Ask five Cardiff bathroom fitters for a price and you may get five very different numbers, which is confusing when you are just trying to work out whether you can afford it. The honest answer is that cost depends far more on what sits behind your walls than on the tiles you pick. Here is how the numbers usually break down locally, and what tends to push them up.
For a standard family bathroom of roughly 2m x 2.2m, most fully fitted projects in Cardiff and the surrounding valleys land somewhere between £4,500 and £12,000 including labour, materials and waste removal. That is a wide range because it covers everything from a like-for-like swap to a complete strip-back and reconfiguration.
Labour alone is usually the largest single line. A full fit typically takes 7 to 12 working days, and you may need a plumber, tiler, electrician and plasterer at different stages. Suites themselves can be surprisingly affordable; a decent basin, toilet, bath and taps package can start around £700, while premium brassware and a frameless walk-in enclosure can easily treble that.
A huge share of homes in Cathays, Roath, Canton and Grangetown are late Victorian or Edwardian terraces, and that has real cost implications. Many have bathrooms in a rear extension with a single skin wall, solid floors of varying quality, and original lath or lime plaster that will not take modern tile adhesive without being replaced first.
Older properties also often still have 22mm imperial pipework, gravity fed hot water from a loft tank, and soil stacks in awkward positions. Moving a toilet more than a metre from the existing stack means new falls in the waste run, which can mean lifting floorboards or building up the floor. Conversely, newer estates in Pontprennau, St Mellons or Cardiff Bay tend to be quicker to work in, so labour costs are more predictable.
Water pressure matters too. If you have a low pressure gravity system and want a proper drenching shower, you will either need a pump (£300 to £600 fitted) or to consider an unvented cylinder or combi upgrade, which is a separate job in the £1,800 to £3,500 region.
Most overspends are not about choosing a fancier bath. They come from things nobody could see until the old suite came out, plus small items that add up quietly.
A sensible approach is to hold back 10 to 15 percent of your budget as a contingency. If you do not need it, you have money left for better tiling or a nicer mirror. If you do need it, the project does not stall.
Ask for quotes broken into labour, sanitaryware, tiling and any building work. A single headline figure makes it impossible to tell whether one fitter has included plastering and another has assumed your walls are sound. Also check who supplies the suite, because trade discounts vary and buying it yourself is not always cheaper once you factor in returns and delivery.
Confirm what happens if something unexpected is found, whether the price is fixed or an estimate, and how long the bathroom will be out of use. Any gas or unvented cylinder work must be done by a suitably registered engineer, and notifiable electrical work needs certifying. Being clear on all of this up front is what stops a reasonable quote turning into an unreasonable final invoice.
Call Simon for an initial chat, or send a couple of photos of the space and Sycamore will come back with a quote the same week.
A few photos and a sketch of the room is usually enough for a first quote. For anything structural or tricky, we come and look.