How long does a bathroom renovation take?

A full bathroom, day by day

This is how a five-day job runs for a family bathroom where the toilet stays roughly where it is, the shower walls are tiled or panelled to the ceiling and the rest to splash height. Rooms differ, but the order never does.

1. 01

   Day 1: protect, strip, first fix

   Floor protection from the front door, dust sheets, water capped off. Suite, tiles and floor covering out, walls and floor inspected properly for the first time. Pipework renewed or rerouted, wastes and soil connections made and tested, cables in while the walls are open.

2. 02

   Day 2: boards, levelling, tanking

   Walls boarded where tiles are going, floor levelled, wet areas tanked. Bath or shower tray set and plumbed so the wall finish can come down to it.

3. 03

   Day 3: walls

   Wall tiles or panels go up: setting out, cuts round the window and the pipes, niches and trims. Each wall needs its adhesive to go off before grout.

4. 04

   Day 4: floor, grout, second fix

   Floor laid once the walls are up, so the cuts hide under the wall finish. Grout on walls and floor; toilet, basin and vanity fitted and connected once the floor can take weight.

5. 05

   Day 5: shower, finishing, hand over

   Shower valve and head, screen, furniture, towel rail, lights and fan. Every joint cleaned, then silicone, which needs a full day before water touches it. Everything run under pressure, the room cleaned, a walk round with you.

What adds days

• Moving the toilet or the bath: more first-fix work, often a day of floor work, and sometimes a day waiting for a new external connection.
• A wet room: the former, two coats of tanking with curing between them, and a flood test before tiling. Expect six to eight days.
• Tiling to the ceiling on every wall: a day or two more than splash-height tiling, more again with small or patterned tiles.
• Large-format tiles on uneven walls: the walls must be boarded or rendered flat first, which is a day and a drying period.
• Deliveries. A tray that arrives on day three instead of day one stops the job dead. Everything should be on site and checked before the rip-out.
• Surprises under the floor: rotten joists, old lead pipe, a waste with no fall. These are real, and a good fitter tells you the same day with the time and cost to fix them.

When the toilet and shower are out of use

In a one-bathroom house this is the question that matters. The toilet comes out on day one and is usually back, at least temporarily, by day two or three, as soon as the soil connection is made and the floor can take it. If the floor is being tiled it may come out again for a day and go back the next. We tell customers exactly which days those are before the job starts, so a neighbour, a relative or a day at work can be planned.

The shower is the last thing finished, because the valve and screen go in after the tiles and the silicone needs a day to cure. Plan on no shower at home for the length of the job. A bath can sometimes be used a day earlier if it goes in early and the walls around it are finished first, but counting on it is optimistic.

Smaller jobs

Why jobs run over, and how to stop it

Almost every overrun we hear about comes from one of three things: products that were not on site at the start, a decision not made until the fitter asked (which tile goes where, how high the niche sits, which way the screen opens), or a trade that did not turn up when the programme needed them. The fix for all three is the same. Everything delivered and checked before the rip-out. Every decision made at the design stage and written down. One person running the job, with the electrician booked for the days the programme needs.

There is a fourth cause, which is a fitter running two jobs at once. Ask how many jobs the fitter has on during your dates. The right answer is one.

The curing times nobody mentions

Several stages of a bathroom are waiting, and skipping the wait is how leaks happen. Each tanking coat needs its curing time before the next one and before tiling, and the manufacturer's figure decides it, which is why the tanking goes on early in the job. Standard tile adhesive needs around 24 hours before grouting; rapid-set adhesive can be grouted the same day but is harder to work with on large tiles. Grout wants a day before it is wetted. Silicone needs a full 24 hours before the shower is used. A self-levelling compound under tiles needs a day or more depending on depth. A programme that has no gaps in it for any of these is a programme that will leak.