Renovating your bathroom? Call our plumbing makeover experts

Your bathroom may be the second smallest room in your house, but it more than makes up for that by being complicated. It’s a small space where water and electricity work side-by-side but must never meet. Structures and surfaces often need to be waterproof, and their construction can involve the use of specialist materials that require expert installation.

Planning your new bathroom build

This means that your small room renovation could involve a surprisingly long list of tradespeople, including:

• Builder
• Electrician
• Floorer
• Tiler
• Plasterer
• Painter
• Architect or draughtsperson.

If you feel your head starting to spin, relax. We can scope out your bathroom renovation from start to finish, and that includes all the sub-trade work. Just ask us, and we’ll work out who needs to be on your team. We’ve got this!

On the other hand, if you’ve already got quality sub-tradespeople you want to use, we’re happy to work with them. The more good people we can add to our network of sub-tradies, the more we can make sure that you get good people doing your job.

Talk to 4CET about your bathroom plumbing

Bathroom plumbing usually happens in two stages, as below.

1. Pre-pipe: Here we modify existing pipes in the wall or under the floor, install any new pipes you need, and remove any old pipes that won’t be part of your new bathroom.

When pre-pipe is complete all of the pipes that will supply water (and gas if required) to your bathroom fixtures are in place.

If building consent applies to your job, this is when Council will do an inspection and sign off on the work, before you go to the next stage.

2. Finishing and fit-off: Once the floors and walls have been covered and finished, we install your bathroom fixtures.

At this point Council may need to do another inspection and sign off on the work again.

Pitfalls to avoid

Some clients try to save on budget by doing part of the finishing work themselves or getting a builder friend to help after hours. This may seem like a great idea, but in practice it doesn’t work well. Here’s why.

Pitfall 1: The weekend builder holdup

Having a builder friend helping at night or on the weekend will slow your project down and cost you more in the long run. Reason being, if you want the pre-pipe stage of your job ready for inspection without delay, your plumber and builder need to work side by side. That’s only going to happen during normal working hours.

If you ask us about bathroom renovation, straight up we’ll ask whether you have this option in mind. If you do we’ll either say sorry we can’t do your job this time, or we’ll suggest alternatives.

Pitfall 2: The occasional painter botch-up

Everyone who uses your bathroom will see the finished product. So unless you’re a seasoned professional, be aware that home handy-man paint jobs can look bad.

Painting in bathrooms is a science. It takes skill, knowledge and experience to get it right. Bottom line, if you want a great finish you need a competent and experienced painter. After all the money and effort you’ve put in to build a great bathroom, our best advice is to see it through with the finishing.

We’ve worked with clients who against our advice decided to do their own painting and it didn’t turn out well. Don’t go there!

Waiting time

You might be surprised how long you need to wait before we can do your job. It could be a week or three, a couple of months, or occasionally even longer.

It’s not just about our availability. All of your sub-trades people need to be available at the right time to get your job done efficiently and with minimal disruption to you. The last thing you want is a two week wait without a bathroom!

Surprising and unexpected bathroom renovation costs

When we first talk through a bathroom project you might be surprised at how costs add up. Maybe you need a new shower unit, vanity, bath and toilet, all with new tapware. Even the combined cost of these can be surprising, never mind tiling or electrical work.

What about waterproofing, or needing to change some structural elements in a wall and reline it afterwards, or Building Consent costs? And what if during our Initial Site Visit Check we find your flooring needs replacing or there’s rot in the walls?

We take great care to nail down as many costs as we can before we start, and if something unexpected crops up mid-job we let you know pronto. We work out your options every step of the way so you can make informed decisions about what you want to do.