Guide
Looking after a new bathroom
A well-fitted bathroom is a low-maintenance thing, but it is not a no-maintenance thing. Five minutes a week and one hour a year is genuinely the whole job — here is what those minutes should be spent on.
The first week
New silicone needs time. Give it around 24 hours before filling the bath or using the shower properly, and try not to scrub it for the first few days. Grout also continues to cure after it looks dry — if a sealer is going on, it wants to wait a good few days rather than go on the same afternoon.
- Leave silicone to cure before heavy use — around 24 hours.
- Ventilate hard for the first week; there is a lot of moisture in new adhesive and grout.
- Do not use anything abrasive on new grout.
- Keep the spare tiles we leave you somewhere dry and memorable.
Every week, more or less
Almost everything that ruins a bathroom finish is a cleaning product rather than wear. Bleach-based and strongly acidic cleaners attack cement grout, dull polished porcelain and strip the finish off brassware — matt black and brushed brass taps in particular are ruined far more often by cleaning than by use.
- Warm water and a mild pH-neutral cleaner beats anything aggressive.
- No bleach, no limescale remover and no scouring cream on grout or on coloured brassware.
- Squeegee or wipe the screen after a shower — it takes ten seconds and prevents most limescale.
- Dry the shower tray and the bath edge rather than leaving standing water against silicone.
Once a year
Give the room an hour. Check every line of silicone — the bath edge, the tray, the internal corners — and look for anything lifting, splitting or going black at the back rather than on the surface. Black on the surface cleans off. Black behind it means water has got in and that run wants cutting out and redoing, which is a small job now and a floor job if it is left.
- Inspect all silicone; replace anything lifting or discoloured behind the surface.
- Check grout lines for hairline cracks, especially on floors and at changes of plane.
- Clean the extractor grille and check it is still actually pulling air.
- Run any rarely-used tap or shower for a minute to keep the seals happy.
Things worth ringing us about
Bathrooms give plenty of warning before they cause damage, as long as somebody notices. Most of what follows is an hour's work if it is caught early and a great deal more if it is not.
- Grout going soft, powdery or repeatedly cracking in the same place.
- Silicone that has come away from the tile or the bath rim.
- A tile that sounds hollow when you tap it, or one that has cracked out of nowhere.
- Damp, staining or a soft patch on the ceiling below the bathroom.
- A shower that has lost pressure or gone erratic on temperature.
We would rather you rang early
A line of silicone that has started to lift is twenty minutes. The same line ignored for a year can be a floor. If something in a room we fitted does not look right, ring us — we would far rather come and look at it than hear about it later from somebody else.
Thinking about the bathroom?
Ring or text the number below, or email a couple of photos and rough measurements. We come and look at the room before we price it — it is the only way the number you are given at the start is the number you pay at the end.
We're on the tools between eight and five, so a text or a voicemail is never ignored — you'll get a call back the same day.