Bathrooms in Corby, priced in writing before anything starts.
Bathrooms in Corby are among the more straightforward we fit, and the reason is that the plumbing was designed rather than improvised.
Post-war housing was built with internal soil stacks in sensible positions and services planned as part of the design, rather than added to a Victorian house decades after it was built. That means moving a bathroom, or adding an en suite, is usually a practical proposition rather than an exercise in finding somewhere the waste can physically go.
The constraint here is more often space than plumbing. Bathrooms on this stock were sized to the standards of the day and they are not generous, so getting a walk in shower and a decent basin into a room designed for a bath and a pedestal takes careful setting out. Frequently the better answer is to borrow a little space from a landing or an airing cupboard rather than to squeeze everything into the existing footprint.
Floors bring the usual considerations. Joists were sized for a bedroom, not for a filled bath on a tiled floor, and where a waste run means notching or drilling them there are permitted zones we work to.
Ventilation and tanking are not optional. An extractor discharging into a roof void puts the moisture straight back into the building, and tiles and grout are not a waterproof layer. Our bathroom installations page sets out what a full refit involves.
Four things we commit to on every job, rather than four things we say about ourselves.
Permitted development is not an exemption from Building Regulations. We arrange the North Northamptonshire Council inspections, meet the inspector on site at each stage and see the work through to sign off. We do not make the application itself, and we will tell you what is needed and when.
Free, and you get it before you commit to us. Party walls and skip licences are raised at quotation stage, not three weeks into the dig.
The same people do the groundworks, the brickwork and the fit out. Nobody hands your job to a subcontractor you have never met.
You get a straight answer rather than a padded price. It costs us a job occasionally and saves you a great deal more.
Process, specification and what moves the price are set out on our bathrooms page.
The answers that genuinely differ from one Corby street to the next.
In a house with one bathroom the whole household is affected for the duration, so we plan the strip out and first fix inside the same week and leave the existing toilet connected as long as the plumbing allows.
Airing cupboards on this stock frequently still hold the original cylinder, and where a bathroom project involves moving to a sealed system the pressure and flow change throughout the house. That is a decision to make deliberately rather than discover.
Floor tiles in some houses of this era can contain asbestos in the tile or the bitumen adhesive beneath. We check rather than lift them and find out afterwards.
Extract ducting through a cavity wall is a clean and simple detail on this stock, which is one of the genuine advantages of post-war construction. The outlet position still wants some thought so it does not discharge straight onto a rendered face or immediately under a window, because both cause staining that is difficult to undo afterwards.
Part of our wider building work in Corby.
Send photographs and a rough brief, or call and talk it through. We will tell you if a job is not right for us.
Southfield Construction (Rugby) Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company 14209138.
