Renovating your
bathroom.

Changing a vanity unit, repainting, replacing a mixer tap: this work takes a day or two and does not touch the pipework. A complete renovation is a different job. The room is stripped back to bare walls, the supplies, drains, electrics and waterproofing are reworked, then everything is rebuilt. Neither the budget nor the duration is of the same order.

What decides between the two is the condition of what you cannot see. Tiling that sounds hollow, blackened joints at the foot of the shower, a smell of damp or a stain on the ceiling of the room below almost always betray an old leak. A simple freshening up would cover it over without fixing it.

The layout matters too. Keeping the shower, WC and basin where they are limits the plumbing. Moving a WC means connecting to the stack with a sufficient fall, which is not always possible without raising the floor or going through the neighbouring room.

1. Survey and diagnosis. We measure the room, locate the water supply, the drainage stack, the electrical panel and the ventilation, and probe the partitions and floor. It is this survey that tells you, for example, whether a level-access shower is feasible in the position you want.

2. Removal and demolition. Fittings, wall tiles, floor covering and sometimes partitions go to the waste site. In an old building, this is also when the real condition of the floor is discovered.

3. Plumbing. Our plumbers create the new cold and hot water supplies and the drains, with the falls required to the stack. The support frame for the wall-hung WC is fitted at this stage, before any partition.

4. Electrics. Our electricians run the lines for the lighting, sockets and towel rail. The NF C 15-100 standard divides the room into zones around the shower and the bath: they set what can be installed, and where.

5. Plastering. Our plasterers build the partitions and casings in moisture-resistant boards, box in the pipework and, if needed, create a suspended ceiling to recess spotlights.

6. Waterproofing. On the walls and floor of the shower area, an under-tile waterproofing system (SPEC) is applied in coats, with tapes in the corners. Once the job is finished, nobody sees it any more: yet it is what prevents water damage.

7. Tiling and wall tiles. Our tilers lay the floor, the shower tray or tiled shower, then the wall tiles. The setting times of the adhesive and grout impose a rhythm that must not be compressed.

8. Fittings and finishes. Screen, shower column, WC pan, vanity unit, towel rail; then our painters treat the ceiling and the untiled parts.

9. Ventilation and testing. A bathroom produces a lot of steam: without extraction, it condenses on cold walls and ends up in the joints. We connect a vent to the existing mechanical ventilation (VMC) or fit an extractor, then we turn the water on and check every connection before handing the room back to you.

Allow on average two to three weeks for a completely redone bathroom, removal included. The duration runs longer when a partition is moved, when the floor has to be repaired, or when a made-to-measure fitting has a manufacturing lead time.

During this time, the room cannot be used. In a house with only one bathroom, this is the first point to organise with us: keeping a WC in service for as long as possible, or phasing the work to keep a water point. In a co-owned building, also inform the managing agent if the work affects the shared water or drainage stacks.

What really saves time: choosing the fittings before the start. The plumbing and wall tiles are set to the exact dimensions of the shower tray, the unit and the support frame; an item delivered late blocks every stage that follows.

These ranges are taken from our 2024-2026 quotes in Savoie and Haute-Savoie. For each item, we took the price charged on each job, then kept the spread between the cheapest quarter and the most expensive quarter. Amounts exclude VAT, with supply and fitting included in the great majority of lines.

An item does not always appear on its own on a quote: the shower tray, screen and column are sometimes priced together, and the fitting sometimes appears on a separate labour line. That is why we think in ranges, and why two quotes can only be compared on an identical scope. The widest gaps, from single to double, concern the fittings: it is the range chosen that explains them, not the fitting work.

To give an order of magnitude, we put these prices together on a typical shower room of about 5 m²: removal of what is there, 15 m² of wall tiles demolished then relaid, 5 m² of floor tiling, new supplies and drains, shower waterproofing, shower tray, screen, shower column, wall-hung WC, vanity unit, towel rail, a set of spotlights, two sockets and ceiling painting. This is a calculation, not a real job: your quote will start from your room.

These amounts stay within the range of €6,000 to €15,000 that we give for a 4 to 6 m² bathroom on our pages for Aix-les-Bains, Annecy and Chambéry. Adding a bath next to the shower represents €800 to €1,850 excl. VAT extra; a larger room mainly increases the wall tiles and the floor, invoiced per square metre.

We do not give a price per square metre for a bathroom, for a simple reason: in a small room, the fittings weigh more than the area. A 4 m² shower room and an 8 m² bathroom often receive the same WC, the same shower column and the same unit. Brought down to the square metre, the price of the small one looks much higher, without it costing more to build.

The layout. Leaving the supplies and the stack where they are remains the clearest saving. Moving a shower to the other end of the room means new drains, sometimes a screed to bury the pipes and create the fall.

The type of shower. An extra-flat shower tray is fitted faster than a tiled shower, which requires more work on falls and waterproofing. On the three jobs where we priced a tiled shower tray or channel, the supply alone was between about €1,500 and €2,150 excl. VAT. A guide devoted to the walk-in shower will follow, as will a guide to the wall-hung WC, present on 44 of the jobs in our quotes.

The range of fittings. The table shows it: a shower column, a unit or a screen can cost double from one model to another, for an identical fitting. This is the item on which you keep control.

Discoveries during demolition. A timber floor damaged by an old leak, a partition too fragile to carry wall tiles, old pipework to replace: the prior survey reduces this risk, without being able to eliminate it. We flag it in the quote rather than have it discovered on the invoice.

In the old buildings of Aix-les-Bains or Chambéry, the bathroom has often been added after the fact, in a former closet or a section of corridor, on a timber floor and with small-diameter drains. Before promising a level-access shower, we check the thickness available under the floor and the route to the stack.

In a chalet, a tiled shower on a timber floor requires a recess in the floor or a slight raising, and particularly careful waterproofing: wood moves, wall tiles do not. In second homes in the resorts, the job is also timed around the periods when the property is unoccupied.

Finally, redoing a bathroom is the right moment to deal with damp. In an old house with cold walls, steam condenses where the insulation is missing. If insulating the walls from the inside is planned in the coming years, it is better to include it before the wall tiles than to break up a new bathroom.

In a home completed more than two years ago, renovating a bathroom is subject to the 10% rate: labour, materials, and fittings built into the structure such as the shower tray, the wall-hung WC or a fixed unit. A freestanding unit stays at the standard rate of 20%, even if it appears on the same quote, as do materials and fittings that you buy yourself.

Since 1 March 2025, there is no longer any need to fill in a certificate: you certify that the conditions for the reduced rate are met by a statement on the quote or invoice. All cases, including that of recent homes, are detailed in our guide to VAT on renovation work.