A wet room can be a fantastic addition to your home, offering a sleek, modern look with easy accessibility. However, installing a wet room is a significant project that requires careful planning and consideration. Before diving into this renovation, it’s crucial to ask yourself three key questions to ensure the process goes smoothly and meets your expectations.
When designed around your specific needs and requirements, a wet room can help reduce the risk of slips, trips and falls, giving you back control over your daily routine and promoting independent living for longer.
Whether you’re in need of adaptations yourself, or you are looking for wet room advice for someone you support, before you appoint a contractor to undertake the work, there are 3 questions you should ask to make sure you are making the right choice…
1. Who Will Do the Work?
The installation of a wet room involves a range of skills, including plumbing, tiling, waterproofing, and electrical work. Therefore, it’s essential to choose the right professionals for the job. It’s easy to think that all building companies could carry out the work, and to some extent that is true, but if you’re installing a wet room, you want complete faith in their ability. For confidence, comfort and safety, a specialist wet room installer is the best choice.
Here’s what you should look for:
Recommendations: Seeking recommendations from friends, family, or neighbours who have had similar work done is a great place to start. If you have had an occupational therapy assessment, ask for a recommendation from your OT. Look at testimonials from other clients the company have helped in the past.
Experience: Check their knowledge and experience installing this type of bathroom.
Accreditations: Look for accreditations, these ensure the company work to industry standards and expectations.
By checking the contractor has all the above, you can feel safe in the knowledge that they can design and install your wet room to a high standard, giving you total peace of mind.
2. Who Does the Design?
The design of your wet room is crucial to both its functionality and aesthetics. At The Elegant Duck we specialise in wet rooms and our design service will consider not only the look you want for your bathroom but also the practicalities of the design. A frequently asked question is “Will my bathroom look clinical?” and the answer is absolutely not. Whilst we make sure the bathroom is designed to meet your requirements; we are also aware that this is your home and the last thing you want is a wet room that looks like a hospital.
Some of the things we will discuss with you are:
Flooring: The flooring for any wet room needs to be non-slip. The most popular options available are vinyl and tiles. These come in many colour choices.
Wall Finishes: you can choose from tiles or waterproof wall panels. These wall panels come in a range of sizes and finishes including marble, stone and wood allowing you to have a truly bespoke space.
Heating: You can choose from heated towel rails, radiators or underfloor heating to ensure a comfortable and cost environment.
Fixtures & Fittings: From taps to toilets, storage to sinks there are a wide variety of accessories to choose from which can help with any mobility issues you may have.
3. What’s the Cost?
The cost of the wet room will always be an important part of your decision making, but it shouldn’t be the deciding factor.
Other considerations include:
Experience: All of our fitters are highly trained multi skilled fitters with plenty of experience. They can overcome any issues that may arise quickly and efficiently.
Knowledge: You want to make sure that the company you use are experienced in quoting for this type of wet room and that they understand your individual requirements and the products you may need to overcome any mobility issues.
Guarantees: In case things go wrong, you want to know that you can access help to put things right as soon as possible
At The Elegant Duck, we specialise in providing you with high-quality, bespoke, non-clinical bathroom adaptations that meet your needs and suit your budget. Using our knowledge and experience in designing and installing wet rooms, we’ll provide you with an accessible bathroom that is beautifully finished and helps promote independent living.
