bathroom evolution

mikep

Hi all

Has anyone any experience of buying online from bathroom evolution?...

Am seriously tempted although would love some advice if anyone has any...

Thanks

Mike

Joey the lips

No. However if they are an english based company there showers taps and toilets might not work well here. I will gladly answer any questions your curious of

mikep

Thanks Joey...

Why wouldn't the taps etc work here??

Joey the lips

mikep wrote: »

Thanks Joey...

Why wouldn't the taps etc work here??

it will depend if you live in a house or apartment. It will also depend if you have a pressurised or standard gravity system.

The gravity is the current standard in ireland. It consists of a tank raised in the attic which forces water through the system at 0.1 or 0.2 bar. Not really strong but effective. Most english taps operate at 0,5 bar. You will get away with a mono basin mxr(Single tap) down stairs and may even get away with it up stairs. Hoever a bath shower mixer will not stay open on shower mode. If that makes sense.

A simple solution is to order Basin taps and bath taps. The shower valves are usually the same. However most people use a t80 OR t90 or equiv.

If you order a shower valve over here most of the time they are pressurised so a pump will be needed anyway.

The real bitch is in the toilet. This is usually high pressure. So you will need to buy a torbeck or aquasave low pressure ball valve.

Besure to buy extra toilet seats if you buy a non standard toilet. and consider going for a click clack waste instead of the normal pop up waste that comes with a mono tap.

cnocbui

I bought all plumbing fixtures for our Kitchen from the UK, shower fixtures for our en-suite and the mixer tap for the main bathroom from Germany. The toilet and basin for the en-suite I bought here.

To get adequate water pressure to operate the taps that are designed for countries with civilised plumbing, I got a pump to provide decent water pressure to the whole house.

I had to fit reducing nozels to the existing toilet cistern valves due to the presure of the system and just asked for a suitable valve for the new toilet.

I would say don't hesitate to get your plumbing fixtures from elsewhere, just add a pump to the system as well and you will have a far better system than Irish houses normally have.

A pump also means you don't need 'Power Showers' - what a misnomer, more like 'powerless' - and you will end up withs shower that actually work properly and are a pleasure to use.

Joey the lips

The pump is a fair point however its worth noting that fitting a pump will bring the cost up which is what I think your trying to avoid.


In simple terms I can buy a loaf of bread for 50c in Tesco 10miles away but 2.00 euro in my local spar. There is no point in spending time and petrol for that distance and that saving.

Simularly if you pressurise the whole house with a pump you need to re do the plumbing slightly and you will need a continous rated pump costing around 800 Euro. You can buy the cheap one's for 400 but they will underperform. So saving a grand buying a system from england will lead to costs here.

The simple and effective solution is

Buy your pottery there

Buy your taps here

Buy a ball valve here

But the saving wont be worth as much then.


PS: Get a plumbers honest opinion if you need to verify this. No doubt I am going to be disputed on the pump price which is missing the logic.:D

Joey the lips

cnocbui wrote: »

A pump also means you don't need 'Power Showers' - what a misnomer, more like 'powerless' - and you will end up withs shower that actually work properly and are a pleasure to use.

Why a misnomer?? Are you confusing a T90 with a Power shower. An aquastream thermostatic power shower is the best shower on the market. Ireland,England or europe. It comes as a self contained pump unit however as noted with many power type showers it needs to have a storage of hot water. Just like your system.

cnocbui

Joey the lips wrote: »

Why a misnomer?? Are you confusing a T90 with a Power shower. An aquastream thermostatic power shower is the best shower on the market. Ireland,England or europe. It comes as a self contained pump unit however as noted with many power type showers it needs to have a storage of hot water. Just like your system.

Maybe I am confusing them with The T90 sort of shower. I have certainly seen them referred to as such, so I take that back.

In Australia I had an instant electric water heater for the whole house that used a three phase elctricity connection and it could heat cold water to scalding hot at tremendous flow rates. So you had plenty of hot water at mains pressure, which was nearly 7 bar.

I have a 3 bar Stuart Turner pump and there are 3/4 feed pipes all the way to the en-suite mixer tap, and a 3/4" pipe from the mixer to the shower rose. The specs for the head and mixer give a flow rate of 26 litres a minute at 3 bar.

Those pumped electric showers - which I was confusing with 'power showers' would scarcely be good for 2-4 litres a minute in winter, if that!

Even the Aquastream at 10-18 litres per minute is just barely adequate for my tastes

Then there is the noise. I think a decent pump delivering decent pressure to the whole house is the way to go, rather than have a pump just for the shower. Gravity fed systems where you have to wait 30 minutes to fill a bath for the kids or 15 minutes for a toilet cistern to refill are bronze age tech.

Joey the lips

cnocbui wrote: »

Maybe I am confusing them with The T90 sort of shower. I have certainly seen them referred to as such, so I take that back.

In Australia I had an instant electric water heater for the whole house that used a three phase elctricity connection and it could heat cold water to scalding hot at tremendous flow rates. So you had plenty of hot water at mains pressure, which was nearly 7 bar.

I have a 3 bar Stuart Turner pump and there are 3/4 feed pipes all the way to the en-suite mixer tap, and a 3/4" pipe from the mixer to the shower rose. The specs for the head and mixer give a flow rate of 26 litres a minute at 3 bar.

Those pumped electric showers - which I was confusing with 'power showers' would scarcely be good for 2-4 litres a minute in winter, if that!

Even the Aquastream at 10-18 litres per minute is just barely adequate for my tastes

Then there is the noise. I think a decent pump delivering decent pressure to the whole house is the way to go, rather than have a pump just for the shower. Gravity fed systems where you have to wait 30 minutes to fill a bath for the kids or 15 minutes for a toilet cistern to refill are bronze age tech.

If you go with a 3 bar pump you need to upgrade your cylinder as well due to the flow rates. A 3 bar pump on a standard cylinder will give you a 2 to 5 minute shower before emptying the tank.

Upgrading the cylinder and pump will cost the guts of 2-3k alone. Any money saved in your bathroom is long gone

mikep

Thanks Joey

Gonna give em a call see what the deal is regarding the points you raise!

Thanks again!

pharte1

Hi i ordered a few weeks back. I ordered a shower tray, shower enclosure and towel rail radiator, they are all good quality and arrived about 2 weeks after i ordered which is good from uk and it was €587 cheaper that ordering off the local and chain stores from ireland!

antoinolachtnai

My experiences:

You can get better prices than you might expect in the likes of Chadwicks if you know them and/or they are in the humour to give you the discounts that are available. At the end there won't be a tremendous amount of difference in price for most things. For example, I bought a corner toilet (which is a sort of a specialised, cooky item) from Chadwicks for 300 euros, and they got it to for me two or three days later. There was definitely no saving to be made by ordering it from the UK.

For branded gear, it does seem to me that there is a significant saving to be made ordering from the UK. (For example, I got a Grohe shower setup for my bathroom and it cost a good bit less from the UK from a discount place (showermania.co.uk). A specialised item like the sauna heater I got will usually work out cheaper too.)

I got the sink and tap from Ikea in Dublin. It was the Ann, which I think is the coolest sink made, although taste may vary, and pretty cheap too. It worked fine without a pump, although this is the ground floor of a three-floor house. I have no idea how this would perform on a top floor.

My plumber bought a Stuart Turner pump (3 bar) for me from Heat Merchants. He does a good bit of business there and gets the discount. It still worked out at 600 euros, and that is an awful lot more than what the equivalent item sells for online from the UK. The pump they sell in the UK is a little different, according to ST, but it looks suspiciously similar to me.