt too bat but these ones are awful with all this water saving technology.

NCC1701

I had my bathroom done in the past month. It was the original bathroom suite (grey with green tiles) installed in the house 25 years ago which I inherited when I bought the place. What I did was divide the bathroom in two to create an ensuite for my bedroom and a shower room for the kids. Despite cutting the bathroom in two, it doesn't feel cramped and I have two good sized pumped showers (1800x800 and 1200x700) with monsoon rainheads and a standard shower head, two heated chrome towel rails, sinks with vanity units under and two toilets. Walls and floors were tiled and four spot lights in each room with two powerful extractor fans that do a great job of taking the steam out. Absolutely delighted with the job (and I'm normally hyper critical!) as they arrived on time before 8am each day, worked until at least 5pm (but stayed late in order to finish that day's task), left the house near spotless each evening hoovering and cleaning up and despite finding problems after the initial rip out such as rotten floor joists and replacing insulation in the walls, they didn't charge me a cent extra to remediate these issues. Outstanding company to deal with and great guys who are craftsmen at what they do. I had two minor issues (small leak from a towel rad and my son caused an air lock by leaving the shower running while he spoke to his mate at the door thus emptying the water tank!) which the bathroom guys rectified by coming out on a Saturday afternoon and not charging me even though it was my son who caused the second issue!!!. If only all trades were as diligent and hardworking.

tuisginideach

That sounds like you hit gold with your builders! Funnily, I'm planning to do the opposite to you - I want to knock the wall between the en suite (very small shower which all the family uses) and the main bathroom (which is hardly ever used) to give us a decent sized shower in a bathroom, still with two doors - one from bedroom and one from landing.

tuisginideach

Still at the planning stage here. I used doorless shower in a hotel last night - 2 tiled walls, one 'wall' of glass and fourth side open. There didn't seem to be any heater in bathroom (don't think there was even a heated towel rail) but I found the shower area cold - obviously not if I was standing directly under the showerhead but even moving forward to pick up the towel, I felt the cold. I see from various blogs online that this is a commonly-noted negative feature of a doorless shower - I may have to alter my opinion on what I had thought was a great idea.

Thanks

BronsonTB

If buying from any of the online plumbing shops, always double check what is delivered at the time of delivery. (Even if not being fitted for a while).

Got caught out with this by not checking throughly. Company involved was not forthcoming with sorting.

Overall happy with the new bathroom - Added new sink & unit, shower door & re-tiled flooring. Would have included a towel rail instead of a larger radiator if doing it again.

jay0109

I'm at the start of the process of getting 2 bathrooms renovated in my house in South Dublin. Got 1 recommendation for a bathroom installer and he was out yesterday to take measurements etc. No quote back as yet.

If anyone has any bathroom refurb companies they'd recommend, please message me.

Thanks