Our clients bought this house recently. At the open home, with people moving through every room, the bathroom looked fine. Once they moved in and lived with it, the problems started showing, and they asked us to come and have a look.
This video walks through what we found, and what the standard should have been. It doubles as a checklist for two situations: inspecting a bathroom before you buy a house, and checking your renovator's work before you accept it as complete.
What to look for:
• Grout lines. Rectified tiles are made for tight, consistent joints. Wide, uneven lines and lipped edges mean the tiling was rushed
• Tile cuts. Cut edges should be polished, and corners shouldn't be sharp underfoot
• The design against the room. An open shower and a back-to-wall bath only work if the room is set up for them
• Tapware. Hot on the left, cold on the right. If they're reversed, the plumbing wasn't done by a plumber, and you should wonder what else wasn't
• The shower floor. Water should fall to the drain. If there's a squeegee living in the corner, it doesn't
• Under the drain. Moving a drain properly means cutting the slab, extending the pipe and resealing it. Shortcuts here aren't just poor work, they're outside plumbing standards
• Silicone. Neat, even, and the right type for the job. The wrong silicone behind a mirror eats the backing over time
• The niche. Grout lines should run straight through it, including behind where the bottles sit
• Architraves. Wide enough to protrude past the tile
Everything here was handed over as a completed renovation. We're now redoing this bathroom properly for the owners, and we'll post the finished result when it's done.
If you are a Gold Coast homeowner, and you want it done properly the first time, start by giving us a call.
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