Loft bathrooms in East Sussex

What does a loft bathroom cost in East Sussex?

Our guide range in East Sussex is £7,300–£14,500 including VAT. Prices in East Sussex run at about 12% above the UK guide, based on South East England labour rates.

Guide prices for East Sussex including VAT. Your itemised written quote after the free survey is the price that counts.

Which towns do we cover in East Sussex?

• Brighton
• Eastbourne
• Hastings
• Hove
• Bexhill-on-Sea
• Hailsham
• Seaford
• Rottingdean
• Crowborough
• Portslade
• Peacehaven
• Uckfield
• Lewes

Most of East Sussex has hard water. If your supply in Brighton is the same, limescale on shower glass and heads is a real issue: easy-clean glass, rub-clean nozzles and a squeegee make a big difference. Hardness varies street by street, so check the figure for your postcode with your water supplier. For a loft bathroom in a tank-fed Brighton home, we work out how the shower will get its pressure before choosing a single fitting.

What the job includes

• A check of the floor joists where a bath or large shower tray will sit
• Electrics by a qualified electrician, tested and certified, then tiling, testing and handover
• An extractor fan ducted through the roof or a gable wall, with the duct insulated through cold spaces
• A check of your hot-water system and of the pressure and flow you actually get at loft level
• Fitted furniture made to the eaves, so the low space behind the slope becomes storage
• A drainage route from the loft to the soil stack with enough fall, or a pumped waste or macerator where the rules allow it

Decisions to make first

Getting the water pressure

A pumped shower suits a gravity system with a cold tank; an electric shower heats cold mains water at the point of use; a combi or unvented cylinder gives mains pressure throughout.

Bath or no bath

A bath under the slope makes good use of low space, but the floor has to carry it when it is full of water and someone is in it.

Gravity or pumped waste

Gravity is silent and maintenance-free. A pumped waste or macerator lets fittings sit away from the stack, provided the house has a WC on gravity drainage elsewhere.

Eaves storage

Low cupboards built into the slope behind the WC or basin take clutter out of the room and hide the pipework.

Rules that apply in England

A bathroom inside an existing loft room does not usually need planning permission, but forming one is normally building-regulations work because of the new drainage, extract ventilation and electrics. A macerator or pumped WC is acceptable only where the home also has a WC on gravity drainage. Under the water fittings rules, a shower pump must never be connected directly to the mains supply.

In England, new drainage and a new connection to the soil stack fall under Part H, a new bathroom needs extract of 15 litres per second intermittent or 8 litres per second continuous under Approved Document F, and new circuits are notifiable under Part P. If the work includes an unvented hot-water cylinder, it must be fitted by a G3-qualified installer.