When calculating the cost of complete bathroom renovation, it is impossible to get an accurate figure. This is because until you start preparing the room, you do not know what you will find. This is especially the case if you have just purchased the home second hand. It is recommended that you use the services of a bathroom fitter. But, to keep down the costs, you might like to start the work yourself by removing old tiles, taking up carpets, or anything else you can do easily.
Cost of Complete Bathroom Renovation : Preparing the Walls
As we said above, you might like to save yourself some money by removing the old tiles yourself. What lurks behind however may come as a shock. The best case scenario is that the old tiles come away smoothly, and the walls will need minimal preparation. However, the tiles may bring the wall away with them or they may expose rendered walls that were not treated properly. If you find the wall is in a bad state of repair, you will need to spend money. Covering over the problem is not the right solution, even if it has been done before.
Flooring
The next shock you may have when trying to work out the cost of complete bathroom renovation is the floor. In an older home, the bathroom floor will have floor boards, as the luxuries of under floor heating are relatively new. What you may come across is rotten floor boards that will need to be replaced. If you see woodlice crawling around, then your floor will be wet, and you will need to get to the bottom of the problem. It may be an ill-fitting pipe, or it may be that the last occupants allowed their children to splash around unattended in the bath soaking the floor!
Plumbing and Electrics
When stripping down your bathroom, it is the perfect time to upgrade on electrics and plumbing. This should always be checked out by licensed tradesmen, and once again, it is impossible to work out the cost of complete bathroom renovation until everything has been inspected. Even if some areas of the property have had the electrics upgraded, your bathroom may not have.
Having to replace pipework or having to rewire your bathroom will add substantially to the overall cost of your bathroom renovation. But these things must be accounted for. The perfect time to get all jobs done is when your bathroom is stripped down.
Lastly, you should check out the window in your bathroom. If it has an old wooden frame, then now is the time to replace it, even if it is going to add to the overall cost. To save money, you could replace the window with a smaller one, but this would involve building up the wall, rendering, and much more. But remember, once your room is tiled, you will not be able to replace the window without breaking at least a few tiles and making a mess.