Two different waters in one city
Severn Trent supplies the whole area, but from different sources, and the hardness changes from one town to the next. Hanley and Burslem sit in the Stoke Central zone at about 129 milligrams per litre, slightly hard. Tunstall is about 197 and Bucknall about 209, moderately hard. Stoke town, Fenton, Penkhull, Hartshill and Trentham are in the Stoke South zone at about 246, and Longton and Meir about 245, both hard. Newcastle-under-Lyme is hard too, about 250, with a few ST5 postcodes nearer 197.
So a Burslem bathroom and a Longton bathroom need slightly different choices. In the hard-water towns we recommend coated shower glass, soft-nozzle heads that rub clear, thermostatic valves with replaceable cartridges, and wall panels or a darker grout in the shower so a tide line does not show; a softener on the incoming main is worth pricing if the budget allows. In Hanley and Burslem those are nice to have rather than necessary.
Pottery-town terraces, a hilltop village and the big estates
Much of the city is Victorian terraced housing built for the potbanks. In Cobridge, between Hanley and Burslem, rows of mainly two-bedroom terraces stood empty long enough that in 2013 the council sold some for one pound each, on condition the buyers borrowed 30,000 pounds to renovate them. Burslem and Middleport have the same pottery-town streets, some inside conservation areas beside Middleport Pottery and the Trent and Mersey Canal. In houses like these the bathroom was usually added later at the back, the timber floors are often out of level, and the job starts with boarding, levelling and new waste pipework before anything pretty happens.
Penkhull is different: a hilltop village that grew as a suburb for Stoke-upon-Trent's workers, with Josiah Spode II building many houses for his factory hands, now a conservation area with listed buildings. Bentilee, east of Bucknall, is a 1950s estate of around 4,500 homes, mostly semi-detached with cottage flats, about a quarter now privately owned, and its post-war semis are where we expect most bath-to-shower conversions in the city. Newcastle-under-Lyme is a market town in its own right, with Wolstanton, May Bank and Silverdale, whose colliery, the last deep mine in North Staffordshire, closed in 1998.
One building control service, 22 Article 4 conservation areas
Stoke-on-Trent City Council runs building control for the city and, through the North Staffordshire Building Control Partnership, for Newcastle-under-Lyme as well. On a bathroom job it needs to know about new drainage connections and structural work; the electrics are self-certified by our electrician. All 22 of the city's conservation areas, from Burslem Town Centre and Penkhull Village to Albert Square in Fenton and Park Terrace in Tunstall, carry an Article 4 direction controlling changes to the front of a house, so in those streets we take extractor ducting out through the back wall.
Showrooms in the Potteries
Easy Bathrooms has a showroom on Leek Road, and City Plumbing has two with bathroom displays: one at Trentham Trade Park on Stanley Matthews Way and one on the Sneyd Hill Industrial Estate in Burslem. If you have chosen a suite from one of them, send us the list before we quote; we check it suits your pressure and that the fixing and waste kits are included.
What we do in Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle
- Full renovations of terraced bathrooms, including boarding, levelling and new wastes
- Bath-to-shower conversions in Bentilee semis and similar post-war houses
- Fittings chosen for the hard water in Stoke town, Fenton, Longton and Newcastle
- Wet rooms, ensuites and downstairs toilets
- Tiling, wall panels, plumbing, towel rails and fans (electrician certified)
- Rental bathrooms refurbished for landlords between tenancies
- Repairs: leaking showers, resealing, regrouting, running toilets
Example scenario: a Burslem terrace with a back-addition bathroom
A two-bedroom Victorian terrace with a 2.4 by 1.5 metre bathroom in the back addition, a sloping timber floor and a bath under the window. The floor is levelled and reboarded, the walls boarded and tanked, the bath replaced by a 1400 walk-in shower at the window end, the toilet and a slim vanity fitted along the long wall, and a fan ducted out through the rear. Six working days.
Stoke-on-Trent emergencies
From Burslem to Trentham and over in Newcastle-under-Lyme, a same-night emergency needs a plumber who is already in the Potteries; we are too far away to be faster. Once the water is stopped, WhatsApp us the photos and we quote the repair or the refit as a normal job.