bathrooms

[quality]

I hate with a passion and almost never touch them, I finished a heating job yesterday, from an old solid fuel rayburn (leaking) new boiler unvented etc. and the customer says can you JUST change the taps in the bathroom while your here. Does everyone hate changing bath taps or is it just me?

 

[dancinplumba]

With you, hate bathrooms with a passion

 

[Ermintrude]

I hate even thinking about them

 

[mfgs]

I find bathrooms very difficult to price, but I am a firm believer that if you can get a good team of people together and do good quality work then people will happily pay top money for it. I am going to aim to get in to bathrooms a little more next year as I try and expand, I have been mainly doing heating work up until now. I have already had 3 people ask me to reserve them time to refurb there bathrooms without me even quoting for it yet, I have told them it will have to wait until April as I am pretty much sorted with work until then as it is.

 

[townfanjon]

I am crap at saying no , and I have allegedly one more bathroom to do next year( but I know what will happen)
i actually think they are very good earners, tons harder to price than boiler heating swaps etc.
totally agree with mfgs , people will pay top money for the right job.

 

[quality]

I have done bathrooms before but my work drifted to just heating and I hate them now, but as said priced correct they can earn well. I feel Ive been bending pipes long enough to know what I can earn from and be satisfied Ive done a good job. There are blokes round my way that do a cracking job with tiling, lighting and all that goes with it

 

[newcastle phill]

Can be so much unforseen. Rotten floorboards under bath.
Rrmoving tiles and the whole lot comes off.
What ever price I think I want I just stick 1k on top and if they dont want it doing - fine lol

 

[AlexGas]

I find bathrooms very difficult to price, but I am a firm believer that if you can get a good team of people together and do good quality work then people will happily pay top money for it. I am going to aim to get in to bathrooms a little more next year as I try and expand, I have been mainly doing heating work up until now. I have already had 3 people ask me to reserve them time to refurb there bathrooms without me even quoting for it yet, I have told them it will have to wait until April as I am pretty much sorted with work until then as it is.

You price them in a same way as anything else. Dosh for your time on a project + all the gear and materials to do the job, OK you have to understand what should go in here accordingly to the budget. You’ll get the nag with time. You’ll be fine.

 

[AlexGas]

Can be so much unforseen. Rotten floorboards under bath.
Rrmoving tiles and the whole lot comes off...

That’s where during the quote you mention a can of worms – that would be extra.

 

[SimonG]

Love bathrooms. Priced right you are on to a winner.

 

[newcastle phill]

Yeh.
That bits after ive already done my 1k on top

 

[AlexGas]

... Does everyone hate changing bath taps or is it just me?

Nope, that's my job. Changing bath taps can be tricky but I wouldn’t say I hate it.

 

[AlexGas]

Yeh.
That bits after ive already done my 1k on top

But your quote will be 1k more than mine though.

 

[newcastle phill]

Then you can have it

 

[AlexGas]

I am a firm believer that if you can get a good team of people together and do good quality work then people will happily pay top money for it.

In my case, I’m the team and I keep all the dosh.

 

[julesverne]

Not the biggest fan of bathrooms but we do around 10 full refurbs a year so not easy to turn away as i aint charging peanuts. Must lose about the same amount on quotes if not more as some people think you'll do em for peanuts and some cowboys do. But do lose a few good ones in winter As custs want it done next week blah blah.

 

[SimonG]

Custs dont appreciate the work needed to transform a bathroom.

Its nice when somebody wants to spend on decent gear to get the job done.

 

[gasmanrob]

Never really did bathrooms as a line of work there are some very good guys round here who specialise in it and make a better living then the heating guys in the area,

realistically though you want to be replacing the floor for marine ply scraping the walls back new hard wall new wastes etc so when you walk away you can be sure that bathroom can easily see out the next15 years. Problem is no one budgets for that level of work and those that do opt for bathroom fitters not joe bloggs plumbing and heating

 

[AlexGas]

realistically though you want to be replacing the floor for marine ply...

Ply is good. But did you know that you can tile straight on the floor boards?

 

[hammers4spanner]

Ply is good. But did you know that you can tile straight on the floor boards?

You can do but best practice to ply then pva then tile imho

 

[hammers4spanner]

What thickness ply do you guys use?

A tiler recently told me never to use less than 12 mm

 

[AlexGas]

You can do but best practice to ply then pva then tile imho

I'm not big fan of PVA for tiling at all, I use acrylic primer all day long.

 

[PlumbBobBob]

You can do but best practice to ply then pva then tile imho

pva is a no no. should be primer specifically for tiling like mapei primer g

 

[mfgs]

Ply is good. But did you know that you can tile straight on the floor boards?

You shouldn't really do that, meant to have about 30mm thickness of wood on the floor to tile on it. I always put 12mm ply over the boards to give it extra strength so there is no chance of movement.

 

[AlexGas]

You can do but best practice to ply then pva then tile imho

Sometimes tiles just have to go on the floor boards and there's the way. Check out this wicked gear from BAL. It has rubber-like flexibility:

BAL Adhesives - Products - single part fastflex

 

[AlexGas]

You shouldn't really do that, meant to have about 30mm thickness of wood on the floor to tile on it. I always put 12mm ply over the boards to give it extra strength so there is no chance of movement.

Nothing wrong with that, if you've got right gear, why not. I'm not BAL rep by the way but I love the gear. As I say check it out.

 

[village idiot]

Hardi backer board for me, then tile over it. No need for all this priming malacky. Before that, it was 15mm ply. i love bathrooms. Easy money. I always overcharge to be on the safe side. If customer says NO, I thank God and move on.

 

[hammers4spanner]

pva is a no no. should be primer specifically for tiling like mapei primer g

Never seen a tiler use any other than pva

 

[hammers4spanner]

thing is with floorboards more often than not they are all uneven

 

[AlexGas]

Never seen a tiler use any other than pva

Well... I guess today is the day! :smile:

 

[AlexGas]

thing is with floorboards more often than not they are all uneven

Yes you are right there. If it's really that bad, ply has to go in.

 

[village idiot]

thing is with floorboards more often than not they are all uneven

The more reason why you have to put something else on top of board. Btw, if you tile directly onto floorboards and in due course they need to be replaced (tiles that is), then all hell breaks loose. Not good practice IMHO

 

[AlexGas]

Never seen a tiler use any other than pva

Have a read here:
SBR Any good before tiling?? - Tile Adhesive Grout | TilersForums.co.uk
P.V.A. Versus Primers - Tile Adhesive Grout | TilersForums.co.uk

Bond SBR is Multi-purpose synthetic polymer primer and admixture for walls and floors.

 

[village idiot]

Haven't read your report but I know I did use PVA once, and the rest of the tub is still in garage. I know I will never use it again. Two days after tiling, I could literally prise tile off wall. It came clean off with adhessive stuck to tiles. I wasn't impressed.

 

[SimonG]

No pva and no tiling on top of floor boards imho

 

[LPC]

Tiling straight onto floorboards?!? No. At least 12mm ply.

And for tiling walls, nothing beats this:

Febond Blue Grit

But yeah, hate bathrooms. Only do them in the summer. Make a shedload of money on them mind.

 

[AlexGas]

Haven't read your report but I know I did use PVA once, and the rest of the tub is still in garage. I know I will never use it again. Two days after tiling, I could literally prise tile off wall. It came clean off with adhessive stuck to tiles. I wasn't impressed.

No away!
I’m not saying PVA will not work. In olden days tillers would use it all day long. I just don’t use it for this purpose, cos there’s much better primer to do the job - acrylic primer. Why not?

 

[hammers4spanner]

anyone know if they teach apprentices about the pitfalls of bathrooms in college ?

Or is it still a case of heres your bath /basin/bog plumb away

 

[Neil K]

No tiling straight onto floorboards. The nails alone will make tiles pop. Ply every time

 

[hammers4spanner]

Best practice in my opinion is to overprice bathrooms

Got one coming up where they want me to change the window in the bathroom lol gonna be fun

 

[AlexGas]

No pva and no tiling on top of floor boards imho

If you are not a fan of tiling on a floor boards, I understand that, you don’t have to. I’ve done it and will do it again when I need to. If threre's a need, with a right gear it can be done.

BAL single part fastflex
Most substrates including:

Asphalt (suitable grade e.g. flooring)
Concrete, cement:sand screeds and rendering
Existing vinyl tiles, unglazed ceramic tiles, quarry tiles, terrazzo and natural stone
Fibre reinforced cement boards and lightweight tile backer boards
Tongued and grooved floorboards
Underfloor heating

 

[AlexGas]

No tiling straight onto floorboards.

I take it you never used BAL single part fastflex.

 

[LPC]

I know what you're saying, it can be done. But for the fairly little amount of time and money it takes to put some ply down, seems a bit silly not to. No-one I know would even dream of putting tiles straight onto boards, fancy adhesive or not.
I'd be thinking about the future too; going to be way easier in the future to lift the tiles then the ply and start again then spend days scraping all that ****e off the floorboards!

 

[Neil K]

I take it you never used BAL single part fastflex.

No I don't do the tiling but if the bathroom is my job I wouldn't let the tiler tile straight onto the floorboards. Are you selling the stuff lol

 

[AlexGas]

I’d say BAL is Rolls Royce of tile adhesives.
Teach an old dog new tricks!?
I resign from this thread.

 

[Neil K]

I’d say BAL is Rolls Royce of tile adhesives.
Teach an old dog new tricks!?
I resign from this thread.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this one although I don't doubt it's good gear. Every dog to his own pile of poo, horses for courses and all that

 

[village idiot]

I've been known to use tops tile fast setting flexible adhesiveoads/most of the time. Only use Bal if it is a wet room

 

[cr0ft]

I quite enjoy bathrooms to be honest. I price for stripping them all out to bare flooring joists and new plasterboard on stud walls/plaster skim. If the customer doesn't want to pay for that they can get someone else in!

 

[jase158]

I love bathrooms! Guaranteed work for 2 weeks, great profit margins, less talking to customer!! Just hate silicone!! Wish there was another way?? Great job satisfaction too!! Boilers are a pain as customer begs you to squeeze them in yet they never seen grateful that you have just put a great system in that they can control while they are asleep and switch on before they get up and control the temperature at different times of day!! And you flushed it properly for them so they don't have any problems and you added a magnetic filter for extra protection!! Do they appreciate all that?? Not really!! Do they appreciate a powerful shower!! Definitely!!

 

[Ermintrude]

18mm ply cross bonded glued and screwed.

2 layers if you want a good job. Or batton along length of joist so it's 18mm lower than top of joist. Cut ply to fit between joists Screw it all in. Ensure first fix is perfect

Next sand tops of joists with belt sander. Trowel out expanding glue. Lay on 18mm hard wood ply with a decent face. Screw it down. Wait 24h. Shave off the spillage with a sharp chisel. Prime the floor. Boom