What Should I Include in a Bathroom Installation Quote?

For bathroom installers

There is an old phrase about prior preparation and planning, and bathrooms are one of those jobs where it really does apply.

A good bathroom quotation is not simply a list of things you are going to fit with a price at the bottom. By the time you send the quote, you should have thought through how the existing room comes out, what might be behind it, what preparation is likely to be needed, what goes back in, who is doing each part and the order everything needs to happen in.

Get that thinking right and the quote becomes easier. Miss half of it and you can spend the whole job trying to catch up with a price that was wrong before you even started.

Preparation is part of the installation

One of the easiest things to underestimate when pricing bathrooms is preparation. The customer sees the tiles, sanitaryware, shower, taps and furniture. They don't necessarily see the work needed to get the room ready for any of those things.

Walls may need repairing or straightening. Floors may need replacing, strengthening or levelling. Pipework may need altering. Old adhesive has to come off. Wet areas may need suitable preparation and waterproofing. You may uncover previous leaks or rotten flooring when the old bathroom comes out.

None of that is dead time. It is part of fitting the bathroom properly.

If you haven't allowed enough time and the correct materials for preparation, you either lose money doing it properly or you create pressure to cut corners and move on too quickly. Neither is a particularly good place to be.

Be clear about what you can see and what you can't

A proper survey should tell you a lot, but it cannot tell you everything. Bathrooms hide problems. Water damage around a bath, shower or toilet can sit unseen beneath flooring or behind wall finishes. Old plumbing can look acceptable until it is exposed. Taking tiles off can reveal a wall that needs considerably more work than anybody could reasonably have known beforehand.

Your quotation needs to separate what you have actually priced from what could genuinely only be discovered once the room is opened up. That does not mean filling the quote with exclusions until it becomes meaningless. It means being sensible.

Explain the assumptions you have made, identify anything you already know is questionable and make clear how genuine additional work will be discussed and agreed. If you simply missed something obvious during the survey, that isn't automatically a variation because the job has become harder than you hoped.

Think through the order of the job

A bathroom is a sequence of connected work. Strip-out affects first fix. First fix affects preparation. Preparation affects waterproofing and tiling. The position of the shower tray can affect the wall finishes. Electrical and ventilation work need planning at the right stage. Then you have second fix, sanitaryware, sealing, testing and finishing. Trying to write the quote without thinking through that sequence is where things get forgotten.

A shower tray is a good example. In many bathrooms it goes in relatively early, but once the room is tiled and finished around it, it becomes one of the most disruptive products in the room to replace.

So don't only allow for fitting it. Think about protecting it while everybody else works around it. A few minutes spent protecting a tray properly is considerably cheaper than having a conversation with a customer about a scratch on a product now buried underneath a finished bathroom.

Be specific about preparation, tiling and finishes

“Tiling included” can mean almost anything. How much is being tiled? Are the walls actually ready for tile? Who is preparing them? What size and type of tile is being used? Is there a pattern? Niches? Feature areas? Trims? Difficult cuts? The same applies to the floor.

The quotation doesn't have to become a book, but it needs enough information that you and the customer are talking about the same job.

Tile quantities are worth thinking about before you start as well. I've seen jobs where additional tiles have had to be ordered partway through and the new boxes have been an ever-so-slightly different shade because they came from a different production batch. Sometimes the physical size can vary slightly too.

It may hardly be noticeable while the tiles are lying in boxes. It can be very noticeable once they are on the wall beside each other. Getting enough of the correct tile at the beginning, with sensible allowance for cuts and breakages, is one of those small bits of preparation that can save a much bigger problem later.

Don't forget the products nobody gets excited about

Customers quite naturally concentrate on the products they can see. They might spend hours choosing a bath, basin, shower, taps and tiles.

But some of the least glamorous products in the bathroom are doing some of the most important work. Sealants, adhesives, waterproofing materials, suitable boards, fixings and preparation products don't normally feature in the finished photographs. They matter.

Personally, I wouldn't want to save a few pounds on a sealant that is being asked to help protect a bathroom that has cost thousands of pounds to install.

Your quote doesn't need to list every tube and screw, but your price has to allow you to use suitable products and materials rather than forcing you to buy the cheapest option simply because you didn't allow enough in the first place.

Ventilation needs thinking about before the end

Ventilation is one of those things that can be forgotten until somebody asks where the extractor fan is going. By then, quite a lot of the decisions that affect it may already have been made.

Good ventilation starts with thinking about the room, the route for the ducting, how the system will operate and what work is required to install it properly. The requirements vary depending on the property, location and work being undertaken, so make sure the appropriate regulations and guidance are checked rather than treating a fan as an optional finishing item.

This is something I have written about separately because I've seen how often the problem starts much earlier than the fan itself.

Read: The Airflow Gap: Why Good Ventilation Still Fails in Residential Bathroom Renovations →

Current Building Regulations guidance in England specifically deals with ventilation of wet rooms and the commissioning of mechanical ventilation systems, which is another reason not to leave it until the end of the job.

Be clear about electrics and specialist work

Bathrooms can involve several trades. You may have a plumber, electrician, tiler, plasterer or others involved depending on what the job requires. The quote should make clear who is doing what.

If electrical work is needed, don't leave the customer assuming it is included because there is a light shown on a bathroom plan. Establish what is actually required and make sure appropriate competent people deal with specialist work and any certification or notification that applies.

Electrical work in bathrooms is subject to electrical safety requirements, and certain work may need Building Regulations notification depending on the circumstances.

The same principle applies throughout the job. You don't need to pretend you personally do every trade. You do need to know who is responsible for it.

If you are the main contractor, allow for managing the job

If the customer has employed you to deliver the whole bathroom, you are doing more than physically fitting things. You're coordinating people.

The plumber might care deeply about their plumbing. The tiler might be excellent at tiling. The electrician might do exactly what you ask. But ultimately it is your customer and your finished bathroom. Nobody is likely to care about the complete job quite as much as you do.

That means checking what is happening, making sure one trade hasn't created a problem for the next one and dealing with changes in the programme.

It also means using the right people. Trying to save too much on subcontractors can come back to cost considerably more if you spend your own time correcting work afterwards. If project management is part of what you're providing, make sure your price recognises it.

Ask how the bathroom actually needs to work

This is something I think experienced installers can bring to the quotation process that goes beyond measuring walls and counting products.

Ask who is going to use the bathroom. Not only now. In the future as well.

You may have a customer who doesn't need a shower seat or grab rails today and may never need them. But if there is a sensible chance that something could be useful later, putting suitable structural support behind a wall while it is already open can be a relatively small job. Trying to add that support after the wall has been finished and tiled is something completely different.

The same thinking can apply to shower access, lighting, night-time use, controls and the amount of usable space in the room.

You are not there to frighten somebody into buying things they don't need. You're using experience to raise things they may never have considered.

Sometimes saying, “You don't need this now, but while we've got the wall open it might be worth preparing for it,” shows a customer far more about your level of experience than simply producing the cheapest quote.

Make product responsibilities clear

Who is supplying the bathroom? Who is checking that the products are suitable? Who measures the shower tray? Who checks the enclosure works with it? Who makes sure the taps suit the basin or bath? Who checks that concealed products have all the required parts?

If the customer is supplying products, say so. Also explain what happens if something is missing, damaged, unsuitable or late. You don't want to discover on day four that everybody assumed somebody else had checked the products.

And remember that not every product deserves to be treated in exactly the same way. A tap can normally be replaced relatively easily later. A shower tray surrounded by finished walls and flooring is another matter.

Where products will become difficult to access once the room is finished, it makes sense to think particularly carefully about quality, suitability and installation.

Explain your guarantee properly

Bathrooms can cause expensive damage when something goes wrong, so vague promises about guarantees aren't good enough. If you offer a workmanship guarantee, be clear about what it covers and how long it lasts.

Also distinguish between your workmanship and a manufacturer's product warranty. If the customer supplied the product, explain how that is dealt with. If something fails because of a product defect rather than the installation, everybody should understand where responsibility sits.

And don't write a guarantee as if it removes the customer's normal legal rights. Services supplied to consumers are still subject to statutory requirements including reasonable care and skill, and contractual terms cannot simply remove that protection. Clear terms protect a good installer as much as they protect the customer.

Make exclusions and assumptions understandable

There will nearly always be things that are not included. Decoration might be excluded. The customer may be supplying tiles. Floor repairs beyond what can currently be seen might be additional. Specialist asbestos work might not be included. Moving a soil pipe may not be part of the agreed design. Whatever applies to the job, say it clearly.

An exclusion shouldn't be hidden in tiny text and then produced later as evidence that technically you mentioned it. The point is for both sides to understand the agreement before the job begins.

The same applies to assumptions. If your price assumes clear access, products being available by a certain date or somebody else completing work before you start, make that clear too.

A clear quote isn't the same as exposing your whole costing sheet

The customer should know what they are buying. They should know the agreed work, what isn't included, who supplies what, the price, payment arrangements, programme assumptions and how variations will be handled.

They do not automatically need your internal labour allowances, overheads, margins or buying costs. There is a difference between transparency and handing over your internal costing model.

And if the customer removes something from the agreed scope later, you may need to reprice the revised job rather than simply subtracting one line from the original total.

Bathrooms are connected sequences of work. Changing one part can affect another.

So, what should a bathroom installation quote include?

It should show that you have properly thought through the bathroom before agreeing the price. That means more than listing a bath, toilet and basin.

Think about strip-out, preparation, plumbing, drainage, waterproofing where required, tiling, electrics, ventilation, specialist trades, products, waste, finishing, testing and who is managing the whole job.

Think about what you can see and what you can't. Think about the materials hidden behind the finished room. Think about the people who will use the bathroom and whether there are simple things worth preparing for while the room is already stripped out. Set out the assumptions, exclusions, guarantees and process for changes clearly.

Prior preparation and planning isn't just an old phrase. On a bathroom installation, it can be the difference between a job that runs properly and one you spend the next few weeks — or months — trying to sort out.

Every Install can help

Every Install Pro includes practical quotation and scope tools designed to help installers think through what they are agreeing before the job starts. The Scope of Works Builder can help define the work properly, while the Quote Checklist helps make sure important information isn't missed before the quotation goes to the customer.

Explore Every Install Pro →