Replacing a bath with a shower is relatively straight forward but may involve more people than you thought!
Finding a plumber
So you want to replace your bath with a shower?
Maybe no-one in your house has ever used the bath, or maybe you’re just looking to future proof your house.
Whatever the reason, many people choose to replace their bath with a shower, and they don’t necessarily want to go to the expense of re-doing the whole bathroom.
Simple, just get a plumber in right!
Erm, kind of – but it’s not quite that straight forward unfortunately.
You see a relatively straight forward job like this may require a few more people than you imagined so in this example I’ll show you exactly who you may need for your simple little project.
Who else do we need?
When replacing a bath like this with a shower you either need a specialist turnkey provider (like me) or you may need to project manage a few trades as we did in this instance.
A plumber – to take the old bath out and fit the shower.
An electrician – to add a fan to take care of the excess humidity created by showers vs baths.
A tiler – to repair and tile the walls below the old bath rim.
A vinyl floor fitter – to fit new flooring as the old flooring did not extend fully under the bath and the shower tray is smaller than the bath, leaving exposed floor space.
In this instance we also used a plasterer to board, skim (and then paint) the far wall to make the whole installation a bit more attractive…
So 5 total trades for this simple job….
The finished result belies the amount of work required to achieve it, and in most instances you would be better off going with a specialist turnkey company rather than trying to manage all these people independently which can take up a lot of your time:
First, there’s the calling round multiple plumbers, tilers, electricians & flooring guys.
Then there’s the taking time off work and waiting for them all to show up (if they do!), waiting for their quotes (if they choose to send them) before selecting the team you want to use, planning the project, ordering all the materials and booking all these guys in to do the work (to fit in with their schedules), hoping all the while that they’re all available in one short week so you won’t be left without your bath for too long a time!
Turnkey suppliers (like us!)
Turnkey suppliers do everything from start to finish and are effectively a one stop shop.
Their dedicated multi trade teams allow the work to be done in a more condensed timeframe, which limits the amount of disruption that inevitably occurs when you lose your bathing facilities temporarily as the work is done.
(PS Normal jobs like this may take a specialist supplier as little as a couple of days depending on the level of work involved.)
Turnkey suppliers also project manage installations like this so that you don’t have to, and this means that projects are more likely to be completed on time and on budget.
Also, it will save you a lot of stress and this is not to be undersold!
Lastly, using a turnkey supplier also retains liability in one place, and this is very important as building related squabbles are very common – something goes wrong and the tiler blames the plumber, the plumber blames the joiner and everyone walks off site and leaves you in the lurch with water coming though your ceiling.
Not a good place to be, and unfortunately a far too common occurrence.
Recommendation
When combined with the other reasons cited above, I’d always recommend a specialist bathroom installer, and not just a plumber.
I know plumbers that work almost exclusively on central heating systems and boilers (and are great at that) but who are terrible at fitting bathrooms – Don’t let that be you!
A bit of extra help
If you want to know more about this kind of job, I’d strongly suggest downloading my guide to replacing a bath with a shower.
Within the guide, you’ll learn about everything from assessing the feasibility of replacing a bath with a shower, to budgeting, to installation with lots of tricks of the trade thrown in as well.
It’s an in depth illustrated guide which can be skimmed through by section or read in its entirety for maximum benefit.
Oh, and it’s completely FREE.
Anything else?
If you have a similar project in mind, please feel free to contact me.
Chris