Taps & Mixers
Replaced, and the reason the last one failed early looked at, because a mixer that wears out quickly is usually reporting a pressure problem.
Home / Bathroom & Kitchen
Bathroom and kitchen plumbing in Alberton is decided by what is behind the tiles, not by what goes on them. In the older suburbs that is usually galvanised supply that has been narrowing from the inside for decades, and the only affordable moment to deal with it is while the wall is open. We do taps, toilets and basins as single jobs and full re-fits alongside your other trades.
Tell us whether anything is moving position, because that decides most of the cost. If it is a straight replacement in the same place, it is usually a much smaller job than people expect.
From a single dripping mixer to a full re-fit sequenced around the tiler and the electrician. Building a new bathroom from scratch is covered under new installations.
Replaced, and the reason the last one failed early looked at, because a mixer that wears out quickly is usually reporting a pressure problem.
New suites, inlet and outlet valves, and the silent running cistern that quietly puts a great deal of water through the meter.
Including bath-out shower-in conversions, where the waste and the fall matter far more than the supply does.
Supply and waste re-run while the walls are open, which is the only time old galvanised can be replaced for the price of the pipe.
Sinks, mixers, dishwasher and washing machine points, and the waste arrangement under a new run of units.
Sanitaryware hung, fittings set and everything tested once the tiling is done, on a date that works with the rest of the trades.
Alberton was laid out in 1904 and most of its residential suburbs went up across the decades that followed, which means a large share of the bathrooms in this town are sitting on supply pipework that was installed a very long time ago. In the older streets that pipework is typically galvanised steel, and galvanised has a failure mode that catches people out because it gives almost no warning.
It corrodes inward. The outside of the pipe looks perfectly sound, while the bore narrows a little more every year as corrosion builds up on the inner wall. There is no drip, no stain and no damp patch. What you get instead is a shower that has slowly become disappointing over fifteen years, so gradually that nobody in the house can say when it changed. The diagnostic is simple and worth knowing: if hot and cold are both weak at the same fitting, the restriction is in the shared supply feeding that point. Weak hot with good cold at the same tap points the other way entirely, at the geyser rather than at the wall.
Which brings us to the only point of this page. There is exactly one moment when replacing that section of pipe costs almost nothing, and it is the fortnight your wall is open for a renovation. Do it then and you are paying for a length of pipe and an hour. Tile over it and the same job costs the tiling, the waterproofing and the two weeks, and you will be looking at a new bathroom with the same disappointing shower in it.
The waste side has its own version of this. Water can be run almost anywhere, so moving a basin is easy. Waste needs continuous fall to the existing connection, and how much fall is available is set by the floor construction you already have. That is the first thing to establish on any layout change, before a design is settled and certainly before a tiler starts, because there is no way to negotiate with a floor.
The other thing we check while it is open: supply pressure. A house on a network that empties overnight and re-pressurises each morning puts that surge through every mixer cartridge in the building, which is why new taps start dripping sooner than they should. Fitting a pressure control valve during a renovation is the cheapest it will ever be, and it is what makes the fittings you have just chosen last.
All four are cheap now and expensive in three weeks' time.
Sequenced around your other trades, and priced in two stages.
Two quoted stages, so you can see what is pipework and what is hanging the fittings.
Before the tiler and after the tiler, agreed up front rather than negotiated on the day.
While the wall is open, not covered up to be somebody's problem in five years.
If we supply the sanitaryware, every item is itemised rather than buried in a lump sum.
Cost, layout changes, old pipework and how long you lose the room for.
The plumbing is usually a smaller share of a bathroom renovation than people expect, and it splits into first fix, which is the supply and waste pipework while the walls are open, and second fix, which is hanging the sanitaryware and fittings once the tiling is done. We quote those separately. The figure moves most on whether anything is being relocated, because moving a toilet or a shower means new falls on the waste side, and on what condition the existing pipework turns out to be in once it is exposed.
In the older suburbs, usually galvanised steel supply pipe, and its failure mode is worth understanding. Galvanised corrodes inward, so the pipe looks sound from outside while the bore narrows year after year. The tell is that hot and cold are both weak at the same fitting, because the restriction is in the shared supply rather than in the geyser. Once a wall is open, replacing that section costs very little. Once it is tiled again, it costs the tiling.
Often yes, but the waste side decides it rather than the supply. Water can be run almost anywhere. Waste needs continuous fall to the existing connection, and the room's floor construction determines how much fall is available. That is the first thing we check on any layout change, before you commit to a design, because discovering there is no fall available after the tiler has started is an expensive conversation.
Either. On a renovation we most often work alongside the tiler, the electrician and the builder, and the sequencing is the part that matters: first fix before tiling, second fix after. What causes trouble is a bathroom where the trades are booked without reference to each other and the plumber arrives to find the tiling done over pipework that needed changing. We will tell you the order things have to happen in even where we are only doing part of it.
Usually supply pressure rather than the mixer. A cartridge is a wearing part and it wears at a rate set by what is pushing against it, so a house with high or surging supply gets through cartridges noticeably faster. In a network where pressure falls away overnight and returns in the morning, that surge hits every mixer in the house daily. Fitting a pressure control valve on the main is the fix that makes new fittings last, and it is covered on our water pressure repairs page.
Yes, and it is one of the most common requests we get. The work is mostly in the waste and the waterproofing rather than in the supply: a shower needs a properly formed and sealed floor with fall to the outlet, and the majority of shower failures that we are called back to are waterproofing failures rather than plumbing ones. We will tell you honestly which parts of that job are plumbing and which need a waterproofing specialist.
Whichever you prefer, and it is worth thinking about. Supplying your own gives you exactly the taps you wanted and full control of that part of the spend. Letting us supply means the fittings carry through our workmanship arrangement and we know what we are installing. What we will not do is quote a lump sum that hides the difference. If we supply, the items are listed and priced separately from the labour.
For a full re-fit, typically the better part of two weeks across all the trades, with the plumbing itself occupying a few days of that split between first and second fix. The waiting is mostly tiling and waterproofing cure times rather than anybody working slowly. If the house has only one bathroom, say so when we quote, because the sequence can usually be arranged to keep a working toilet for most of it.
Get In Touch
Planning a bathroom or kitchen in Alberton? Send the details through and you will get a price back in two stages, first fix and second fix, at no charge for asking.