Older bathroom plumbing advice

[zayne]

Hi all,

Ive recently purchased a 2 bedder apartment and am looking at doing a cosmetic reno on the bathroom as it is very outdated with it being built in the early 70's. Id like to start with the bathroom and was looking at retiling, replacing vanity, toilet, bath, taps etc.

With the older bathrooms, the drainage is all brass rather then PVC like in the newer houses. If I was to replace the bathtub, vanity unit etc. are all the fittings the same since all the newer bathtubs, vanities etc are built for PVC drainage? Will the new PVC style fittings fit straight onto the old brass type drainage or does the whole drainage system system need to be redone?

Also, can anyone who has done a swap over of old bathtubs, vanities etc advise how much it cost them roughly for the labor for the plumbing please? If too expensive, I may just end up white knighting the bathtub etc.

Thanks in advance.

 

[RumpledElf]

We're about to do a cosmetic reno on a bathroom that wasn't 'built' in the early 80s as much as kind of badly shoved into the room. After getting a $2000 bill for a lot of work @ $140 an hour for a gang of plumbers to redo the other house, there's no way in hell we're involving an actual plumber for this one. Given the rarity of plumbers out here you'd probably pay less per hour (or not, you'd still get plumber+apprentice to remove a bath - I had plumber + 2 apprentices as mine was such a big job) but you'd be surprised how many hours of labour you'd be looking at. It would take more than one day, especially if they are tiling too.

Otherwise, fittings come in such a variety of sizes you'd probably find the ones to connect PVC to brass are still sold, if the sizes don't match up.

 

[handyandy]

You don't need to worry about what will fit with what There is a whole range of fittings made just for that job

My Favorite is the plumb quick

http://www.fernco.com/plumbing/flexible-couplings

and as you can see, the range is diverse.

As far as changing over the bathtub - This is not a cosmetic job by any means. I would not advice this sort of job unless you are going to re-tile the whole bathroom. To take a bath out it will involve the removal of the tiles on top of the bath (at least) and also the hob wall that looks like it supports the bath. If the bath is wall to wall then it can be so tight that you also need to take all tiles of the wall.

With tiles, it is unlikely that you will be able to match 30 year old tiles. In fact, you have a hard time matching tiles the next month, thus any job that damages tiles will in the end necessitate the re-tile of the whole bathroom.

We regularly reno 70's bathrooms and the most time consuming part of the job is the bathroom.

As far as cost of plumber - you will have to shop around. Generally they are expensive as they are 'protected' by an monopoly right (license) and have a fair idea what everybody else is charging. My son (who is an apprentice plumber) tells me that the main topic of conversation at tech is charge out rates.

Cheers

 

[Propertunity]

We regularly reno 70's bathrooms and the most time consuming part of the job is the bathroom.

That surprises me handyandy Did you really mean to say that?

 

[handyandy]

That surprises me handyandy Did you really mean to say that?

Meant reno 70's units etc...... Some people......

 

[willair]

Hi all,

Ive recently purchased a 2 bedder apartment and am looking at doing a cosmetic reno on the bathroom as it is very outdated with it being built in the early 70's. Id like to start with the bathroom and was looking at retiling, replacing vanity, toilet, bath, taps etc.

With the older bathrooms, the drainage is all brass rather then PVC like in the newer houses. If I was to replace the bathtub, vanity unit etc. are all the fittings the same since all the newer bathtubs, vanities etc are built for PVC drainage? Will the new PVC style fittings fit straight onto the old brass type drainage or does the whole drainage system system need to be redone?

Also, can anyone who has done a swap over of old bathtubs, vanities etc advise how much it cost them roughly for the labor for the plumbing please? If too expensive, I may just end up white knighting the bathtub etc.

Thanks in advance.

The simple way would be to have a lic plumber come out and give you a quote,that way you have a idea what the costs will be, but just the material cost for this, depending on what quality-fit off you want would start above $1400.oo,for basic gear..willair..imho..

 

[Adlante]

Have you thought about getting someone in to professionally re-spray your bath and tiles?? Here are some links for ideas.

http://www.dudleyandsons.com.au/
http://www.innerbath.com.au/index.htm
http://www.bathroomwerx.com/

Also go down to the local (if its near you I guess) Home Ideas Center they have these kind of products on display.

http://www.homeideas.com.au/pages/index.php

 

[zayne]

Thanks for the input guys. Ive looked into respraying but havent had anyone come out and give me an official quote, just over the phone they said anywhere between $1500 - $2500. Im leaning more towards ripping everything out and replacing with new as I alraedy have the vanity, tiles, toilet etc which I managed to pick up pretty cheap. The only thing I havent got yet is the bathtub but since Ill be ripping the tiles off im hoping it wont be too hard of a job to remove. Anyone ever ripped out a bathtub? How hard is it to remove once the tiles around it are removed?

If no plumbing is being moved etc, just a switch over from old to new for the toilet, bath, vanity Im hoping labor wont be costing too much. Still deciding if I should do the tiling myself or get someone in to do it but am hoping to keep labor to under $1500 if possible. Does this sound reasonable for a plumber and tiler?

 

[zayne]

PS. Here is a pic of the bathroom in its current state. The second pic is of another apartment in the same block with the exact same layout and size which has been renovated and looks similar to what I plan to achieve.

Note: To have a similar setup I may need to move some plumbing for the vanity and washing machine.

 

[RumpledElf]

Boy, I wish my PPoR bathroom was as good as your first picture. It doesn't have a single tile in it. Anywhere. And the bath is bright aqua. The walls are half-painted by several different people - pink, blue, green and 100 year old white.

Its not that dirty right *now* but you get the idea ...

 

[graisme]

do you really need a bathtub? the renovated bathroom still seems very pokey and the focus is the washing machine/toilet. if you were to pull out the bath, could the washing machine be put behind the door or (to the left in this photo). that would give you room for a large flash vanity right up to the corner.

also, the shower/bath in the renovated photo must be a pain to clean. i have a modular unit that i put in that ultimately i will pull out and replace with a shower unit as it is a lot of work to keep clean. at least i don't have to climb into as you would the one in the photo.

 

[zayne]

I guess I dont really need the bathtub but thought tenants may find it useful if they had a young child so would prefer to keep it. It also means minimal changing of plumbing if it stays which will help keep costs down.

As for the cleaning of the renovated bath in the photo, I plan to actually have the shower over bath but not have that massive shower screen that closes it all off. I have already got a frameless shower screen which will only cover the side closest to the taps so the room wont looks so closed off.