Bathroom Renovation: A Week-by-Week Guide and How to Survive It

In a nutshell

The work on a typical bathroom takes roughly two to four weeks, and longer if you're making bigger changes. Before that, though, you need weeks of preparation: choosing the sanitaryware, ordering it and deciding where every outlet goes. The demolition isn't what eats up the time. The waiting does, for things to dry and for deliveries that haven't turned up. Make your decisions early and have everything in the house before work starts, and you'll be showering in your own bathroom sooner. This article covers the process and the schedule, current prices for labour and materials by scope of work are on the Bathroom renovation page.

How long does a bathroom renovation take

The honest answer: it depends. A small bathroom in a flat where the waste pipes stay put is usually quicker than one in a house where walls come down and new pipework runs halfway across the property. As a rough guide:

• Planning and choosing: two to six weeks before work starts. Yes, it can easily be longer if you spend three weekends in a row picking tiles.
• The work itself: usually two to four weeks for a standard job.
• Contingency: at least a few extra days. Without it, your schedule behaves like a British weather forecast.

The length of the job isn't just down to how good your tradesperson is. It also depends on the drying and curing times set by the material manufacturers, and on whether you have everything ready on the day it's needed. One missing waste trap can bring the whole second fix to a halt.

Before the first swing of the hammer: what to decide early

This is the quietest stage, but the most important one. Anything you don't decide now, you'll end up deciding in the dust, under pressure, with a plumber standing there holding a drill.

Choose your contractor and book a start date

Good tradespeople are often booked up months in advance. Get in touch early, compare quotes and agree who does what. Our article on how to hire the right contractor for your renovation will help you choose. Ask, too, whether they do everything themselves or bring in a separate plumber, electrician and tiler. That makes a big difference to how smoothly one stage follows another.

Order the sanitaryware before you start stripping out

Bath, shower screen, wall-hung WC, basin and vanity unit, taps. Some items are in stock, others have a lead time of several weeks. Tiles from a particular range may not be available straight away either. Ideally, have everything at home, or at least have confirmed delivery dates, before work begins. Check each delivery as soon as it arrives, not on the day it's due to be fitted.

Outlets, taps and concealed fittings

First fix is done to suit specific products. Your plumber needs to know:

• what type of tap you want on the basin, the bath and in the shower (deck-mounted, wall-mounted, concealed),
• the exact dimensions and fitting heights of the concealed shower valve and the wall-hung WC frame, as specified by the manufacturer,
• where the washing machine, tumble dryer, radiator or heated towel rail will go,
• where you want sockets, lights and switches.

Change your mind after the pipes and cables are covered and you'll be chasing into a finished wall. Nobody enjoys that, least of all your bank balance and your brand-new tiles.

Permissions and building management

Like-for-like replacement of tiles and fittings rarely needs any approval, but if you are altering walls, touching anything structural or working on shared pipework, check with your local authority first. If you live in an apartment building, let the building manager or owners association know in advance, especially if anything on the shared riser or waste stack is going to change, and check whether your ownership or rental agreement requires consent for alterations.

Neighbours, building management and house rules

Bathrooms don't get renovated in a soundproof bubble. The neighbours above, below and next door will all hear the chiselling. A few simple steps will save a lot of frayed nerves:

• Read the house rules. They often say what hours noisy work is allowed and whether there are restrictions at weekends.
• Give the neighbours a heads-up. A note on the noticeboard or in the lift with the demolition dates and your contact details is enough. People put up with noise far more easily when they know when it will stop.
• Shutting off water to the riser needs to be arranged with building management in advance. The other flats on the same riser usually have to be told the date.
• Protect the lift and communal areas with plastic sheeting or cardboard. Carry rubble out in bags, not loose in your arms.
• Building waste doesn't belong in the household bins. Hire a skip or rubble bags, or take it to your local household waste recycling centre, following your local rules.

How to live without a bathroom

This is the bit that's easiest to forget when planning. A few weeks without a shower, and sometimes without a toilet, is a long time.

• Shower elsewhere. Parents, friends, the gym, the local pool. Some people simply book a holiday for the worst of it.
• Toilet. If you have a separate WC that isn't being renovated, you're laughing. If the toilet is in the bathroom, ask your plumber whether it can stay working for as long as possible or be temporarily reconnected. Otherwise it's a chemical toilet or the hospitality of relatives. If you're redoing the toilet too, have a look at what a toilet renovation involves.
• Dust. Demolition and sanding will spread it right through your home. Cover the furniture, seal the bathroom door with plastic sheeting and clear anything out of the hallway that you don't want turning grey.
• Water for washing. The kitchen sink suddenly becomes the family basin. If the water to the whole property is going to be switched off, keep a few large water containers filled.

Bathroom renovation week by week

The overview below is a rough guide and assumes a standard bathroom without major layout changes. Stages may overlap or stretch out depending on the scope of the job and what the material manufacturers specify.

Week 0: final check

The sanitaryware is in the house or confirmed, and so are the tiles. The neighbours know, building management knows, the hallway is protected. Empty the bathroom down to the last bottle of shampoo. Your plumber has no business packing up your toiletries.

Week 1: strip-out and first fix

The first few days are about removing the old suite, hacking off tiles and getting the rubble out. This is the noisiest, dustiest part, so it pays to stick to the hours in the house rules. Exactly what demolition work involves depends on whether you're just taking off the tiles or going right back to bare walls. Straight after that come the services. The plumber runs new supply and waste pipes, the plumbing work is done to match the outlet positions you've confirmed, and then the pipework is pressure tested. The electrician runs cables for lights, sockets and any underfloor heating. Electrical work must only be carried out by a qualified electrician, ideally one registered with a recognised competent person scheme, and bathrooms have strict zone rules, which we explain in our article on which lights and zones are allowed in a bathroom. If there's any gas in the bathroom, any work on it must be done by a Gas Safe registered engineer and nobody else.

Week 2: stud walls, plastering, screed and waterproofing

If a boxed-in false wall or a new partition is going up, this is when it happens. The chases for pipes and cables get filled, the walls are levelled, and a new screed may go down on the floor. And here comes the first big wait. Plaster, skim coats and screed all have to dry, otherwise nothing can be stuck to them. Then the waterproofing goes on, usually in two coats, with tape in the corners and collars around pipe penetrations. You'll never see this step, but it decides whether, in a few years' time, you'll be explaining a stain on the ceiling to the neighbour downstairs. Find out more about applying a waterproofing membrane around the bath and under the shower.

Week 3: wall and floor tiling

At last, the bathroom starts to look like a bathroom. The tiler lays the floor tiles and wall tiles, cuts around outlets and fits the trims. After tiling there's a pause before grouting, as specified by the adhesive manufacturer, usually at least a day. Then it's grouting, and more waiting while the grout hardens.

Week 4: second fix and clean-up

In go the WC, basin, taps, shower screen, furniture, lights and mirror. The electrician fits the switches and sockets. Finally comes the silicone, which also needs time before you can have your first shower. Then a clean-up, the last of the waste goes and it's time for handover.

Waterproofing: where most mistakes happen in practice

Tiles and grout are not waterproof. Water is only stopped by the waterproofing layer underneath, and that layer is behind more bathroom complaints and water damage claims than anything else. Tiling professionals and building surveyors across Europe report the same handful of faults again and again, and almost all of them come down to workmanship rather than materials.

How far the waterproofing needs to go

• Floor: the whole bathroom floor, turned up the walls by roughly 15 to 20 cm all the way round so that it forms a kind of tray.
• Shower: the walls up to above the shower head, and for a walk-in shower without a screen, ideally right up to the ceiling.
• Bath: the walls around the bath at least 20 cm above the rim, continuing a little onto the adjoining wall.
• Washbasin: the splash zone, usually up to a height of 1.2 to 1.5 m.
• Penetrations: every pipe, tap outlet, floor drain and shower channel gets a sealing collar, and every internal corner and wall-to-floor joint gets sealing tape.

How it should be applied

Liquid waterproofing goes on in two coats, the second at right angles to the first, with the tapes bedded into the first coat while it is still wet. The minimum dry film thickness depends on the type of product. Typical values are around 0.5 mm for dispersion membranes, 1.0 mm for reactive resins and 2.0 mm in two coats for cement-based slurries. The exact figures and the waiting time between coats are in the technical data sheet of the specific product. Absorbent surfaces are primed first, and old tiles get a bonding primer. The fall towards the drain is formed in the screed, not by using a thicker bed of adhesive under the tiles.

What goes wrong in practice

• Only the corners are sealed. The tapes are in the corners, but the shower walls themselves were never coated.
• The forgotten concealed valve. The manufacturer supplies a sealing collar with the concealed valve body, and it often never leaves the box.
• Shower channel not connected. The channel is installed, but its sealing flange has not been worked into the waterproofing.
• Drilling afterwards. Holes for shelves, screen brackets or trims are not sealed, and water follows the screw into the wall.
• Only silicone around the bath. The bath or shower tray is fitted without perimeter sealing tape, and all the protection relies on a silicone bead that cracks over time.
• Tiling onto a damp substrate. The skim coat or screed has not dried yet, but the tiler starts anyway to stay on schedule.

Tiles are fixed onto the waterproofing with a flexible adhesive, usually class C2 on walls and a deformable class S1 adhesive on floors. Internal corners and the joint with the bath are not filled with grout but with sanitary silicone. A separate page explains how the waterproofing coating around the bath and under the shower is done.

Where the waiting happens: drying and curing times

The most common question during a renovation is: why has nobody turned up today. The answer is usually mundane. Something's drying.

• Plaster and skim coats need to dry, depending on how thick they are and the conditions in the room.
• Screed usually takes the longest. A sand and cement screed can take weeks, while rapid-setting mixes shorten that, according to the manufacturer's data.
• Primer and waterproofing need a gap between coats, which the manufacturer states on the packaging.
• Tile adhesive must harden before grouting.
• Silicone needs time before it gets wet.

You can't skip these pauses without taking a risk. A tradesperson who promises waterproofing and tiling on the same day is either using a special rapid system or taking a gamble. Ask which it is.

What to photograph before it's covered up

Your phone is your best friend during a renovation. Photos taken while the pipes and cables are still visible will come in handy one day, when you're drilling holes for a shelf or making a complaint.

• every wall with supply and waste pipes, ideally with a tape measure in shot,
• the routes of electrical cables and back boxes,
• the pressure test, including the gauge if possible,
• the waterproofing, including the corners, tape and collars around the drain and pipe penetrations,
• the concealed WC frame and shower valve before they're boxed in,
• labels and product types of the materials used.

Save the photos in a separate folder and give it a name you'll still recognise in five years' time. Something like 'bathroom pipework', not 'IMG_random'.

When you need to be at home

Your tradespeople don't need you peering over their shoulder all day. But there are moments when being there saves a whole heap of trouble:

1. Day one. Go through the plan together, show them where the main stopcock and the consumer unit are, and agree where materials will be stored.
2. Before the services are covered. Check the positions of outlets, sockets and concealed fittings. Moving them now is easy, in a week's time it won't be.
3. When tiling starts. Confirm where the tiling starts from, how the grout lines run, where the cuts and trims will go. Tilers can't read minds, although some come close.
4. Deliveries. Someone has to take in the parcels and check them.
5. Handover. Run the taps, flush the toilet, check the falls and the silicone, try the lights.

Where schedules get stuck and how to avoid it

Most delays aren't down to laziness. They come from small things that could have been sorted out sooner.

• Missing items. The sanitaryware or tiles haven't arrived. Solution: order in advance and have everything at home before work starts.
• An undecided customer. You're still choosing taps when the plumber should already be finished. Solution: make every decision about outlet positions before first fix.
• A surprise behind the tiles. Old corroded pipes, wonky walls, damp. Solution: build in some time contingency and agree how any unexpected work will be handled.
• Trades that don't line up. The electrician isn't free when they're needed. Solution: ask upfront who coordinates the dates.
• Impatience with drying times. Cutting the pauses short will come back to bite you, just later and at greater cost.
• Water in the riser. Building management didn't give notice of the shut-off in time. Solution: agree the date well in advance.

A good schedule isn't the shortest one. It's the one that allows for something not going to plan.

What clients and tradespeople argue about most often

• What is included in the price. Rubble removal, waterproofing, silicone joints, fitting the sanitaryware, access panels. Anything not written in the quote can come back as an extra.
• The surprise behind the tiles. Corroded pipes or a damp wall once the old tiles are off. Agree in advance that the tradesperson shows you and prices any such work before starting it.
• Cuts and joints. Thin slivers of tile at the ceiling or in a corner, grout lines that do not line up between wall and floor. Approve the tile layout before fixing starts, not afterwards.
• Falls. Water sits in the shower or runs towards the door. It is easy to check: pour out a bucket of water and watch where it goes.
• Who is responsible for what. When the plumber, electrician and tiler are not from the same company, each can blame the other. Photos of each stage are the best evidence in a dispute like that.

Handover checklist

• Do you have photos of the pipework, the pressure test and the waterproofing, including tapes and collars?
• Do you have the pressure test record and, for new electrical work, the electrician's test certificate?
• Does water from the shower and the floor run into the drain without pooling anywhere?
• Are the silicone joints continuous, with no gaps and no grout in the corners?
• Do the tiles sound solid all over when tapped, with no hollow spots or loose tiles?
• Are the taps drip-free, does the toilet stop running after flushing, are the traps under the basin dry?
• Do the lights, sockets and extractor fan work, and does the residual current device in the fuse box trip when tested?
• Are the access panels reachable and can they be opened?
• Do you have the warranty documents, instructions and delivery notes for the sanitaryware and the waterproofing?

What makes up the cost of a bathroom renovation

The final price depends more on the scope of work than on the size of the bathroom. The biggest factors are:

• demolition and rubble removal, especially if everything comes back to bare masonry or an old prefabricated bathroom pod has to go,
• new pipework for water, waste and electrics, and any relocation of fittings,
• screed, levelling the walls and waterproofing, whose extent often only becomes clear after demolition,
• tiled area and tile format: large-format tiles and complicated cuts mean more labour,
• concealed systems (wall-hung toilet, concealed shower valve, shower channel) compared with conventional solutions,
• sanitaryware and accessories, which the client usually chooses and pays for.

What it will cost and how to work it out

Now you know the process, which leaves the budget. What labour and materials cost, how a flat differs from a house, when a shower makes more sense than a bath and what to watch out for with waterproofing and at handover, it's all on our page about the cost of a bathroom renovation. If you want to measure your bathroom, work out the areas and understand a quote from your tradesperson, our guide on how to calculate the cost of your own bathroom refit will help. In the NUMIQ app, you can then put together an itemised estimate and compare it with the quotes you receive. Tradespeople, in turn, can use it to quickly put together a quote their customers actually understand.