Inspiration Centre

This is a very difficult question to answer, because there is a huge difference from job to job in terms of requirements, price level of fittings people want and the amount of structural & plumbing work involved.

The fittings are usually the smallest part of the equation. We can supply some pretty nice gear to re-do a whole bathroom from around $3,000 including frameless shower screens, toilet, bath, taps, shower mixers & accesories.

The question is how much is it going to cost to fit it all? We find the prices to supply & fit vary from $9,000, (usually this includes one skirting tile and tiles the full height of the shower enclosure), and up to $17,000 for a job with tiling to the ceiling right around the whole bathroom.

But whatever you do, shop around and only use a BSA licensed builder or bathroom renovator to do the job. If they are licensed, you have protection against shoddy work. If they aren't, you don't have a leg to stand on if things go pear-shaped.

By law, no one can do bathroom renovations without a BSA license.

Ask your builder to give you a guaranteed completion date in writing before committing. Most professional and licensed bathroom renovators, can get in and out in a week, barring any problems with termite and or moisture damage. This may necessitate some structural repairs, like replacing floor boards, which can take time. Also, the discovery of asbestos will add time to the process, because of the legal requirement to use licensed asbestos removal companies to get rid of this very dangerous substance.

Don't try and do this yourself. One speck of asbestos in your lungs can turn into Asbestosis and be fatal. I don't know what price you put on your health and the health of your family, but I would never mess around with asbestos.

GET THE PROFESSIONALS.

If you are skilled enough you can, but it will void your manufacturer's warranty. Most of our suppliers will ask for the contact details of the installing plumber, before they do a warranty service call.
We would recommend using a licensed plumber.

At Swish Bathroom Solutions, we pride ourselves on knowing the answers to these questions and being able to advise you correctly, so you are totally happy with the products we supply. Whatever you choose style wise is a matter of personal taste, but there are some technical considerations.

a.    What size vanity, bathtub, shower, towel rails etc will fit in the space you have available?
You need to measure your spaces before you start shopping, otherwise you are just going to waste a lot of your precious time and end up getting excited about a vanity you love, which may not fit.
Therefore, plan your bathroom first and then pick your fittings. All professional bathroom renovators should be able to help you with the design aspect. In the average Australian bathroom,(2.7 metres x 1.8Metres), there really aren't many different ways things will fit into this space.

b.    What style should I choose?
This generally depends on the style of home and the feeling you want. For example, if you have an ultra-modern home, you generally wouldn't put a claw foot bath in your bathroom. But hey, it's your bathroom and really there are no rules.
However if you have really bad taste in colours generally, (not that there's anything wrong with that), get the tile shops advice. My rule of thumb is, go with things that won't date. remember all the apricot tiles in the 80's, with the floral feature tiles that were all the rage. Most people look at those now and just think, "What were we thinking?"
It doesn't mean your bathroom has to be boring. Get yourself heaps of bathroom magazines, Google "bathroom photos" and you will find thousands of pictures that you can print of bathrooms you like. All you have to do is carry the photo of the one you like around and show the bathroom & tile shops and they will help you achieve your dream bathroom.  

c.    I want to put a shower over a bath. Is this a problem?
No it's not a problem. There are a huge range of baths and pre-made shower over bath screens both fixed and pivoting that you can use for this application.

BUT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING, IS THIS!!!!!

I used upper case to highlight this point, because I have seen many instances over the past 18 years during which I was involved with the building industry, where incorrectly fitted shower over bath set-ups have failed and cost huge money to rectify.

So what is the correct way to do the job?

You must choose a bath which has a water-proofing lip around it and not one with a flat perimeter around it. This lip is usually recessed into the wall and checked into your wall studs, then the sheeting, (villa board, which is the wet area equivalent of Gyprock), is installed over the lip and the tiles go down to the flat surface of the bath perimeter. You dont see the part of the lip that is in the wall, but it acts as an impenetrable water barrier, preventing water from getting under the bath and causing bad smells, rotting timber or attracting termites, which just love moist, dark places.

If you use a bath without a lip, the only thing stopping the water from getting under the bath and creating these problems, is a bead of silicone.

If your house moves and it will, or if the silicone perishes after time and it will, you are going to have a huge problem. Just don't do it, no matter how much you like the bath. There is a huge amount of water being splashed around in a shower and entrusting just silicone to seal a flat edged bath is asking for trouble. If this problem occurs, you generally have to have the whole bath removed and a new one re-fitted to fix the issue. For an example of a bath with a lip, see the Berlin Bath by Asti Vita in our "Products" section of our web-site. Flat edged baths include the Kamiyu & the SJ170.

The other thing to consider, is what sort of a screen to use.

The choices are:
1. A purpose made screen to totally enclose the bath.
2. A pivotting or fixed bath screen, ranging from 700mm to 1000mm long. If you are going to use a pivotting screen that swings out, make sure it is not going to smash into a vanity top or ceramic toilet, because that will break it. You can get those stick on clear rubber grommets from a hardware to put on the screen and the point of impact and that will alleveiate the problem.

There are three main types of toilets; S Trap, which is where the waste goes out through the floor, P Trap, where the waste goes out through the wall directly behind the loo and Skew Pan,where the waste goes out on either the right or left side of the toilet at right angles.

With an S Trap you need to know what the set-out is. That is the distance from the wall directly behind the toilet, to the CENTRE, of the floor waste, the pipe which goes into the floor. Many toilets ar  set-out at around 140mm, but if you have doubts, you can buy many wall-faced toilets now which have variable set-outs. (See The Novelli Cara Wall-Faced toilet in our Products section).

With the P Trap or Skew Pan toilets, you need to measure how far it is from the floor to the centre of the waste pipe.

Because they are excellent and practical. You can use the hose attachment to clean down the shower cubicle with ease, including getting rid of that pesky body hair that seems to appear everywhere. And cleaning your shower glass with the shower head, will stop the glass from getting that misty look which you can never seem to get clean, ever again. Do you know why this happens? Any soap residue that remains on the glass after a shower is acidic and actually burns millions of tiny pin holes into the glass over time, leaving it looking slightly misty. You can't clean that.

Again, this is a matter of personal taste. They both look really nice. But once you go with a particular shape, you should try and follow that theme right through the whole bathroom. This includes your taps, shower & bath mixers or taps and your accesories. There are also quite nice styles, which combine the round and square looks. See "Look Tapwares" Mirada Square range for example in our "Product" section, or the "Novelli Tapware" Elba range.