The single jobs we do most
- 01
Replacing a toilet
Old pan and cistern out, new one in, new flexible connector and isolation valve, pan connector matched to the soil pipe (which in older houses is often not where a modern pan expects it). Half a day for a like-for-like; a day if a wall-hung frame is going in.
- 02
Replacing a basin and tap
Pedestal to vanity is the common upgrade: new waste, new trap, new isolation valves, the wall made good where the old pedestal hid the pipes. Half a day.
- 03
Fitting a new shower
Like-for-like electric showers in a morning; a thermostatic mixer in place of taps on a bath in a day, including the riser rail and the wall finish around it. A new electric shower circuit needs the electrician.
- 04
Fitting a bath
Standard acrylic or steel baths on a proper frame, levelled, with the waste and overflow connected and tested before the panel goes on. Freestanding baths need the floor checked and the waste position planned.
- 05
Heated towel rails
In place of a radiator on the central heating, with new valves, or a dual-fuel rail with an element so it works in summer. The electrician wires the element.
- 06
Stopcocks and isolation valves
A seized stopcock is a flood waiting to happen. We replace them, fit a lever valve you can turn, and add isolation valves to every bathroom feed so one leak never means the whole house off.
Moving things
Moving a toilet, a basin or a shower is plumbing first and fitting second. A toilet moves along a wall easily; across a room it depends on the fall available to the soil stack and the floor construction, which we check before saying yes. Basins move almost anywhere, because a 40 millimetre waste is easy to route. Showers need a 40 or 50 millimetre waste with a fall to a stack or an existing branch. Hot and cold feeds are the easy part. If the move needs a new soil connection or a new drain, that is work Building Control may need to know about, and we tell you.
Leaks and the plumbing nobody sees
A stain on the kitchen ceiling under the bathroom is the most common call we get. It is usually one of four things: a failed silicone joint at the bath or tray, a cracked shower tray or a tray that has moved, a weeping waste or trap, or a pinhole in an old copper pipe. We find it, fix it and tell you whether the ceiling can dry out on its own. The kind of plumbing we add during a refit is the kind you never see again: isolation valves, a proper fall on the waste, a trap with an access cap, copper or plastic pipe clipped so it does not knock, and nothing buried in a wall without a route to get at it.
What we do not do
We do not work on gas. Boiler work, gas pipework and anything that needs a Gas Safe engineer goes to one; we will tell you if your bathroom plan needs a heating engineer (for example, a new rail on an old system that cannot take it) before you commit. We also do not take on drainage outside the house beyond the first connection; blocked drains in the garden need a drainage contractor.