Bathroom Renovation in Bournemouth: Inside a Typical Job
A bathroom renovation in Bournemouth is one of the jobs we're asked about most, and the first question is nearly always the same: what does it actually involve, and what will it cost? Rather than give you a vague range, we've pieced together a typical job from the family bathroom refits we carry out across Bournemouth, from Moordown and Winton to Charminster and Southbourne. It's a composite, not one specific client, but every stage, problem and figure in it is the sort of thing we see week in, week out.
The starting point: a 1930s semi in Moordown
Picture a three-bed semi built in the 1930s, with a family bathroom of roughly 2.1m by 2.4m. The suite dates from the late nineties, there's a bath with an electric shower over it, the tiles are cracked around the taps and there's no extractor fan, just a window that nobody opens in winter. The owners wanted to lose the bath, put in a proper walk-in shower, add a heated towel rail and get rid of the mould for good.
That's a very common brief in Bournemouth's interwar housing. The rooms are a decent size but they were never designed for showers, so the drainage, ventilation and wall surfaces all need rethinking rather than just swapping like for like.
What we found on the survey
We always survey before quoting, because the surprises in a bathroom live under the floor and behind the tiles. On a house of this age, these are the things we check for and, more often than not, find:
Old lead or mixed copper and plastic pipework that needs replacing back to a sensible point
Joists notched too deeply by a previous plumber, which have to be strengthened before a heavy tray goes down
Lath and plaster or crumbling sand-and-cement walls that won't take new tiles safely
A waste run that's too shallow for a low-profile shower tray, so the route has to be planned carefully
No extraction at all, which is the real reason behind most of the black mould we see
None of that is unusual, and catching it at survey stage is what lets us give a clear written price instead of a string of extras halfway through.
How the work ran, week by week
A refit like this typically takes around 10 to 12 working days from strip-out to handover. Here's how the time usually breaks down:
Days 1 to 2: strip out the old suite, tiles and boxing, protect the stairs and landing, and get everything into a skip
Days 2 to 4: first-fix plumbing and electrics, new pipework, the shower waste, joist repairs, and the extractor fan ducted to outside
Days 4 to 6: board the walls in cement backer board, tank the shower area and let it cure properly
Days 6 to 9: wall and floor tiling, then grouting and silicone
Days 9 to 12: second fix, fit the vanity, WC, shower screen and towel rail, test everything, then make good and decorate
The family usually goes without a working bathroom for most of that time, so if you've only got one, it's worth talking to us early about timing. We can often get a temporary WC working overnight, but the shower is out of action until the tanking has cured.
What the bathroom renovation cost
Here's how a job like this tends to price up with us at today's rates, including labour, materials and our costs as a business:
Strip-out, skip and disposal: £600
Plumbing first and second fix: £1,450
Electrics, fan, lighting and certification: £850
Backer boarding, tanking and wall prep: £850
Tiling labour, about 20m²: £1,300
Porcelain tiles and adhesive: £950
Suite, taps and walk-in shower screen: £1,800
Heated towel rail: £350
Ceiling, making good and decorating: £500
That comes to about £8,650 for a mid-range family bathroom with a walk-in shower. As a broader guide, a straight like-for-like swap in Bournemouth tends to run from about £4,800 to £7,200, a mid-range full refit like the one above roughly £7,800 to £11,500, and a high-end job with a layout change, premium fittings or a full wet room can go past £18,000. If you want to see how prices compare elsewhere on the south coast, our guide to bathroom and wet room costs in Southampton breaks down a few more job types.
What pushes the price up or down in Bournemouth
Two bathrooms the same size can price very differently. The biggest swings we see come from moving the WC (the soil stack position decides a lot), choosing large-format or natural stone tiles, which take longer to lay, and going for a level-access wet room instead of a tray. Houses in conservation areas or flats in the big Westbourne and Boscombe conversions add their own complications too, mostly around access, parking and working hours.
Older properties nearly always cost more than newer ones, and we'd rather tell you that up front than pretend otherwise. If you're weighing up a shower tray against a full wet room, our wet room and bathroom renovation FAQs cover the practical differences. Our bathroom and wet room service handles the plumbing, electrics and tiling in-house, and where a job turns structural, such as moving a stud wall to make the room bigger, our general building team picks that up so you're not juggling separate trades.
Related reading
Planning a bathroom in Bournemouth?
If your bathroom is starting to look like the one in our Moordown example, we'll come out, look under the floor and behind the tiles, and give you a clear written price with a realistic timeline. We cover Bournemouth, Poole, Christchurch and the rest of Dorset and Hampshire. Book a survey visit with Complete Builds and we'll take it from there.
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