how difficult is it to fit a new bathroom?

Question

me and my husband have just bought a house and want to put a new bathroom in. we've not done anything like this before, any advice? or if u know any websites that give you instructions or tips on fitting bathrooms?

Answer 1

Tess, why not go for a walk in the park with your hubby and get a professional in to do it?

Answer 2

Go for it! If you have basic DIY skills than you would be fine. I would however consider the following first.

A plumber will replace a bathroom in a couple of days tops. It will take you longer. Do you have another bathroom or at least toilet to use whilst doing it? If not i would go for the plumber as having to re-connect everything all the time is a real hassle, its much easier to be able to rip everything out and start with a blank canvas.

The hardest bit about plumbing used to be the pipe work, now its a doddle. You can get push fit Copper fittings from most DIY stores (I know Wickes do them) although with copper prices at the moment i would be tempted to use plastic fittings and pipe. This comes form either Hep2o or Polyplumb and again can be purchased form most DIY stores. The advantages of this are that you can bend it round corners, everything is push fit so if you do make a mistake it is easy to fix, it makes a perfect seal every time and wont break like copper can. It is every increasing in popularity and most new builds now use it instead of copper.

Also check ou good idea leaflet 121 from Wickes (wickes.co.uk or instore) it gives you all the help you need and its free!

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Its not difficult at all. The first and foremost thing to get sorted is isolating the water supply to the bathroom. Switch off at the mains which will shut off the cold & depending on your heating system you will then need to shut off the hot. If you still have a hot water cylinder there will be a cold tank above it which feeds into the cylinder via a pipe with a gate valve on it. DONT try closing this valve if its not been used for a long time, it will either not move at all or will only partially close the flow. Better to go into the cold tank & tie the ball valve in an UP (closed position) This done switch on all the taps up & down stairs until they stop running. Now you can remove the old suite. With that out of the way & you have decided whats going where you can cut/alter the pipework to 'around' where the new supplies need to be... that done get some inline isolation valves ( the ones that have a screwdriver slot to switch on/off) fit one of these to all the new pipes & switch them all to off. This done untie the ball valve on the header tank & put the mains back on allow tanks to refill & if no leaks..... GET THE KETTLE ON !! Sit back for 10 minutes in the knowledge that now you dont need to worry about anyone moaning ' how much longer are we going to be without water'. Its now on to the rest of the house and you can proceed at a comfortable pace. As others have said, tho its not the cheapest way, its by far the easiest way to use push fit connectors for water supplies if you are not confident to uses solder joints & all the waste pipes are push fit too. The rest is just common sense.... a few tips tho.... when fitting the chrome waste (plug holes) into the bath/washbasin use clear silicone under the rim of the waste andon all sides of the plastic washers and tighten up securely ( wipe away any surplus b4 it sets) When the bath is in & before sealing it to the walls with silicone fill it up as high as possible with cold water to weight it down then fill the gap between bath & wall with silicone & leave it for about 24 hours b4 letting the water out) PLEASE make sure that no young children can be left near the full bath alone at this time. Everything else is simply the reverse of taking the old suite out, so have a go, take your time & if a joint leaks just switch the isolating valve off, check it, tighten it & try again..... water wont kill you like electricity or gas..... Best of luck

Answer 4

Without even reading any other answers my suggestion is DON'T consider it as a DIY unless Husband happens to be adept and perhaps licensed in Plumbing, and Electrical at the very least.

PUT A NEW bathroom in? How do you define that? ADD an entirely new room, or new fixtures? to an existing bath?

If it's just to remodel and existing bath then the balance of my text is a moot point.

Zoning/Code issues are certainly another issue to consider.

The construction of the room itself is the easy part. tapping into existing water lines, and especially sewage disposal lines isn't at all like adding a new sink. The Electrical situation should require a new breaker; likely 15 amp would suffice GFC, and that would involve running cable as well as tying in to the breaker box.

What you can do is plan the layout, even construct the room, allowing that no walls will be added until you've contracted both afore mentioned services, elsewhere.

Steven Wolf

Answer 5

Its not that difficult if you prepare well in advance, and read up on it at sites like DIY not. I did mine having never done one before and it took about 3 weeks start to finish, tiling painting etc. I tuned off the water and fitted isolation valves to all the pipes enabling me to turn the mains back on whilst I did other work before fitting the suite. It does help if you have a second Toilet and wash basin you can use, though of course you can use the kitchen sink (not as a toilet I hasten to add!)

I must point out it took three weeks as I was also doing a full time job at the time so work was done evenings and weekends. If you had time off it would not take so long!

Answer 6

You could get somebody that knows what they are doing but you will get far more satisfaction by doing it yourself and save loads of money at the same time. When i bought my first flat i was a 28 yr old, single female with not alot of money. I replaced all of my bathroom plus tiling which is now stone. Replaced my kitchen, changed the immersion heater and changed all the electrical fittings and all by myself. If you have half a bit of common sense you can learn it all from books, websites and by asking lots of questions. After all this is the way the professionals have learnt. Yes there was tears and tantrums but it was all worth it in the end.

Answer 7

Dont' listen to all those people who tell you to get a professional. You can do this yourself as long as you approach it it a sensible way. Try to keep jobs small and managable, you won't be able to forsee everything you will need for each task but you will get there.
Most of the time , most things can be done by people themselves. dont be put off by thinking it is too scary. Get a good DIY book to help you along, come on here and ask questions before begining each task and you might suprise yourself. Personally I think if your your reasonably sensible theres no reason you couldn't tackle most jobs around the house . And let's face it , when you call a plumber it's super mario who turns up, not Albert Einstein.

Answer 8

Hi i fitted a new bathroom suite myself took me about 3 weeks in total.
purchased the suite from wickes.

What i done though was work in stages didn't rip the whole lot out at once.
1. Removed all old wall tiles made good wall's for complete re-tile.
2. Removed old bath fitted new bath, tiled around bath area.
3. Removed wash basin, tiled wall replaced with new basin.
4 Removed Old toilet tiled behind toilet area fixed in new toilet.

Put down laminate floor also fitted in stages as bathroom progressed.

What i found a fantastic help was the flexible fillings under the bath space is tight these fittings are a god send.

Take your time work in stages remove and replace in stages.

One mistake i made when removing the bath under cut the wall and slot in new bath easier to seal around new bath when fitted.

Answer 9

Difficult to say. It depends on what type of sanitary ware you buy, and how much pipwork has to be altered to suit the new bathroom. You can end up with a lot of water leaks if things are not fitted correctly and your soldered joints are not done correctly. You may even get the hot and cold water connections mixed up.

Answer 10

Very diff, call a plumber. Even my Do Everything Angel Maintenance Man called a plumber to fit the new bathroom. It turned out that some of the old piping wasnt doing its job properly and needed replacing. Electrics and plumbing are not for novices.

Answer 11

Me and hubby did our bathroom last...it's alot of work in a small space. Try doing some other projects first. We did every other room including the kitchen before we did the bathroom and we were glad we waited. Plumbing and Tiling are SO hard to get perfect...and perfection is what you're striving for right? Plumbing and bathroom requires alot of specialty tools...alot of the cost is in tools or in renting them.

Good luck.