Quotes for completely new bathroom.

[Halloween Jack]

Hi there,

I live in London and have used mybuilder.com to find a builder to put a whole new bathroom in. This includes floor tiles, plumbing, wall tiles, all the fixtures and fittings and decorating.

I saw 4 people and most quoted £2,500 for labour and building materials.

The last guy who had way more positive comments than the others (they were all 100% just less than 30 whereas he had over 200!) quoted £4,500 to £5,000.

I was going to go with him till I saw the quote now I don't know what to think.

Where the others hugely under budgeting and might do a quicker, rougher job? or is he over charging?

What do people think is a reasonable quote for a smallish (2.5m x 2m) bathroom in a 30s terraced house in London?

Cheers

 

[Deleted member 63160]

Try and find someone recommended by friends or family. Lot of desperadoes on those sorts of sites (not everyone of course).

 

[Alastairreid]

The more expensive guy has the more realistic quote to do a proper job.

 

[Deluks]

You can't get complete strangers in and go on price alone. Fine tune the details and spec so you know exactly what you're getting and what might end up getting tagged onto the bill as 'extras'

 

[Bouba]

Personal Experience: MOST of the people on these sites are begineers or Numptys. Ask friends and family as suggested and also get the rough idea of what you want done. Then you can compare labour vs cost. You can even provide your own materials to keep costs down.

Personally if you are having a basic bathroom renovated you are looking labour wise 1500-2500£. This provided you supply your own materials.

 

[Justin Passing]

It depnds on many things, such as what's there already, are you moving the soil pipe etc etc, so a remote guide price is difficult.
You should be able to tot up the costs of materials which are to be within the quote. Some are surprisingly high if you haven't been through that before.
You should then be able to work out a day rate - if that's £5000 for 5 man-days(ask) work, you do the sums...

Personal recommendations beat any of the web sites, which are there to attract the tradesmen who are funding them, while purporting to help you.
Some opinions are worth much more than others though. "It looks lovely" doesn't tell you much.

You may well find that the 2:1 price disparity is the difference between the people who are going to do the work themselves, and the "organisers" who sub-contract out the plumbing, tiling, electrics and so on, and add a hefty whack on top.
A one-man-band, or a large company, can be great or awful. Everybody knows how to cut corners and get away with it; everybody has the capacity to care, or not.

If you can educate yourself about some of the right and wrong ways to have things done, and get good answers from questions directed to the people who are actually doing the job, that's imho the best. There is a balance to be struck though, no tradesman wants to be cross-examined at every stage by a google-expert. Some will roll their eyes and quote you higher because they suspect you're going to be a pain.

In my experience it can be beneficial to lean towards being a little bit of a pain, having frequent checks and reassurances as the job goes along. Most decent tradesmen will do a decent job and be happy that you appreciate what they're doing.

 

[Halloween Jack]

Thanks for the responses.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to get any recommendations from family and friends.

So I guess I'm stuck with the site.

But thanks anyway

 

[terrypin]

Why not ask at the local plumbers merchants?
I am sure they'd point you in the right direction.

 

[Halloween Jack]

Thanks, but how do I know I could trust their recommendation?

Surely they would have friends in the business. Good or bad they would feel obliged to recommend them I would've thought. Maybe not?

I'm waiting to hear from a neighbour's friend... but it's a bit of a friend of a friend of a friend...

So if it comes down to a choice of a builder quoting £5,000 who's got 250 recommendations and has been with mybuilder since 2009.

and a builder quoting £2,500 with 13 recommendations and been on there since Feb this year...?

Would anyone have an opinion on which to choose, or would you all keep looking elsewhere?

 

[jellycat]

HJ, I would keep looking. To be honest £2500 seems v cheap. My very small bathroom in Wales (so cheaper wages) cost £3K. But maybe I got ripped off!!

Maybe wait a while until you have been in the area for longer, get to know people and then perhaps you will be able to get recommendations. Personally I wouldn't use someone off one of those websites. i am sure there are good people on there, but it is a bit risky.

Have you checked whether there are anny community based forums in your area? like this one for eg:

http://www.harringayonline.com/

They can be a good source of recommendations.

 

[Halloween Jack]

Thanks,

I'll look into that.

Actually asking round at my son's school would be a good idea.

I'll keep looking

Cheers