Bathrooms are the most common interior remodel in the country and the hardest to price from a photograph. These are the ranges, and the reasons behind them.
The ranges, by what the room is
A powder room is a different animal to a primary suite, and lumping them into one average is why national figures mislead people.
These are suburban Chicago numbers, for work done to a standard we would put our name on.
- Powder room: $8k to $18k.
- Hall or children's bathroom, same footprint: $15k to $30k.
- Primary bathroom, same footprint: $30k to $50k.
- Primary bathroom, layout changed or space borrowed: $55k to $95k.
The four decisions that move the total
Everything else is noise by comparison. If two quotes differ wildly, one of these four is being handled differently.
- Does the plumbing move. Relocating a toilet or a shower drain means opening the floor and, in a pre-war house, dealing with a cast iron stack.
- Does the room get bigger. Borrowing from a closet or a bedroom means framing, sometimes structure, sometimes a window.
- Tub or curbless shower. A curbless shower needs the floor dropped or the joists furred, which is framing work rather than tiling work.
- Tile format and pattern. Large-format and herringbone both take substantially more labour than a straight set of standard tile.
Where the money sits
Labour is the biggest line in a bathroom, usually forty to fifty per cent, which surprises people who expect the fittings to dominate. A bathroom is a small room that every trade has to work in.
Tile and its setting is next, then cabinetry and counter, then plumbing fittings, then electrical and ventilation.
A bathroom is a small room that every trade has to enter. That is what you are paying for.
What older suburban houses add
Anything built here before the sixties carries a few predictable extras. Galvanised supply lines that should be replaced while the wall is open. A cast iron stack that cracks when disturbed. A subfloor softened by forty years of a leaking shower pan. No dedicated circuit and no proper exhaust.
We budget for the exhaust and the circuit on every older house because they are effectively certain, and we write the other two as contingency rather than pretending they will not appear.
- Dedicated circuit and GFCI: $400 to $900.
- Exhaust fan ducted to the exterior: $500 to $1,200.
- Subfloor repair once opened: $800 to $3,000.
- Stack or supply line replacement: $1,500 to $6,000.
The one place never to economise
Shower waterproofing. A tiled shower is not waterproof, the membrane behind it is, and a cheap membrane fails quietly into the framing for years before anyone notices.
A proper bonded or sheet membrane system costs a few hundred dollars more on a shower. Replacing a rotted floor and the ceiling below it costs several thousand.
Tile is not waterproof. What sits behind it is, and that is not the place to save.
Comparing bathroom quotes honestly
Ask every builder the same three questions. What is the tile allowance per square foot. What waterproofing system is being used, by name. What happens, in writing, if the subfloor is bad.
The answers will explain the price difference faster than any line-by-line comparison, and a builder who cannot name their waterproofing system has answered a different question.
