Bathroom Renovation Order of Works: Trade by Trade

A bathroom has more trade dependencies packed into a small room than any other part of a house. The order is not a preference, it is a chain where each link needs the one before it finished.

1. Strip out

Everything out, back to frame or slab. Tiles, fixtures, wall sheeting, and usually the floor screed.

This is the discovery stage. Whatever is wrong behind the walls, this is when it appears: rot in the framing, corroded pipework, non-compliant wiring, an out-of-level floor. Any of it has to be dealt with before the sequence continues.

2. Plumbing rough-in

The plumber sets out drainage and supply lines while the walls and floor are open.

If the layout is changing, this is where that work happens. Moving a toilet or shower waste is a rough-in job, and once the sheeting is on, changing your mind means opening it back up.

3. Electrical rough-in

Cabling for lighting, exhaust fan, heated towel rail, underfloor heating and power. Same principle: it has to be in the wall before the wall closes.

Underfloor heating is worth deciding now. Retrofitting it means lifting the floor.

4. Sheeting

Wet area wall sheeting fixed and set. Suitable board, correctly fixed, joints treated.

This is the substrate the waterproofing bonds to. Water-resistant sheeting is not waterproofing, it is the surface waterproofing goes on.

5. Screed and falls

The floor screed establishes the falls to the waste so water actually drains. Get this wrong and the shower ponds for the life of the bathroom, which no membrane fixes.

6. Waterproofing

Primer, reinforcement at junctions and penetrations, membrane coats, then a full cure. The full sequence is here.

Nothing happens in the room during the cure. This is the stage that gets squeezed when a job is behind schedule, and squeezing it is the most common reason wet areas fail.

7. Tiling

Floor first or walls first depends on the setout and the tiler. Either way, this is where the room starts looking like a bathroom.

Time here is driven by cuts, not area. Niches, hobs, penetrations and mitred external corners are what take the hours.

8. Grouting

Then the grout cures. It needs longer than most people expect before the room is wet.

9. Plumbing and electrical fit-off

Both trades return. Toilet, vanity, tapware, shower fittings connected and tested. Lights, fan and heating connected and tested.

This is the second visit for each, which is why trade availability affects a bathroom more than most rooms.

10. Silicone

Internal corners and the wall-to-floor junction get silicone rather than grout, because those junctions move and grout cracks when it is asked to flex.

Silicone needs to cure before the shower is used.

11. Shower screen and final fit

Usually measured after tiling, because it has to fit the finished opening rather than the framed one. That means a wait between tiling and installation on many jobs.

Why the order cannot be changed

Every stage depends on the last: rough-in has to precede sheeting, sheeting precedes waterproofing, waterproofing precedes tiling, tiling precedes fit-off.

You cannot buy speed by adding people to a bathroom either. It is one room, and stages like the membrane cure take the same time regardless of how many are standing in it. The realistic timeline is 2 to 3 weeks.

If you would rather one party sequenced and scheduled all of it, that is what our renovation packages cover.