Bathroom Renovation Services in Hertfordshire

What a bathroom renovation with us covers

Everything from taking out the old room to handing back a finished one. That includes design and layout, all pipework and drainage alterations, plastering and boarding, tanking of wet areas, tiling, flooring, sanitaryware, brassware, showers and screens, heated towel rails, extraction, sealing and the final clean. Waste leaves with us.

Electrical work is the one element we do not carry out ourselves. We appoint and co-ordinate a qualified electrician as part of the job, so it is booked in the right order and you are not chasing a separate trade. We do not install heat pumps.

A bathroom renovation is a small building project rather than a plumbing job, and that is the honest way to think about it. Most of the time and most of the difficulty sit in the preparation, not in fitting the taps.

The design stage

This is the part that decides whether you like the room in five years. We start in the actual room, not in a showroom. We measure, check the existing drainage and pipe routes, test the water pressure and look at what the fabric of the building will allow.

Layout comes first. Where the WC, basin, bath and shower sit is governed as much by waste runs and fall as by what looks best on a plan, and being realistic about that early avoids disappointment later.

Then storage, which is the single most common regret. Then lighting and extraction, which most people think about last and which make more difference to how a bathroom feels day to day than the tiles do. Then the tiling scheme, finishes and fittings.

Full refit or partial

A full refit means the room is stripped back and rebuilt. A partial refit keeps the layout and often keeps sound tiling, replacing the suite, brassware and flooring. It is faster, less disruptive and sometimes the right answer.

The test is simple. If the layout works and the surfaces are sound, a partial refit gives you most of the improvement for a fraction of the upheaval. If the layout does not work, or the tiling and waterproofing behind it are past saving, a partial refit only hides the problem for a few more years. We will tell you which we think you need, including when that is the smaller job.

The rooms we install

Family bathrooms. The standard full refit. Bath, or bath with shower over, basin, WC, tiling and flooring.

Shower rooms. Removing the bath entirely to create a proper shower space. Popular where the bath has not been used in years.

En suites. Small, exacting and often the hardest rooms on site. Drainage and extraction are the two constraints that determine what is possible.

Wet rooms. A fully tanked, level access shower area with the floor formed to fall to the drain. Done properly they are excellent. Done badly they leak into the room below, which is why the tanking and the fall matter far more than the tiles.

Accessible and walk-in adaptations. Level access showers, walk-in showers replacing a bath, grab rail provision, seating and layouts that suit limited mobility. This needs planning around the person who will use the room rather than around a catalogue.

Tiling and finishes

We tile as part of the job. It is not subcontracted to whoever happens to be available.

Preparation is what makes tiling last. Walls need to be flat and sound, boards fixed correctly, and any area that will get wet tanked before a single tile goes on. Tiling straight onto old, damp or poorly prepared surfaces is the most common shortcut in the trade and the most common reason a bathroom fails early.

Large format tiles need a flatter substrate than small ones. Natural stone needs sealing. Some tiles need particular adhesives. We would rather spend the extra day on preparation than come back.

The trades involved and how we co-ordinate them

A full bathroom typically involves a plumber, a tiler, a plasterer, a carpenter for any structural or boxing work, an electrician, and someone to manage the whole sequence and take the waste away.

Arranged badly, that is six sets of availability to reconcile and six chances for the job to stall. It is why bathrooms so often overrun by weeks rather than days.

We hold all of it under one company. The sequence is planned before we start, so plastering does not turn up to a room that is not ready and tiling does not start on a wall that is still drying. If something goes wrong, you have one company to ring.

A realistic project timeline

• Before we start: survey, design, written scope, ordering and delivery of materials.
• Days one and two: strip out. Noisy, dusty, and the room becomes unusable.
• Days two to four: first fix. Pipework, waste alterations, carpentry, electrical cabling.
• Days four to seven: plastering, boarding and tanking. Drying time is real and cannot be compressed.
• Days six to ten: tiling and flooring.
• Days nine to twelve: second fix. Sanitaryware, brassware, shower, screen, towel rail, lighting and extraction.
• Final days: sealing, snagging, clean and handover.

For a straightforward refit, expect around one to two weeks on site. For layout changes, wet room formation, structural work or a property that produces surprises, expect up to three weeks and occasionally more.

Common mistakes when planning a bathroom

Choosing the fittings before the layout. People fall in love with a bath and then discover the drainage will not allow it where they want it. Layout first, always.

Ignoring extraction. A bathroom without proper extraction grows mould, ruins paintwork and eventually damages the plaster. It is not an optional extra.

Underestimating storage. Almost everyone wishes they had built in more, and it is hard to add afterwards without spoiling the tiling.

Treating lighting as an afterthought. One central light makes any bathroom feel institutional. Lighting is planned at first fix or it is not planned at all.

Skimping on preparation to save days. Every day saved on tanking, boarding and drying is repaid with interest when something fails.

Believing the shortest quoted timescale. The fastest promise is usually the least informed one. Ask what happens if something is found behind the old suite, and judge the answer.

Where we work

Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Milton Keynes, from our base in Stevenage. See bathroom fitters in Hemel Hempstead and bathroom fitters in Luton.

Frequently asked questions

How long does a bathroom renovation take?

A straightforward full refit is usually one to two weeks on site. Layout changes, wet rooms, structural work or unexpected findings can take it to three weeks or beyond. We give you a realistic range after seeing the room, not before.

Do you handle everything, or do I need other trades?

We handle the plumbing, tiling, plastering, flooring, fitting and making good ourselves, and we appoint and co-ordinate the electrician. You deal with one company throughout. We do not carry out electrical work ourselves and we do not install heat pumps.

Can you convert a bathroom into a wet room?

Usually, but it depends on the floor construction and the drainage. A wet room needs the floor formed to fall correctly and the whole area tanked before tiling. We survey first and tell you honestly whether your room suits it.

What happens if you find a problem once the old bathroom is out?

We stop, photograph it, show you and explain what it means for the work and the schedule before continuing. Rotten joists, hidden leaks and badly notched timbers all turn up from time to time in older properties, and none of them are visible at survey.

Do you install accessible or walk-in showers?

Yes. Level access showers, walk-in shower conversions, grab rail provision and seating are a regular part of our work. These jobs are planned around the person using the room, so tell us at the first visit what the requirements are.

Call 01462 506374 to arrange a visit. We will look at the room, talk through what you want, tell you what is realistic in your property and put a clear written scope together.

How we protect your home while we work

A bathroom refit is a dusty, heavy job. Old suites come out in pieces, tiles come off the wall, and everything has to travel through the rest of your house to reach a skip. How a company handles that is usually the difference between a renovation you remember fondly and one you do not.

Before anything is lifted, we sheet the route in. Protective film goes down over carpets from the front door, across hallways, up every stair tread and along the landing. Doorways get taped so dust stays in the room we are working in rather than settling over the rest of the house.

Stripping out the old bathroom

The strip-out is where most of the mess happens. Old tiles, the suite, and any rotten or water-damaged boarding come out together so we can see exactly what we are working with. It is common to find problems that were hidden behind the old suite, and it is far better to find them at this stage than after new tiling has gone on.

Waste is bagged and removed as we go rather than left in a pile on your driveway for a fortnight.

Tanking and waterproofing

This is the part nobody sees and the part that decides whether the room lasts. Wet areas are boarded and tanked before a single tile is fixed. Tanking is a waterproof membrane applied over the substrate in the shower and around the bath, with the corners and pipe penetrations sealed properly, so water that gets past the grout has nowhere to go.

Grout is not waterproof and never has been. It is water resistant at best, and it is porous once it ages. A bathroom that has only been tiled onto plasterboard will eventually let water into the wall, and by the time it shows on the ceiling below it is a much larger job than the one you originally paid for. Tanking is a small proportion of the cost of a renovation and it is not somewhere to save money.

Putting it back

Once the room is watertight, first-fix pipework and any electrical work go in, then tiling, then the suite, brassware and screens. We finish with silicone, testing, and a proper clean before handover, and the protection stays down until the last trip out to the van.

See our bathroom gallery — 14 completed projects, grouped so you can look through a whole room rather than one angle.