Bathroom Fitters in Gateshead

Bathroom fitting in Gateshead

Gateshead is not a suffix to Newcastle and its housing does not behave like it. The south bank runs from the substantial older property at Low Fell and Whickham, through the terraced and semi-detached stock at Felling and Dunston with its strong rental market, out to Birtley on the A1 which we reach as easily from the Durham side as from the Tyne.

The other thing that shapes work here is topography. Gateshead climbs, and where a property steps down a slope the drainage frequently does something the floor plan does not predict. It is a survey question rather than an obstacle, but it is a real one.

The short version

• One team, one fixed written quote covering strip-out through to finishing.
• Keeping the layout is the biggest saving available. Moving the toilet is the expensive change.
• On the sloping streets the available fall is checked first, before a layout is drawn.
• Written variations only if the strip-out finds something. Priced before it is done.

What a full refit includes

What Gateshead housing does to a bathroom

Low Fell and Whickham. In solid-walled property of that age the wall behind the tiling handles moisture differently from a cavity, which is Historic England's subject and the reason ventilation is specified with the tanking rather than after it. The larger and older stock, and the highest specification expectation on the south bank. Bathrooms are often converted rooms with a waste added long after the house was built, running further and flatter than it should. Solid walls mean pipe routes get planned rather than chased. This is also where a second bathroom is most often worth doing.

Felling and Dunston. Terraced and semi-detached housing with a heavy rental presence, where the sensible money goes into the parts that get used rather than the parts that get looked at. A shower valve that can be serviced outlasts a shower that photographs well, and on a let that difference is the whole argument.

Birtley. On the A1 corridor and, for scheduling purposes, as much a County Durham job as a Tyneside one. Mixed stock, conventional layouts, predictable work.

Blaydon and the west. Older terraced property, frequently with the bathroom built into a rear return or over a back kitchen. The strip-out finds the usual things: wet floor timber at the bath end, no tanking behind the shower, waste runs added without much fall. All fixable, and all cheaper to find at survey than at second fix.

Team Valley and the newer housing. Modern construction, sound bathrooms, refits driven by age and taste. Straightforward and quick, and where keeping the existing layout genuinely does keep the cost down.

Buying from a retailer, or from us

Showrooms are useful. Seeing a suite in person tells you things a website will not, and there is no reason to pretend otherwise.

What differs is structure, not usually price. A retailer subcontracts the fitting, which means three trades, three schedules, and a retailer's phone number in six months rather than a fitter's. In Team Valley and the newer housing that is a reasonable trade. In Low Fell and Whickham, where tanking and ventilation are specified together because the wall behind is solid, it is the wrong way round.

We fit suites customers have bought elsewhere, provided we see them before the job starts. Bath dimensions and vanity waste positions are where fitting-only work goes wrong, and on a let that is a void week spent waiting for a replacement rather than fitting one.

Gateshead is its own authority: its planning and building service takes the notice where drainage is altered rather than refitted, which is building regulations work. Extraction comes from Approved Document F, the circuit work around a bath is notifiable under Part P, and fittings on the mains have to meet the regulations that WRAS approval certifies.

When we are the wrong choice

A full refit is not the right answer to every bathroom problem. These are the jobs where a different trade, or a smaller job, is the better answer, and we would rather say so than quote around it.

• If it is a like-for-like swap of a single item, a good plumber is cheaper and quicker. We will say so rather than quoting a refit around it.
• If you want the cheapest possible refit, we are not it. We tank wet areas properly and will not skip it, and that shows in the price.
• If you want the existing tiling kept and only the suite changed, the tiles rarely survive removing a bath cleanly. We will be honest about the odds.
• If the property is a let and the budget is set at the lowest possible figure, a local plumber and a builders' merchant suite will beat us on price. That is a fair answer and sometimes the right one.
• If you need it finished in three days, tanking and adhesive curing do not negotiate. We would rather decline than rush a wet area.

How the quote and the job run

Somebody surveys the room. You get one written fixed price for a defined specification and a schedule naming the days it is out of use, and on a let in Felling or Dunston that schedule is written to the tenancy rather than to our convenience. Accepted online, no doorstep conversation.

In Blaydon and the older west of the borough the variation is almost always what is under the bath end — timber that has been quietly wet, or a shower area that was never tanked. It comes to you as a written price before anything is done. Completed work is photographed, which matters most for the tanking and the pipework about to be covered up.

We also cover bathroom fitting in Newcastle, Washington, Chester-le-Street and Sunderland. Our guide to what a new bathroom costs sets out where the money goes, and the landlord between-tenancy checklist is worth a read if the property is let.