Full bathrooms
Strip out to finished room. Suite, tiling, flooring, lighting, extraction and the making good afterwards.
East Kent · Est. 2013
Bathrooms that are still watertight in ten years.
Full installations, wet rooms and en-suites across east Kent. We do the plumbing, electrics, tiling and plastering ourselves, and we tank properly behind the tiles, which is where nearly every bathroom eventually fails.
- Fixed written price
- Gas Safe and Part P covered
- Toilet back on every evening
- 10 year guarantee on waterproofing
Walk-in shower, fully tanked · Broadstairs
The part you'll never see
What's behind the tiles decides whether it lasts.
Every bathroom looks good on the day it's finished. The difference between one that's fine in ten years and one that's rotting behind the shower is entirely in the build-up underneath.
Layer 1
Stud or masonry, checked and made good
Anything soft or previously wet comes out. There's no point waterproofing over damage.
Layer 2
Cement backer board, not plasterboard
In the shower and wet areas. Plasterboard behind a shower is the single most common corner cut, and it's why grout starts crumbling after three years.
Layer 3
Tanking, and this is the one that matters
A full waterproof membrane over the board, with sealing tape into every corner, junction and pipe penetration. Tiles and grout are not waterproof. They never were. The membrane is what keeps water out of your joists.
Layer 4
Adhesive and tiles, full bed
Notched and buttered so there are no voids behind the tile. Voids hold water and crack tiles when something heavy gets dropped.
Layer 5
Grout and silicone, correctly specified
Flexible grout where there's movement, and silicone rather than grout in every internal corner. Grout in a corner cracks. It always has.
Ask whoever else is quoting you
Ask them whether they use backer board or plasterboard in the shower, and whether tanking is in the price or an extra. You'll learn more from those two questions than from any brochure.
If it's an extra, the quote you're comparing isn't the same job as ours.
Get a proper quoteWhat we do
Every trade, one team.
Wet rooms
Formers, falls and full tanking. The one job where waterproofing isn't optional and where bad ones fail fastest.
En-suites & cloakrooms
Small rooms are harder, not easier. Getting a usable shower and a door that opens into two square metres takes planning.
Leaks & failed showers
Water coming through a ceiling usually means the tanking was never there. We open it up, find it, and rebuild it properly.
Accessible bathrooms
Level access showers, grab rails and seating, done so the room still looks like a bathroom rather than a hospital.
Tiling & flooring
Large format, mosaic, natural stone. Set out from the middle so you're not left with a 20mm sliver in the most visible corner.
The awkward question
What does a bathroom cost?
Nobody publishes this, which is why comparing three quotes is so hard. Here's roughly what each budget buys on an average family bathroom, labour and materials together.
£4,500 – £7,000
Same layout, everything new.
- New suite in the existing positions
- Half-height tiling, full height in the shower
- Backer board and tanking to wet areas
- Vinyl or LVT flooring
- New extractor and lighting
£7,000 – £11,000
Moving things, and doing it properly.
- Everything above, plus
- Layout changed, soil and waste re-run
- Full height tiling throughout
- Walk-in shower or bath with screen
- Underfloor heating
- Fitted vanity and concealed cistern
£11,000+
Wet room, or no compromises.
- Full wet room with formers and falls
- Natural stone or large format porcelain
- Freestanding bath, brassware to match
- Structural work where the room changes shape
- Lighting designed rather than centred
Recent bathrooms
Have a look round.
Happy to put you in touch with any of these customers. Most of them will show you round if you ask nicely.
Where we work
Thanet, Canterbury and the coast.
One bathroom at a time, start to finish, so nobody's job sits half done while we begin the next one.
- Margate
- Broadstairs
- Ramsgate
- Westgate-on-Sea
- Birchington
- Herne Bay
- Whitstable
- Canterbury
- Sandwich
- Deal
What people say
Ask the neighbours.
★★★★★
They were the only ones who mentioned tanking. Two of the other quotes were cheaper and now I understand why. Three years on and there's not a crack in the grout.
★★★★★
One bathroom in the house and two kids. They had the toilet back on every evening without fail and told us the two nights we'd need to shower elsewhere, well in advance.
★★★★★
Came to sort a leak another firm had caused. Opened the wall, showed us there was no membrane behind the shower at all, and rebuilt it. Straight about what had gone wrong.
Before you get quotes
The things people ask.
We've only got one bathroom. How does that work?
It's the most common question we get. The toilet goes back on at the end of every day except the two when the floor's being tanked and tiled, and we tell you which days those are before we start. Most people arrange a shower at a neighbour's or family for those two nights.
How long does a bathroom take?
Seven to ten working days for a full installation. A wet room is usually ten to twelve because the tanking and screed need proper curing time, and rushing that is exactly how they fail.
Is tanking really necessary?
In a shower or wet room, yes. Tiles and grout are not waterproof, they're water resistant, and water gets through them steadily over years. The membrane behind is what actually keeps it out of your floor. Plenty of quotes leave it out because it's invisible and it saves a day.
Can I buy the suite myself?
Yes, plenty do. Send us what you're thinking of before you order and we'll check it fits the space and the waste positions, because online suite dimensions and real rooms often disagree.
Do you do the electrics?
Yes, and they're certified. Bathroom electrics are notifiable work, so it needs signing off properly. That matters when you sell the house.
What's actually guaranteed?
Ten years on the waterproofing and two on the rest of the workmanship. Suites and brassware carry their own manufacturer warranties and we register them for you.
Free design visit
Tell us about the bathroom.
An hour at your place, measured up, and a written price that spells out what's included. No obligation, no salesman, no pressure.
- Phone
- 01632 960 823
- Mobile / WhatsApp
- 07700 900 823
- hello@marlowebathrooms.example
- Hours
- Mon–Fri 8am–6pm · Sat by appointment