Bathrooms and wet rooms

Full rip-out to final grout in two to three weeks. Tanked properly, tiled properly, and finished to a standard that still looks right in ten years.

From £6,800 · typically 2–3 weeks

Waterproofing is the whole job

Most bathrooms that fail do so because of what is behind the tiles, not the tiles themselves. We tank wet areas with a proper liquid membrane system rather than relying on tile adhesive and grout, use cement board rather than plasterboard behind showers, and seal every junction before a single tile goes on. It adds a day to the programme and removes the problem that causes almost every bathroom callback.

Wet rooms

A wet room means the whole floor is the drainage plane, so the build-up matters. We form the fall in the screed or use a pre-formed tray, tank the floor and walls to at least 1.8m in the shower zone, and set the linear drain so water actually reaches it. On a suspended timber floor the joists usually need to be notched or a lowered deck formed, which we assess at the site visit.

What a bathroom job includes

Strip out and dispose of the old suite, alter waste and supply pipework to the new layout, electrics for lighting, shaver point, extractor and underfloor heating, plasterboard and cement board, tanking, floor and wall tiling, fit the suite, screen and shower, then silicone, decoration and clean.

Underfloor heating is worth the small extra cost on a bathroom — it is cheap to add during a refit and impossible to add afterwards without starting again.

Common questions