An alarming number of Brits have wildly unrealistic expectations of the budgets and timescales involved with bathroom renovations, according to the latest research from the Federation of Master Builders (FMB).
As revealed in the Federation’s latest Omnibus Survey, one-in-seven UK adults (71%) expect a full bathroom renovation to cost less than £10,000, with around a quarter (26%) under the impression that it will cost less than £5,000.
Similarly, one-in-five (19%) believe that a complete bathroom renovation can be completed within a single week, and almost two-thirds expect a full new bathroom to be finished within a fortnight.
The FMB say these expectations “rarely match the reality of modern renovation projects”, where skilled labour and technical preparation account for much of a project’s time and cost.
On this topic, two-in-five (38%) correctly identified labour as the most expensive element of a bathroom renovation, but many still assumed fittings or fixtures made up the largest expense in a project.
For context, the FMB estimates that in a typical project, labour can account for “around 40–50% of the total cost”. This is followed by fittings such as baths, showers and basins (which it says takes up 20-25%), plumbing and electrical work (15-20%) and tiles and finishing materials (10-15%). The Federation added that misunderstandings over renovation work can leave homeowners “vulnerable to poor workmanship or rogue traders”, with industry estimates suggesting that £14.3bn has already been lost to rogue traders over the past five years.
“Too many homeowners start a renovation with an unrealistic picture of how long it will take and what it will cost and that’s where things start to go wrong,” lamented Brian Berry, CEO of the Federation of Master Builders.
