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Bathroom equipment from PJH (Bathrooms to Love)?

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Clariman
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Bathroom equipment from PJH (Bathrooms to Love)?

#165488

Postby Clariman » September 10th, 2018, 1:59 pm

We are getting a bathroom redone at home - a complete refit. One of our local bathroom installers uses products mainly from the 'bathrooms to love' catalogue which is a division or brand name of PJH. However, PJH themselves appear to be primarily distributors. http://www.bathroomstolove.uk/?cc=true

Has anyone used their stuff? Is it good quality?

Our current bathroom is Porcelanosa which was included in the new build. We are not brand driven - we don't necessarily mind if it is anonymous stuff as long as it is good quality. That said, if we decided to sell the house, having a decent name might be better. BTW the installer does use Porcelanosa tiles and will get other sanitary ware if we want.

Thanks
C

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Re: Bathroom equipment from PJH (Bathrooms to Love)?

#165533

Postby PrincessB » September 10th, 2018, 5:34 pm

We are getting a bathroom redone at home - a complete refit.


I'm wondering how 'designed' your bathroom is going to be. Are you going to be specifying every last detail with a view towards the most enjoyable washing space ever or are you more minded towards solid and functional?

Leaving aside for a moment the lighting, heating, flooring/walls as well as washbasin(s) and taps, I can think of two areas which will benefit from some research in bathroom showrooms.

First is the toilet, or rather the water trap inside the pan. If you pay a visit to any DIY superstore, you'll find few close coupled cistern and WC packages usually for less than £200 if not lower. On closer examination you'll usually spot the water trap is pushed too far forwards for normal anatomy, which to put delicately means you'll spend a lot of time with the loo brush.

More expensive items can share this design 'feature' which is where actually seeing the item, or at a push a set of dimensions is crucial.

Second is the shower enclosure (or shower bath if you have limited space) Another area where a bit of time spent inside enclosures in a showroom is well worth it. In this instance, you can work out your comfortable size. When I was researching bathrooms, I found that the space jump from a 600x600 cubical to 700x700 was huge, 800x800 even better etc. There's nothing like being within a set of enclosures of varying sizes to establish what will suit you best.

In the end for space considerations we went for this shower bath.
https://www.soakology.co.uk/carron-swin ... ite-white/

You'll see that the wine ledge means the side of the tub front to back is flat negating the need for a moulded side panel and allowing us to tile the side panel to match the walls. I can highly recommend this bath both as a bath and shower enclosure though do note there are two types of shower screen that marry with this unit.

Two final recommendations and an idea are:

In line extraction - Moving the fan away from the ceiling vent dramatically reduces noise - I don't want to be in a bathroom that sounds like I'm doing the hoovering in there.

A quiet shower pump, assuming you have tanked water storage. I'm pretty sure my Brother in laws shower pump is louder than a rock concert and vibrates the enclosure hard enough to worry about fillings. We used a pump by company Stuart Turner on a recommendation by an excellent local plumbers merchant.

On that note, installers tend to want to install stuff they have put in before or get a decent price on. Builders who fit kitchens often recommend Howdens Joinery. Discussions on the old fool site were positive on Howdens but you're going to be the one who uses the bathroom so why limit yourself to the stuff they want to sell you.

Finally the idea. If you do bathe rather than try to get through the shower in the fastest possible time, a waterproofed bluetooth speaker
in the ceiling will give the opportunity to listen to music or the news while reclining in the tub with a glass of something chilled and bubbly on the ledge.

HTH

B.

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Re: Bathroom equipment from PJH (Bathrooms to Love)?

#165534

Postby Clariman » September 10th, 2018, 5:42 pm

Many thanks B. I should have said that the layout of our bathroom works just fine, so we are not changing that. However, we are putting in new WC, shower (800x800), bath, basin and tiles. We have an extractor and a speaker in the ceiling which will stay.

We are speaking to two bathroom installers at the moment. I think both will let us choose pretty much anything if they can get their hands on it. One I think will be going top-end is my guess (we see him tomorrow), the other uses mainly bathrooms-to-love (PJH) and swears by them. However, they are just a distributor and I can see nothing online that tells me who actually makes it or whether the quality is any good - which is strange given that they seem to be pretty big.

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Re: Bathroom equipment from PJH (Bathrooms to Love)?

#165623

Postby Bminusrob » September 11th, 2018, 9:39 am

We replaced our bathroom a couple of years ago, and we are just in the process of having an en-suite added, so having learnt a few lessons, I hope you don't mind me sharing them.

As PrincessB said, a bigger shower enclosure is well worth considering. We had a smaller bath fitted, just so we could get a 1200x900 shower enclosure instead of the previous 760x760. The bath is fine for the odd occasions we use it, and the shower (Aqualisa) is fantastic. We had a combined toilet and bidet fitted, which my wife swears by, and had a virtually silent extractor fan fitted, as recommended by our fitter (Screwfix fan). One thing to watch for with the toilet is the size of the tank for the flush. Current regulation push for ever smaller tanks to save water. I think the current limit is five litres. This is a false economy, as you often have to flush twoor three times to clear the pan, so if you can find one which has a higher fall, you may actually achieve a water saving.

Our fitter was happy for us to pick and mix components from multiple suppliers, and most reasonable fitters would do the same.

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Re: Bathroom equipment from PJH (Bathrooms to Love)?

#165626

Postby DrFfybes » September 11th, 2018, 9:51 am

Bminusrob wrote:We replaced our bathroom a couple of years ago, and we are just in the process of having an en-suite added, so having learnt a few lessons, I hope you don't mind me sharing them.

As PrincessB said, a bigger shower enclosure is well worth considering. We had a smaller bath fitted, just so we could get a 1200x900 shower enclosure instead of the previous 760x760. The bath is fine for the odd occasions we use it, and the shower (Aqualisa) is fantastic.


We went for a 1200x800 shower and a tapered "spacesaver" bath (so the walkway between was still over a metre.)

Generally we only run the bath taps when the u-bend dries out and it starts to smell.

Paul

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Re: Bathroom equipment from PJH (Bathrooms to Love)?

#165711

Postby PrincessB » September 11th, 2018, 5:42 pm

Hi Clariman,

I followed the link for Bathrooms to Love to the find a showroom section, there seem to be loads scattered around the county. The website only shows three options if you type a city name, if you type in another city you are offered three more and so on.

A few phone calls to the showrooms will establish if the PJH products, while unbranded, are fabulous and crucially what the branded alternatives would be in the same price range.

We are not brand driven - we don't necessarily mind if it is anonymous stuff as long as it is good quality.


I would be very wary of an unbranded shower or toilet cistern, if you need replacement parts a few years down the line, you have a better chance of getting them for a branded unit.

On the washbasin and WC front, if you fancy overwhelming yourself with information, try the Armitage Shanks website, it's great for some quality research time as the product range is astonishing.

Bminusrob and DrFfybes have both gone for the small 'occasional bathtub' and larger shower enclosure solution. I also considered something similar using a Japanese style soaking tub with a large shower enclosure before settling down and just having a shower bath.

While I'd guess you're happy with the layout of your bathroom, I would recommend that if you start getting creative with bigger shower pans and unusual bathtub sizes, you get the squared paper out and make sure everthing will fit each time you consider an alternative item.

Regards,

B.

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Re: Bathroom equipment from PJH (Bathrooms to Love)?

#166539

Postby stewamax » September 15th, 2018, 10:30 am

Instead of tiling the shower back, have a look at cut-to-size acrylic or PVC panelling.
I have a shower that has been used every day for fifteen years and the panelling is (really...) good as new.

I think mine was one of Neptune's range, but whether they still sell large single boards rather than big tiles I don't know. The only caveat is to seal the edges well when installing; this pre-empts what happened to a friend whose similar boards merely touched (rather than went below) the show basin edge, water got in, and the surface 'bubbled'.

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Re: Bathroom equipment from PJH (Bathrooms to Love)?

#166552

Postby Howard » September 15th, 2018, 12:05 pm

I would echo the advice above. Especially the excellent suggestion of getting as big a shower cubicle as possible and the advice on the loo design.

We have had two bathrooms remodelled and I have not regretted going upmarket and choosing Villeroy and Boch basins baths and sanitary ware. Also Hansgrohe taps and shower controls (upmarket version of Grohe).

Over nearly 10 years of usage, the bathrooms still look immaculate.

Only two regrets. We could have had a bigger shower - see above. And for the first bathroom I chose very expensive non-slip tiles for the floor. They were a big mistake because they act like very fine sandpaper and abrade dust from the soles of slippers and shoes. So they require incessant cleaning.
For the second bathroom we used floor tiles from Topps, which are slightly smoother and hardly ever show the dirt or dust.

Hope the project goes well.

Howard

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Re: Bathroom equipment from PJH (Bathrooms to Love)?

#167306

Postby PrincessB » September 18th, 2018, 7:47 pm

Only two regrets. We could have had a bigger shower - see above. And for the first bathroom I chose very expensive non-slip tiles for the floor.


We've used a fairly waterproof laminate, trade name Twin Clic or Click by Grant Westfield. I see they also do the big shower panels mentioned in the previous post.

Also Hansgrohe taps and shower controls (upmarket version of Grohe).


We went with a Hansgrohe shower which cost a lot. Was it worth it? Yep, worth every penny, I do have tanked water storage though, the water flow rate will exceed most combi boilers capacity.

B.

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Re: Bathroom equipment from PJH (Bathrooms to Love)?

#172706

Postby sg31 » October 10th, 2018, 8:04 am

PrincessB wrote:

First is the toilet, or rather the water trap inside the pan. If you pay a visit to any DIY superstore, you'll find few close coupled cistern and WC packages usually for less than £200 if not lower. On closer examination you'll usually spot the water trap is pushed too far forwards for normal anatomy, which to put delicately means you'll spend a lot of time with the loo brush.

More expensive items can share this design 'feature' which is where actually seeing the item, or at a push a set of dimensions is crucial.


B.


Hi, Princess B (and others), I'm interested in your comments about WC pans and water traps. We are currently building a new bathroom and are almost at the fitting out stage. Your comments hit home because while our downstairs bathroom WC is OK we have just been on holiday and the WC's in the hotel were a nightmare for needing the toilet brush.

May I ask which toilet system you eventually went for? I'm interested in functionality my wife is interested in appearance. If I can show her something that is known to be functional maybe she will like it, if not maybe we can find a suitable compromise.

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Re: Bathroom equipment from PJH (Bathrooms to Love)?

#172753

Postby stewamax » October 10th, 2018, 11:03 am

One critical feature of shower mechanisms is how long does it take for the temperature regulator (often a cartridge consisting of one cylinder rotating around another) to scale up.
For comparison, an (old) Mira 723 mixer shower used daily in my water-supply area will scale up in around a year, whereas the much later Mira Excel ones appear not to scale up at all. Ask around.
But even with reliable ones, I would always plump for an exposed rather than recessed mechanism - infinitely easier to maintain. And check with the installer where the H and C supplies inline isolating valves are (you need to turn them off before dismantling the unit); if there are hidden behind a tiled false wall you will kick yourself!

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Re: Bathroom equipment from PJH (Bathrooms to Love)?

#175396

Postby PrincessB » October 21st, 2018, 8:07 pm

Hi sg31,

Hugely late with a reply as usual.

Hi, Princess B (and others), I'm interested in your comments about WC pans and water traps. We are currently building a new bathroom and are almost at the fitting out stage. Your comments hit home because while our downstairs bathroom WC is OK we have just been on holiday and the WC's in the hotel were a nightmare for needing the toilet brush.

May I ask which toilet system you eventually went for? I'm interested in functionality my wife is interested in appearance. If I can show her something that is known to be functional maybe she will like it, if not maybe we can find a suitable compromise.


Upstairs and downstairs have wall hanging toilets with waterproof laminate flooring to make cleaning easy.

Smaller Loo has a rimless unit by Duravit which makes for a larger pan shape along with concealed cistern and push button flush both by Duravit.
Score 7/10. They have messed up the flow pattern which means water spashes out of the pan on flush, it does flush well and brush use is minimal. Water quality in my area is not great so one needs to scrape the holes where the rimless system ejects water as they grime up.

Bathroom has a wall hung unit by Burlington coupled to a cistern and button flush by Thomas Dudley.

Overall, I prefer the bathroom loo, it needs a little attention but apparently the loo has a non stick coating nanoglaze so it's pretty easy to keep clean. Score 8/10.

If I were to do it all again, I'd look hard at Armitage Shanks as they have been doing sanitaryware forever.

On the amusing note, those Japanese bottom washing toilets require an understanding of Japanese to control. I tried one in a showroom bathroom and was stuck there having my unders washed for quite some time before it timed out. You can't just get off the po when the system is active as it would squirt water all over the ceiling.

I think the French has the right idea with the bidet concept, but if it takes a couple of minites of running the water before it runs warm, you're stuck with icy cold bottom washing which only some would enjoy.

Regards,

B.

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Re: Bathroom equipment from PJH (Bathrooms to Love)?

#175400

Postby Itsallaguess » October 21st, 2018, 8:18 pm

PrincessB wrote:
In line extraction - Moving the fan away from the ceiling vent dramatically reduces noise - I don't want to be in a bathroom that sounds like I'm doing the hoovering in there.


A few years ago I got fed up with either having to replace the wall/ceiling mounted fans, or having to live with the racket they produce once their bearings start to go, so in the end I removed it completely and just left a 100mm grill in the ceiling, and installed a Manrose MF100T in-line extraction fan in my loft -

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Manrose-MF100T ... B01G8DM5UA

Getting the fan away from the ceiling, and mounted on rubber feet on a major joist in the loft, has made the bathroom extraction virtually silent now, with just a quiet whoosh of air being sucked into the ceiling grill the only noise you can hear, and only then if you're really close to it and trying to check that it's on..

If anyone is stripping a bathroom back and has loft-space above to enable the mounting of one of these in-line units, I can highly recommend them. As well as the real benefit of removing a quite annoying noise-source, the extraction-rates themselves are a magnitude better than the smaller ceiling-mounted fans, so a huge double-benefit was seen as soon as this Manrose fan was installed.

Note that the unit linked above is the model with the in-built timer functionality. I think a saving of about £8 can be had if that's not required.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess


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