Planning a Bathroom requires careful attention to Plumbing.
So you’ve decided it’s time to spruce up your perma-grubby bathroom or building from scratch. Good for you! Renovating can be exciting, and it’s easy to get swept away with grand ideas for the smallest room in your house.
But as anyone who’s done it before will tell you, the experience can be a stressful one filled with unreliable tradesmen, ill-fitting fixtures and leaking pipes.
So here it is – our essential checklist to help you steer clear of the planning pitfalls on the road to bathroom bliss:
- Work out your budget. This will help you decide on your new plumbing fixtures. Remember to work out a separate budget for the plumbers who’ll be carrying out the work*.
- If you’re in a body corp or strata property, notify them of your plans as early in the process as possible to ensure you can obtain any necessary permissions before you start.
- Make a list of what kinds of fixtures you’d like to include in your bathroom and shop around to find the best prices possible.
- Measure out the dimensions of your bathroom carefully and make notes of the placements of all drains and plumbing fixtures (sink, bath, shower, toilet etc.).
- From your list of fixtures, choose the options that will fit best your bathroom’s dimensions and drain locations. Remember, the fewer fixtures you have to move around, the less work is involved.
- Sketch out your plans including the fixtures you’ve chosen. It’s essential that you draw these to scale as best you can. If you’re in a body corp or strata property, provide them with your sketched plans as soon as possible.
- Contact as many reputable local plumbers as you can and request quotes based on your plans. Having this information ready before getting tradesmen out to your property will help you get accurate quotes and protect you against conmen.
- Make sure you’re adequately prepared before plumbing work on your bathroom begins – you’ll need to turn off the water for the duration of the plumbing work, so do any household tasks requiring water (such as washing clothes) in advance; you will not be able to turn the water back on until all fixtures are fully installed and working. If you’re planning extensive bathroom renovations, you may be without water for several days or weeks. In these cases, it may be smart to arrange to stay with friends or in a hotel.
*plumbing work, even on your own property, must be carried out by licensed professionals in many territories; unlicensed work that violates building codes can be subject to fines and penalties. Check your local restrictions before you carry out any plumbing work. And when in doubt, hire a licensed plumber.
