Before Your Bathroom Fitter Arrives

Why a bit of prep saves a lot of money

A bathroom refit is the most disruptive job in a normal house — it's the only room you really cannot live without. A five-day fit can easily stretch to eight if prep is poor, and that's four extra nights using the kids' bathroom and another £800 on the invoice.

Bathroom fitters are also the trade most often caught by surprise by what is behind the tiles. Some pre-work snooping and some cheap ready-to-hand tools keep a refit on schedule.

The 24-hour checklist

Run through these the day before the bathroom fitter is due. None of them require any skill beyond what a normal householder already has — but they collectively shave real money off the final invoice.

• Clear the bathroom entirely — including the cabinet contents. Everything on shelves, in the cabinet, on the windowsill. Pack it in labelled boxes in another room. Assume every item is going to get covered in dust.
• Clear the route from the bathroom to the front door. The old bath, suite and tiles are coming out of the house the same way the new ones go in. Move hall furniture, lift loose rugs, and put hardboard down on wooden floors.
• Check what's underneath — lift a corner of the flooring. If the existing bathroom has vinyl or LVT, carefully lift a corner at the door and check for signs of rot on floorboards, especially near the bath and loo. Warn the fitter ahead of time if the subfloor looks spongy — it changes the quote.
• Check the water pressure at the cold tap. Mains-pressure showers need 1.5-3 bar. Gravity-fed systems (cold tank in loft) need a different shower. Buy a £12 pressure gauge or have the fitter check on first visit.
• Confirm the soil stack location. Moving the loo even by a few inches can mean a new macerator or re-routing the soil pipe — £200-£600 in extras. Agree the loo's exact position on the quote, not 'roughly where it was'.
• Sort an alternative shower / loo. Five days in a 'no shower, no loo from 8am-6pm' house with kids is unpleasant. Offer to use a neighbour's shower morning and evening, or join a gym for a week.
• Agree tile sign-off and sealant colour upfront. Two of the biggest end-of-job disputes: 'that's not the grey we chose' and 'the sealant shows too much'. Sign off the tile sample and confirm white / grey / clear sealant before the fitter starts.
• Book the skip and parking. A bathroom refit fills a mini-skip. Council skip permit if on-road — 5 working days' notice in most Kent boroughs.

Tools worth having ready

These are the things the bathroom fitter will either ask for, borrow, or charge you labour to go fetch. Keeping a small dedicated set in a cupboard means you never lose the 20 minutes that turn into the next half-hour block on the invoice. All prices move, so we link to live Amazon UK searches rather than fixed ASINs.

Questions to ask when they arrive

Asked politely on the doorstep, these five or six questions filter out 90% of the problems that turn into complaints later. A professional will welcome them; a cowboy will get irritated.

• Is plumbing and tiling covered by one person or sub-contracted? One-man-band fitters do both (slower, usually cheaper); firms sub-contract the plumber. Either works, but check who is on which day.
• What happens if the subfloor needs replacing? Agree the hourly or day-rate charge in advance. Bathrooms over 20 years old often have some rot — the quote should specify 'subfloor repair extras to be agreed per hour'.
• What standard of silicone do you use? Anti-mould silicones (Everbuild Forever, Dow 785) have the longest life. Standard sanitary silicone is £4 a tube cheaper and goes black in 18 months.
• Will the shower tray be bedded on mortar or dot-and-dabbed? Full mortar bed is the proper way; 'dots and dabs' is fast but flexes under weight and cracks the sealant. Ask.
• What grout will you use — cement or epoxy? Cement grout is standard; epoxy (Mapei Kerapoxy, Ardex WA) is waterproof and doesn't stain but takes twice as long to lay. Worth the upgrade on shower walls.
• Do you notify building control for electrical work? Any electrical work in a bathroom is notifiable under Part P. Should be done by a Part-P electrician or notified by your local authority.

Red flags during the visit

If you see any of these on the day, slow things down. You are not obliged to let anyone continue work you are uncomfortable with — even if they've already been there an hour.

• No tanking/waterproof membrane behind shower tiles. Tanking (a waterproof paint or membrane) is standard in 2026 for any shower area. A fitter who goes straight to tiles onto plasterboard is setting up a leak in 2-3 years.
• They want you to buy all the parts, so they just 'do the labour'. Perfectly fine in theory, but if anything is wrong with a part, you get blamed. Better to let the fitter buy trade — you pay slightly more but they warranty the whole job.
• No mention of building control for Part-P electrical work. A new shower circuit, new extractor fan wiring or new down-lights in a bathroom are all notifiable. If the fitter shrugs, walk.
• 'Old bath went straight to the tip' with no photo. The old cast-iron bath, copper pipes and brass taps have scrap value (£30-£80). It's yours unless you agreed otherwise. Some less scrupulous fitters pocket this.

What to do after the visit

The paperwork and follow-up is where homeowners most often lose money — warranties unregistered, certificates not received, insurance claims unfiled. Run through this list before you pay the final invoice.

• Get the Part-P certificate for any electrical work (extractor, shower pump, lights).
• Get receipts for all major parts — ceramics, tap, shower valve — warranties are usually registered to the buyer named on the invoice.
• Do a 48-hour no-touch cure on silicone before running the shower.
• Run the shower with the door shut and the extractor off to find any leaks within the first week. Do the same with a full bath.
• Save all tile off-cuts and spare grout in the loft — for future repairs the same batch is hard to match later.

Find a bathroom fitter in Kent

• Bathroom fitters in Kent — county-level directory
• Bathroom fitters in Maidstone
• Bathroom fitters in Canterbury
• Bathroom fitters in Dartford
• Bathroom fitters in Tunbridge Wells
• Bathroom fitters in Ashford

Related guides

• How to Choose a Bathroom Fitter — the sister guide to this one, covering qualifications, quoting and insurance.
• Trade Shop — curated tools and homeowner kit, by category.
• All Guides — every NearbyTraders homeowner guide, in one place.