NLC Dolphin Bathrooms ?

[jj]

JJ ... £1K is easily do-able for materials... we're not talking designer here... Scott mentioned he's looking for something to put in the house for a few years to get him through before he sells up.

I thought the art of being a designer was all about being able to make the best of what you've got?... not throwing money at it to make it OK?

He mentioned that after your last post.

Regarding the "art of being a designer" bit, I agree entirely but cannot see anywhere I said that you would have to throw money at anything to make it ok? Just comparing like for like.

You may have managed to do a bathroom that you are happy with for not a lot of money, but in my opinion its a quick way to biting off more than you can chew, as its not exactly easy - you feel you can do it, smashing, I certainly couldnt be bothered or happy with the end result as I know I would get hacked off with the process. That was all, and no need for the snipe.

If he is wanting to sell soon, then surely getting a company in and spending say £3k on a managed and hassle free install instead of £1.5k and DIY is a better bet given buyers of his house are going to want decent stuff and a proper 100% job?

[gorrie]

You must have been quick JJ... I removed that last line as soon as I read it back.... and for that snipe I apologise.

[pete]

We've cut corners in the past and regretted it (kitchen appliances). We've spent money in the past and regretted it too (kitchen appliances).


I agree with the spirit of what you are saying but our last house's kitchen (Ikea units but installed by our wonderful but since emigrated joiner) looked infinitely better than a friends poorly installed Moben one. Roughly the same design yet (I'm guessing) 5-10 times the cost. Now I know Moben isn't top of the tree but it did prove that cost does not necessarily equal quality.

We had a kitchen designer out last time from Poggenpohl (well a stockist) and he offered us nothing that we couldn't do ourselves and the price was eye watering. Would his units have been better than the MFI ones. Of course. But for the difference in money I could have bought that exquisite Elige you built and still had change for a holiday.

One of the problems I think is that some jobbing joiners (ie employed not by you but by the kitchen company) have less incentive to do a good job than a self employed chap working for you directly. Perhaps.

[Rag_It]

It's taken me the best part of 10 months to pull my finger out and get round to doing the beading on the kitchen floor! However, I haven't told her so it is going to be a surprise, which i expect massive amounts of praise for!!

Still got about 10 other outstanding jobs to do!!

[Tom]

I'm sure I saw Dolphin featured on Watchdog a few years ago...

We've used Bathstore for our last couple of Bathrooms and then used our own installer. I think the most important thing regardless of where you buy your stuff from is to use decent tradesmen that you trust to fit the stuff. Bathstore may not be the best quality but we quite liked the contempory styling. They do a very good steel shower bath. Vaioset I think it's called. Would recommend Bathstore and will prob use again.

[scott_e]

Hi chaps.

Had Mr Dolphin around tonight. 7k quote for luxury range and 4.5k for simplicity range ( simplity range is commerical business he says and apparently they are allowed to do 1 per month for customers, sounds like sales patter).

This quote includes:

wc
shower tray
shower unit
main light
tile flooring
tile wall / skirting
stripping ceiling plaster
bring up floor and redoing any plumbing
painting
mirror
dolphin bathroom branded ... dont know what difference this makes
keeping it as netural as possible
(keeping existing heater)

1. does this sound like a reasonable quote ?

2.would be interested to know if an estate agent thinks i would see my money back on 4.5k investment on a house sales. How important is a nice ensuite ?

Mr Dolphin reckons more important than a nice kitchen ....

thanks again for any advice, sorry to post again.
scott

[duggiesmith]

The quote doesn't sound too bad compared with other companies out there who offer a "complete" service. Doesn't necessarily make it value for money though.

We had our bathroom done by Bubbles a few years ago. We went with them because we wanted to deal with one company who would be responsible for the complete job. The price was around £10K iirc. We went for pretty high spec though (whirlpool bath, power shower, etc) although the bathroom is pretty small. To say things didn't go smoothly is an understatement We spent hours chasing them up when they failed to turn up and had them back several times to fix shoddy work (squint tiles, wrong taps, etc). We eventually got a refund of around 10%, but still think the price was no where near a reflection of the cr*p service or quality.

Of course that's just one company and I'm sure they're not all like that. The only advice I could offer would be not to put too much faith in the larger companies and ignore smaller ones. Cowboys come in all shapes and sizes.

Good luck with whatever you go for

[cloggie]

I've been fitting bathrooms for almost 13 years now and in my experience companies like dolphin etc. are a major rip off.
I have worked with most of the larger companies and found their fitting teams to be terrible!
IMO i would look to contact a few smaller local companies as you will definitely be able to thrash out a better deal .
Also worth a look is the dolphin recruitment process, no plumbing certificates are needed just a one week course if i remember correctly
In my opinion 4.5k is still a serious bit of cash for a budget bathroom!
If you need any pointers drop me a pm mate

oh and as far as putting value on your home I don't think it would make any difference to price , it may however make it more desirable to potential buyers.

One other route to save a bit of cash is buy the stuff yourself and get a plumber to fit it for you.
I honestly believe you could knock at least 1k off that figure and still get a top class job

[renmure]

Give my Cousin a ring Scott.
Can't do any harm

[Scottynic]

I am getting my bathroom done right now from a friend of a friend.

Got suit, tiles etc myself and getting bathroom fitted and tiled plus moving waste pipes (major job due to concrete floors.)

All in gonna cost me around 3K. Bathroom is small tho (6ft x 7ft approx)

Scott could let you know what finish is like once done. Pretty sure it will be top as his previous work is top notch.

[s333fee]

hi,

no disrepect to JJ but i also do houses and flats for a living. as well as own my own property portfolio and mange properties for other landlords. I just did a full refurb of a 2 bed flat for £2255.00 for all materials for a landlord. this comprised of painting the whole flat, new kitchen, new bathroom. Tiling and carpeting was another £500.00 with another £770.00 for fully furnishing the flat with beds white goods etc etc. So a bathroom for £1,000.00 is quite achievable if you do it yourself or get some mates to help you.

I agree with his all the points though, but you do get to a point where you are just getting ripped off. MY mum got a quote from bathrooms continential to do her house, 3 bathrooms , £24,000.00 I thought this was just rediculous.

Rember all trades men will add a house value weighting and the sales people are on commission, big house charge more to pay for the shiny showroom. Go back to basics and ask around and get recommendations and see the workmanship before you handover the money.

JJ, Maybe your subbies are too expensive.

I charge £20.00 per hour, do almost all the work myself, except gas and work till done. whole job took 3 weeks. of course this as a BTL for the landlord so basic white suite from B&Q does. but you can spend £1,000 on the bath alone. It really depends on what you want, remember nice tiles lift a suite and some chrome and shiny things help too. you should go to jewson Glasgow was Platfrom for your tile adhesive you can buy pre-mixed in tubs or in powder from all fully waterproof, cheap and works well.


Remeber bathrooms shops su-contract everything out to different smaller companies, and rarely employ them all themselves. Also keep a good amount back on rentention, once the leave they wont come back for a few quid if your not happy. Afterall they've had you money.

JJ, I also do PAT testing, tenancy inspections, cleaning etc,. maybe we should talk and help each other.


none of the above is meant to offend. if I have sorry,

[jj]

You have the wrong end of a stick - I know how cheap you can get stuff done, it was not that I was questioning.

It was the quality of cheap stuff. There is a (somewhat massive) difference between that point I was making and me paying people too much to do a job for me .

edit; by contrast to your £2k refurb, is it how you would do your own home? I would be amazed if it was. The projects we work on as a firm are high-end "dream home for me" stuff that I would love to live in (£1m+ houses and so on) so maybe my perspective is off.

[s333fee]

hi,

your 4.5 k seems steep, go price the stuuf at B&Q or similar, try afew and add it up and see what you are paying for, I notice they havn't included for site clearance etc, this is a common scam, they will leave all the old stuf at their ass, and you have to arrange skip, or take to tip. i guess it also reflects, as JJ says, on the quality of what you are fitting. get fixed timescales and agree everything in writing. Don't let them stuff you for extras like electricians etc. remember you are paying for a salesperson, a shop, their stock, and a markup as well as the trades guys etc. we all have to make a living and a profit as none of us are registered charities or claim expenses like mp's, take your time and dont get sucked in, never sign anything on the day. Leave it for enough time that you can think about it, andthe commerical bathroom one a month is absoulutely a sales pitch. They probably have 2 sales markets, domestice and commercial, domestic will be peaking for all those who need a new bathroom in time for xmas, and his commercial sales is being bolstered by the one off domestics they are slotting in.

Bathrooms like kitchens are personal, and if you are doing it to sell go sensible, avoid fads and fashion it dates really quickly. keep it simple and add touches that can be removed, when you leave like mirrors, etc. everybody likes a chrome towel rail and prices vary dramatically. As for re-branded goods to say bathrooms co I would avoid, and go for known brands. But dont pay for the badge, afterall its just toilet. V&B is what i have in my own home and did it myself, they give a good 5 years guarantee and other do the same. They are ecpensive, we have ahd it for 12 years though. Again check the small print. and maybe buy the stuff yourself and get different trades to do it direct, you are paying them a managment fee to take the pain away, not to necessarily do a good job, that depends on the team they send. Remember this to me sounds like a straight in / out job.

JJ, i agree with what you are saying. As we both know you will encounter trades who mark up for higher value properties. Dream homes are sometimes different in so far as if you are doing a custom build then they expect that they get a lot more of your time on site and shoud pay accordingly, I used to manage building works, and time on site with clients can be very time consuming and someone has to pay, none of us are charities. But in this case it sounds like a replacement job with little infrastructure alterations and could be done in a week. fo £4.5K seems steep, of course it depends entirely on how he has spec'd the job. I have seen people ask for £1k taps and £2k toilets so yes it is variable.

this is why i hate posting things, you never know how others will take it.

[Jamie84]

I think the key to achieving a great bathroom without the abnormal cost is knowing where to spend the money . I recently done the 3 bathrooms in our new place off the top of my head for no more than 6k , granted one was a small WC.

Basins , pans and bathtubs are cheap as chips , we picked up 3 very modern looking back to the wall square pans for £80 each , some in wall cisterns and some very plush stainless Gerberit push button flushers , in the WC I built a square enclosure for the in wall cistern and fitted some very cheap coloured acrylic ordered to size , combined with the stainless push flush it looks fantastic .

Custom fit mirrors are also very cheap and look the part fitted to a full wall for example .

In our main bathroom again , very cheap pan , basin and reasonably cheap jacuzzi , but spent alot on taps and fixtures.

Tiles can make one hell of a difference , we bought some nice grey tiles from porcelanosa at around £20 per meter but in the middle of the jacuzzi we have a strip of mozaic at £350 per meter , all about knowing where to spend

Get in touch with a plumber, tiler and possibly a joiner , find the stuff you like and as gorrie mentioned find it online and save a fortune .

oh and get a TV , you cant beat playing Team Deathmatch on MW2 in the bath

[J-Man]

When we did ours, Dolphin quoted just over £10K for what we wanted. They were not happy to do a wet room, unless it was on a concrete surface. So I sourced all of the fittings and fixtures, did what I was capable of and then got various trades involved for the bits I couldn't do. By the end the total was just shy of £4K, and I was happy with this, especially as the surplus went towards my first Elise!

Couple of points;

Worthwhile paying for a really good tiler - we had to wait a bit for this, but the job is so good, it was well worth it.

Taps cost a fortune. Freestanding taps were a bit of a pain to install.

If you follow this route, then you'll be able to add in some inexpensive extras along the way - I did underfloor heating, uplighters and heater elements behind the mirror to stop it steaming up, all of which added less than £200 to the total.

Need to be prepared to spend a while sourcing stuff, and the hardest part was trying to be on site for various deliveries. The whole job took about 4 weeks (mainly my availabilty) working on and off, and was only possible as we have a 2nd bathroom.