Bathroom Showers -

Hi All,

Just looking for some practical experience with shower enclosures.

In our small bathroom we have a standard size bath and a simple mixer shower.
However due to its location by the window it has to have curtains either side and is not that easy to fit any grab rails etc.

Thinking of doing away with the bath and fitting a 1500 shower unit only, though we wonder if doing away with the bath would adversely affect any future house sale ?

The shower unit would be the full width of the room so it would be either a sliding door or the walk in type, any advantages or disadvantages to either ?

thanks

 

I doubt it. The big job is converting a bathroom with a bath to one with a walk-in shower.

We did just that.

Fortunately, although it was ten years after we had had the bathroom re-tiled, although I'd saved a couple of packs of tiles (not thinking the bath would ever go) I was able to get some more tiles for tiling the areas where the bath had been, (well done Tops tiles, they chased around branches for them to complete the job and they matched).


This is ours bathroom.

It's six feet by seven foot six inches.

I installed this suite in 1998.

But in 2002 we had the bathroom re-tiled, my wife fancied a change but kept the suit.

I took these photos in 2012 "for posterity" the day before it was all ripped out and the shower put in, ('cos I thought I'd made a good job of it).
With some of the extra tiles I'd bought I'd even made a matching tiled bath panel!


There were no tiles behind either the vanity unit or the bath.






Seven years ago, my wife decided with her disabilities, she couldn't manage the bath any more So the bath and my handiwork went and the new stuff went in. I bought the furniture and the shower cubicle and this time had someone put it in.












I'd kept a pack of laminate flooring (you never know, do you?) so the installer could match the original (B & Q had discontinued it).

It's a Lakes offset quadrant shower 800mm X 1200mm. We find it plenty big enough.


I bought on line fom Diamond Bathrooms in Birmingham. At the time I paid half the price list price, including the ceramic tray and its fittings with free delivery. A local bathroom place and a plumber's wholesaler wanted £750 to supply it. So be warned, you can get ripped off.
We've the version with the low tray, the fittings and waste pipe have to go under the floorboards, they are no good for solid floors.

I installed the new leccy shower, (and had to replace the naffin' thing three years ago as it went U/S).

I think I paid the guy £500 to assemble and install the shower, do the tiling, assemble and fit the units and make good the floor. He did an excellent job.

It's still in perfect condition. These photos are fairly recent as it shows the taller towel rail my wife wanted which we had changed from a smaller one when we had a new combi boiler the year before last..


Back to house sales.

Should a purchaser not like this arrangement, changing the shower for a bath would be child's play and "cheap as chips." It's just a straight swap. It could be done in less than half a day.

 

Hi,

That all looks very nice

We would be looking at placing a walk in shower across the full width of the room, basically where your bath was in respect of the window.

At the moment the shower is gravity fed as we still have the old conventional central heating hot water cylinder etc, though wonder if we should get an electric one now, as once tiled it would be hard to retro fit one, though the old Potterton boiler still keeps going strong after 40 years.

 

We had a Gloworm Majorca back boiler/gas fire in the lounge. It was fitted in the late 60s, some years before we bought the house. When we all went on to natural gas, British Gas changed the jets and I later replaced the pump when the old one failed, I also had to fit a new thermostat, but that's all. It was otherwise reliable.
It was still working when we had it scrapped and had a Worcester combi boiler fitted in 2002. (That had to be replaced in 2017).
Getting rid of the back boiler meant that a big corner airing cupboard above the cylinder in the bathrom could go.


I think an electric shower is the best solution, they aren't expensive.
But they need a seperate power supply. Ours is 8.5kw and has a 45a breaker.