Planning a Bathroom Refit: Budgeting and Choosing a Fitter Properly

A bathroom is the smallest room in most houses and routinely the most expensive per square metre. It is also the room where a rushed decision is felt every single day. This guide covers what you are actually paying for, how long it really takes, and how to choose the person who will be in your home for two weeks.

Where the money goes

A refit is rarely one cost. It is four, and the surprises hide in the last two.

The suite and fittings. Bath or shower tray, enclosure, toilet, basin, taps and waste. This is the part everybody budgets for, and price differences here are mostly about material quality and brand rather than how it looks in a showroom photo.

Tiling and finishes. Wall and floor tiling, waterproofing, grout and sealant, plus any flooring outside the wet area. Tiling is labour-heavy and frequently underestimated by a third or more.

The hidden work. Rotten floorboards, old pipework that will not take new pressure, inadequate ventilation, a consumer unit that will not support an electric shower, or a soil stack in the wrong place. In older UK housing at least one of these is normal rather than exceptional.

Making good. Plastering, decorating, moving a doorway, boxing in pipework, and disposal of the old suite. Ask explicitly whether waste removal is included, because it is the most commonly missed line in a quote.

As a planning rule, hold back a contingency of around ten to fifteen percent of the total. If you spend it, it was necessary. If you do not, you have a buffer for the things a bathroom always throws up.

What it costs you in time

A straightforward replacement of like for like typically runs one to two weeks. Moving the layout, retiling throughout or dealing with structural work commonly pushes it to three or four. During that time you need clear access to the room, somewhere to store materials, and an agreed plan for how the water will be turned off each evening.

Ask your fitter at the quote stage: which days will somebody be here, what happens if a delivery is late, and how will you be told about a problem the moment it is found rather than at the end.

Vetting a fitter in twenty minutes

Good fitters are busy, which means the vetting is as much about them choosing you as the reverse. Four checks do most of the work:

Insurance. Ask for public liability cover and, if they employ anyone, employers' liability. A surprising number of people working in homes do not have it, and if something goes wrong you are the one absorbing the cost.

Qualifications for the regulated parts. Electrical work in a bathroom is notifiable and should be done by a competent person. Gas work requires Gas Safe registration, which you can verify on the register yourself. Water regulations and unvented cylinders have their own requirements. Legitimate tradespeople will expect these questions.

Recent, contactable references. Not a gallery of photos, but two or three recent customers in your area you are welcome to ring. Ask them whether the fitter turned up when they said, whether the final price matched the quote, and whether they would use them again.

A written, itemised quote. Not a text message with a number. A document that separates labour, materials, tiling, electrical work, waste removal and the payment schedule, and that says clearly what happens if extra work is discovered.

Red flags worth walking away from

A large deposit requested before any work starts, especially in cash. No landline, no trading address and no verifiable reviews. A quote dramatically below every other one, which usually means the tiling, the waste removal or the electrics are simply missing. Pressure to sign on the day. Anyone who will not put the scope in writing.

Comparing quotes fairly

The most common mistake homeowners make is comparing totals. Three quotes for a bathroom can differ by thousands while covering completely different work. Compare line by line instead, and ask each fitter what they have excluded.

Our bathroom fitting category lets you compare fitters by reviews, insurance status, published availability and past work in one place, and request quotes from more than one before deciding. Take the extra week. A bathroom is a fifteen-year decision made in an afternoon.