Bathroom Renovation Plumbing Wellington

A new bathroom is only as good as what sits behind the walls and under the floor. Get the falls, waste sizes, valve positions and waterproofing junctions right, and it looks good for decades. Get them wrong, and you end up lifting tiles to chase a leak.

We plumb bathroom renovations for homeowners, builders and designers across the region, from cottages in Mt Victoria and Brooklyn to family homes in Tawa, Upper Hutt and Waikanae. We plan the layout with you, rough in the pipework at the right stage, coordinate with the waterproofer and tiler, fit off every fixture, and provide the plumbing documentation your council needs when consent is involved.

Pricing: quotes are free, and every job gets a fixed price before we start, so there are no surprises on the invoice.

Bathroom Renovation Plumbing Jobs We Handle Across Wellington

• Bathroom renovation plumbing
• Bathroom plumbers
• Walk-in shower plumbing
• Vanity and basin installs
• Moving a toilet
• Ensuite plumbing

What we do in a bathroom renovation

Our scope usually covers:

• Planning the layout and checking where wastes and supplies can go
• Stripping out and capping old pipework
• Rough-in of supply and waste pipes for every fixture
• In-wall frames for wall-hung toilets and concealed cisterns
• Shower mixers, valves and floor wastes or linear drains
• Pressure testing before the linings go on
• Final fit-off of tapware, toilet, vanity, bath and shower

Planning: the part that saves money

Moving a toilet a metre, or putting a shower where the bath was, can be simple or costly depending on how the wastes run. Many older Wellington houses stand on timber piles with a subfloor you can get under, which usually makes moving wastes underneath straightforward. On a concrete slab, moving a toilet or shower waste can mean cutting the slab. We work this out at the start so your design is based on real costs.

We also look at the hot water. A new rain shower is a let-down on a low pressure cylinder, so if you are planning one, the renovation is the time to consider a mains pressure hot water cylinder. And if the old cylinder lives in the bathroom cupboard, now is the moment to decide whether it stays there.

How It Works

Compliance and consent

Most bathroom plumbing is sanitary plumbing that must be done by a plumber licensed with the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board. Some renovations also need building consent, for example when you add a new sanitary fixture or change the drainage. Wet areas must manage water under Building Code clause E3, and drainage must meet clause G13.

Under G12/AS1, new plumbing to showers, basins and baths must limit hot water delivery temperature, which since the 2023 change is 50 degrees C in most homes. That is usually done with tempering valves at the cylinder. Consents go through your own council: Wellington City, Hutt City, Upper Hutt, Porirua or Kāpiti Coast. Porirua City Council offers free advice on whether a project needs consent, and Kāpiti has a discretionary exemption process for some work. We tell you upfront whether your project needs consent and supply the plumbing details.

Old houses, apartments and new builds

Villa and cottage bathrooms in suburbs like Newtown and Thorndon often hide old galvanised supply pipe and earthenware wastes. Repiping while the walls are open costs far less than doing it later. Upstairs bathrooms on hillside houses can have tricky waste routes down to the drain, so we plan those before the builder closes anything up.

Apartment renovations in Te Aro and Thorndon come with their own rules. The body corporate usually needs to approve work on shared risers and wastes, and some buildings restrict noisy work to set hours. We work within those rules and keep the paperwork tidy for the building manager.

Timing matters as much as pipework. We pressure test every supply line before linings go on and check waste falls before the floor is waterproofed, because a fault found after tiling is the dearest kind.

What affects the cost

We give a free quote once we know the plan. Plumbing costs rise with the number of fixtures, layout changes, slab cutting, wall-hung toilets and concealed cisterns, level-entry showers with linear drains, hot water upgrades, and access, such as upstairs bathrooms with no ceiling space below or homes reached by a long flight of steps.

If the shower is the main part of the job, our shower installation page covers falls, membranes and mixers in more detail. If the bathroom shares a wall with the kitchen or laundry, we can look at tidying up those services in the same visit.

Why Choose Cheeky's Plumbers for Bathroom Renovation Plumbing

Bathroom Renovation Plumbing FAQs

Bathroom Renovation Plumbing Across Wellington

Our bathroom renovation plumbing team works in every Wellington suburb. Find your local plumbers:

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