The Little Bathroom Shop Epworth, Doncaster
We were approached by the owner The Little Bathroom Shop Ltd (Epworth) as he’d heard through a friend that we were looking to have our en-suite refurbished and he asked to meet us to discuss and quote for the job. Our friend had quite a bit of work done by The Little Bathroom Shop and Roy came recommended. On meeting, he came across as very professional and knowledgeable. After agreeing the designs and cost at quite a hefty price but with the promise of a fabulous new en-suite, work commenced at the beginning of September with a timescale of 20-25 days to complete. We got off to a promising start but very quickly we began to encounter lots of problems. Work slowed dramatically and we were concerned about the structure of the shower/ steam area. What was once a large open shower area was becoming a very small and enclosed space. Broken and cracked tiles were being fitted with lots of misalignment and uneven trim. We kept raising our concerns with Roy who told us not to worry and that we won’t see it when it’s all finished. Two hair line cracks in the wall tiles were tried to be covered by silicone. We also kept raising our concerns about the space we had lost in the shower area and that such loss of space wasn’t demonstrated in the original designs. Works continued on at a snails pace and at almost 10 weeks later and completion no where near in sight, we found Roy sleeping on our bedroom floor at 12:20pm on Wednesday 11th November. We asked him to leave our home and not continue working. He wanted to finish the job, telling us that it’d be finished that week but we had had enough. We felt that not only had the relationship broken down but we were still weeks away from finishing and the quality of work was substandard and our concerns not taken seriously. At this point we had engaged various tradesmen to come and assess the quality of the workmanship. We also had a professional survey carried out to which a report has been written with their findings. Such findings supported our concerns of the poor quality tiling work, the very enclosed shower/ steam area, the sink unit having too much movement in it and being too wobbly (we were informed by Roy that there was nothing to be done about this but if we wanted to source new brackets, he would happily fit them) but also highlighted such facts that the bath had been placed the wrong way round but is now impossible to turn as the pipework has been drilled into the underside of the bath. More importantly, the report shows that the shower/ steam area was not tanked sufficiently to ensure that it was watertight. The seat that had been installed quite literally ‘popped’ off and was only secured with a large ‘blob’ of tile adhesive and again not tanked at all. A floor tile that was replaced as it was broken, was found to be stuck down with just silicone. A very significant finding was that the pressure release outlet for steam was set up to release into the shower area when it should be set up to run directly into the drain under the shower tray. When the shower tray was taken up it was found to be sat on timber rather than the sub concrete. The sub concrete was found to be damaged, with it being littered with ‘peppering’ where drilling had taken place to relocate the drain site for the shower. Time and again we raised our concerns both verbally and in writing and we were completely ignored, being told that ‘it’ll look great when it’s finished’ - sadly it didn’t, even unfinished. Not only were we left to start the project again but we have also been left hugely out of pocket. We paid monies to The Little Bathroom Shop as per the contractual terms but we also paid additional monies that were requested over and above those terms as ‘due to the length time, it would help’. We have tried to recover some of the costs of items that we haven’t had. To date, we have only received half of those monies. Now our calls and messages are left unanswered. Hopefully people will proceed with caution before engaging with this company and we truly hope that no one else has to go through the same experience and losses we have.
By Sarah A.