A bathroom is a small room with a great deal in it: drainage, water supply, ventilation, electrics, waterproofing and finish. Built in the wrong order, it gets opened up twice. We run it as one programme with one point of contact, and where the job moves a soil pipe, alters a floor or forms a new opening, we deal with the approvals as well. This page covers what that involves for a Beaconsfield property.
A new window in a flank wall has a minimum cill height here
The local design guide sets it. The South Bucks District Local Plan's House Extensions Design Guide says high level windows in a flank wall should have a cill height of not less than 1.8 metres above internal finished floor level. Where a bathroom takes its light or its ventilation from a flank wall, that figure sets the layout before anything else does.
It shapes the fittings as well. A cill at 1.8 metres sits above a shower riser and above a tiled splash line, so the tiling, the extract position and the window have to be set out together. We draw that before the wall is opened rather than after the frame has been ordered.
In a split level house, moving a bathroom is a drainage problem
The levels decide where the waste can go. The Hampden Hill Conservation Area appraisal records that the houses there are built against the hillside with spreading, split level plans, and that the seven Type A houses sit on five levels including the garage level.
Waste pipes need a continuous fall to a stack, and a half level between rooms can take away the depth that fall needs. Moving a bathroom across a split level therefore starts with the drainage route rather than the sanitaryware. We survey the existing runs and confirm the fall before a layout is agreed.
The public sewer belongs to Thames Water
Thames Water is the sewer undertaker for this area. The Chiltern and South Bucks Strategic Flood Risk Assessment names Thames Water as the sewer undertaker consulted for the former Chiltern and South Bucks districts, which cover Beaconsfield. It records that Thames Water supplied the DG5 sewer flooding data used in the assessment.
So a new soil connection, or structure over or near a public sewer, involves the undertaker as well as building control. Inside the house, the parts that decide whether a bathroom lasts are the ones that get covered: the fall on the waste, the tanking behind the tile, and the extract that vents outside rather than into a void. We do not close any of them up before they have been seen.
- Walk-in showers and wet-room installation
- Underfloor heating and heated towel rails
- Bespoke vanity units and storage
- Grout, silicone and trim detailing at completion
- Notifiable bathroom electrics certified under Part P
Trusted Bathroom Renovation in Beaconsfield
A bathroom goes wrong in the parts you cannot see. We build the waste falls, the tanking and the ventilation first, and we do not cover them before they have been checked. One point of contact runs the plumbing, the electrics, the tiling and the making good, and where the work is notifiable we make the building control application to Buckinghamshire Council and hold the dates. Where a bathroom involves a structural opening, we appoint a structural engineer and build to their calculations rather than writing our own. GS Renovation Ltd is fully insured and registered in England, company number 14611254.
- Structural engineer instructed and coordinated on your behalf
- Waste runs and pipe falls confirmed before the floor closes up
- Extraction sized and ducted outside, never into the loft
- Full tanking behind tiles and across shower floors
- Free, no-obligation quotations
- Fully insured, with cover in place on every site