Bathrooms and kitchens
A complete wet room, with one party responsible for the pipework and the floor as well.
A bathroom is the smallest job in which the largest number of trades appear. Demolition, waste, water, electrics, ventilation, tiling, plastering and sanitary ware, in a room of five to eight square metres, in a fixed order and with waiting time between the steps. If one trade overruns, the rest shifts with it. That is why we take this on as one job and not as a collection of separate parties blaming each other.
A kitchen is different work. The kitchen itself normally comes from a supplier who fits it too. What we do is everything around it: the wall that has to go, the pipework that moves, the floor, the extraction to the outside and the connection at the consumer unit. That is exactly the part a kitchen supplier does not cover, and where the planning falls apart if nobody takes it on.
In houses built before 1970 along the Vecht, a bathroom refit often turns up a timber floor with a brick threshold. That floor has to be checked for rot before tiles go on it, because a tiled floor that later sags cannot be repaired without doing the whole thing again.
- How long you are without a shower
- A complete bathroom of six square metres takes twelve to eighteen working days, of which the first two are demolition, with two days of drying time between tiling and grouting. There is no shower during that period. If you have a second toilet you keep it: the toilet is normally reconnected within four days. All of it is in the planning you receive with the quotation, written out day by day.
- Ventilation is not a detail
- Half of all complaints about a new bathroom are about damp and mould, and they nearly always come from ventilation that is too weak or that discharges in the wrong place. On every bathroom the existing extract is measured and, if it falls short, replaced. That item sits separately on the quotation instead of being buried in a total.
- What you buy and what we supply
- You choose the sanitary ware and the tiles yourself, from whichever supplier you like. We supply and fit everything behind them: pipework, ventilation, electrics, floor build-up, sealant and waste. The quotation carries a provisional sum (stelpost) for tiles and sanitary ware based on your own choice, and that sum is settled against what it actually costs. Never with a mark-up on top.
Roughly what it costs
Price ranges for this area, so you can see whether your plan and your budget meet before anyone comes round. Each line states what explains the difference between the bottom and the top of the range.
| Work | Range | What explains the spread |
|---|---|---|
| Extension, single storeyper m² of floor area, shell through to finished | € 2.000 to € 3.200 | Foundation on strip footings or on piles, how much glass goes into the rear wall, and the level of floor, ceiling and services. |
| Loft conversion, full storeyper project, terraced house | € 45.000 to € 85.000 | Whether the party walls run down to the foundation, whether a fixed staircase has to be added, and the thickness of the insulation against the headroom you want. |
| Dormer to the reareach, around 3 metres wide | € 8.000 to € 15.000 | Width and window layout, whether roof purlins have to be interrupted, and whether the roof boarding and insulation are renewed at the same time. |
| Opening in a load-bearing wallper opening, 3 to 4 metres | € 4.000 to € 9.000 | The span and therefore the weight of the steel beam, how easily it can be brought in, and how much plastering and painting follows. |
| Complete bathroomper bathroom of 5 to 8 m², excluding tiles and sanitary ware | € 12.000 to € 25.000 | Moving waste pipes, the condition of the existing floor, and whether the ventilation has to be replaced. |
| Kitchen, building work onlyper kitchen, excluding the kitchen units themselves | € 4.000 to € 10.000 | Whether a wall has to go, how far water and waste are moved, and whether an extraction duct to the outside is installed. |
| Repointing brickworkper elevation of a terraced house | € 3.500 to € 7.000 | Height and therefore scaffolding, raking out by grinder or by hand, and whether a lime mortar is required inside a protected village area. |
| Rot repair in a window frameper affected spot | € 250 to € 900 | How far the rot has gone and whether the profile can still be repaired or the section has to be replaced. |
All amounts include Dutch VAT (btw) and apply to houses in this area. They exist so you can judge whether your plan and your budget meet; they do not replace a quotation. After the survey at your house you receive a fixed price for the work as described.
How it runs, from the first phone call to handover
Nine steps. Each one states who is there, how long it takes and what you pay at that moment. On the steps where money actually changes hands, the amount is set in the heading face under "What you pay" and the step number is filled in. Handover is called oplevering in Dutch, and it is the step your contract will refer to.
Step 1: Phone call
You call, or leave a callback request. We ask about the type of work, the year the house was built, the place and roughly what you have in mind. By the end of that call you know whether this is work we take on and whether your budget and your plan meet. If they do not, we say so there and then.
- Who is there
- You and the work planner
- How long
- 15 minutes, within one working day
- What you pay
- Nothing
Step 2: Survey at your house
We come round, measure up, look in the crawl space (kruipruimte) and the loft, and assess the foundation, the structure and the connections to the existing house. For a loft conversion or a structural opening we establish whether a structural engineer (constructeur) is needed. You hear on the spot which price range is realistic.
- Who is there
- You and the site manager
- How long
- 45 to 90 minutes, within two weeks
- What you pay
- Nothing
Step 3: Quotation with a fixed price
You receive a quotation (offerte) with a fixed price for the work as described, a list of what is explicitly not included, and provisional sums (stelposten) for items you choose yourself. No figure in it is an estimate: what the quotation says stands, as long as the work does not change.
- Who is there
- We supply it, you read it
- How long
- Within five working days of the survey
- What you pay
- Nothing
Step 4: Design, calculation and permit
Only where the work requires it. Drawings, a structural calculation, and the permit application (omgevingsvergunning, the Dutch building permit) with the municipality of Stichtse Vecht or De Ronde Venen. If the permit is refused, the project stops and you pay for this phase only, at an amount stated on the quotation in advance.
- Who is there
- Draughtsman, structural engineer and the municipality
- How long
- 4 to 12 weeks, depending on the procedure
- What you pay
- The cost of this phase, named separately on the quotation
Step 5: Planning and start date
The start date is fixed in writing, with a week by week plan and the days on which it will be loud or dusty. Materials with long lead times are ordered in this phase, so the job does not come to a halt halfway through waiting for a window frame.
- Who is there
- You and the work planner
- How long
- 1 to 2 weeks
- What you pay
- Nothing
Step 6: Work starts on site
Day one: fencing, floor protection, a place to unload, and demolition. From this day there is one site manager who is your point of contact and whom you can call directly on working days.
- Who is there
- The site manager and the crew
- How long
- Day 1
- What you pay
- First instalment: 30 per cent
Step 7: Shell complete
Foundation, structure, brickwork, roof and window frames are in place and the work is wind and watertight. This is the moment you can stand in the new space for the first time, and the last moment changes are possible without demolition.
- Who is there
- The site manager walks it through with you
- How long
- Depends on the job, usually after 3 to 6 weeks
- What you pay
- Second instalment: 30 per cent
Step 8: Services and fit-out
Electrics, water, heating and ventilation are installed and tested. Then plastering, floors, tiling and painting. This phase is quiet but long; it is the phase in which people get impatient and in which the weekly plan matters most.
- Who is there
- Installer, plasterer and fit-out crew
- How long
- 2 to 5 weeks
- What you pay
- Third instalment: 30 per cent
Step 9: Handover and snagging list
We walk the work through together and write down everything you see, however small. In Dutch this step is the oplevering and the list is the opleverlijst. That list is cleared within fifteen working days. Only once every point on it is signed off does the last instalment fall due.
- Who is there
- You and the site manager
- How long
- 1 to 2 hours, points cleared within 15 working days
- What you pay
- Final instalment: 10 per cent, after the snagging list is cleared
The payment schedule
Nothing is paid in advance before work starts.
Each block in the bar is as wide as its share of the contract sum (aanneemsom). The pale block on the right is the final 10 per cent: it only falls due after handover (oplevering), once every point on the snagging list has been dealt with.
| Instalment | Share | When |
|---|---|---|
| First instalment | 30% | The day work starts on site |
| Second instalment | 30% | Shell complete, the work is wind and watertight |
| Third instalment | 30% | Services tested and fit-out complete |
| Final instalment | 10% | After handover, once every snagging point is cleared |
| Together | 100% |
The cost of drawings, the structural calculation and the permit sits outside these four instalments and is named separately on the quotation, so you can see what you would be out of pocket if a permit is unexpectedly refused. The total being paid in instalments is the contract sum, called the aanneemsom in your contract.
Questions about this work
Can I supply my own tiles and sanitary ware?
Yes, and with us that is the standard. You choose and buy; we fit. The quotation carries a provisional sum (stelpost) based on your preference, settled afterwards against the actual cost with no mark-up.
How long does a bathroom take?
Twelve to eighteen working days for a room of six square metres. With the quotation you receive a day by day plan, so you can see when the shower comes out and when it works again.
Will you do just the plumbing, or just the tiling?
No. A bathroom is precisely the job that goes wrong when the trades are let separately, because then nobody is responsible for the order of work. We take on the whole wet room or no part of it.
More about this work in this area
A complete bathroom refit in Maarssen or nearby, for a room of five to eight square metres, usually sits between 12,000 and 25,000 euros, including demolition, pipework, electrics, ventilation, tiling and fitting the sanitary ware, and excluding the tiles and sanitary ware themselves. You choose those, and the difference is large: the same tiling in ceramic or in natural stone is easily three thousand euros apart.
For a kitchen it is the building work that counts. Removing a partition wall, moving water and waste, a new circuit at the consumer unit, an extraction duct to the outside and a floor that is level again come together at 4,000 to 10,000 euros. The kitchen itself sits outside that and comes from your own supplier.
The most common mistake in both is underestimating the pipework. Moving a shower two metres on a concrete floor means finding a fall for the waste, and that can sometimes only be solved with a raised floor or a surface channel. Have that worked out before the tiles are ordered.
Talk through your plan
Calling is quickest and takes fifteen minutes. If you would rather be called back, choose a time slot that suits you.