It has been nearly three months since we moved into our new home and we finally have a working shower. What seemed a simple job has taken a lot more time and money that we expected. We were really pleased when we managed to purchase a shower for £35 and a screen for just over £40, particularly as I paid for them using my Nectar points. Whilst the initial cost seemed very reasonable what we hadn’t taken into account was how difficult the shower would be to install.

As there were no plumbing or electrics in place there was a fair amount of work that needed doing. We called the plumber first who had to install the pipes needed. He found that the pipes in the house were old steel pipes and these needed to be replaced with copper pipes. The plumbing and tiling took several days due to various other problems that occurred and with labour this cost just over £350. Next we had to get power to the new shower. My husband routed the cable through to the unit which involved removing tiles and parts of the ceiling and took several weekends. Then we finally called the electrician who came to connect the power and install the new consumer unit. This cost another £100 plus £80 of materials. All in all our bargain £75 shower ended up costing just over £800. I’m really going to enjoy that first shower.