Bathroom Renovation Cost Calculator for the UAE

A six square metre bathroom can cost more than a thirty square metre bedroom, and every part of the reason is in the room.

Every trade is in there. Plumbing, waterproofing, tiling, electrics, ceiling, joinery and glass, all in a space where two people cannot work at once.

The tiling is the worst of it. A small room is almost all edges, so nearly every tile is a cut. Around the drain, the tray, the toilet, the pipes and the door. Cutting takes far longer than laying.

And the sequence is long. Strip out, first fix plumbing, waterproofing, curing time, screed, tiling, grouting, second fix, glass, silicone. Each step waits for the last.

That is why a bathroom takes weeks rather than days, and why the cost per square metre is the highest in the home.

Tiles are not waterproof. Grout is not waterproof. Water goes through both, slowly and continuously, for as long as the bathroom is used.

What stops it reaching the structure is a membrane laid underneath, taken up the walls in the wet zone and dressed properly into the drain.

If it is skipped, or done badly, nothing happens for a while. Then water reaches the slab, finds its way through, and appears on the ceiling of whoever lives below.

At that point the repair is not the membrane. It is the membrane plus taking the whole bathroom out again, plus the neighbour ceiling, plus whatever the building requires.

This is why the tool has waterproofing as its own line, and why leaving it at zero on a real quote is worth asking about.

It should also be tested. A flood test, where the finished waterproofing is filled with water and left, is the only way to know it works before tiles go on top.

Two bathrooms of the same size can be very far apart in price. This is why.

People are surprised that a small room takes so long. It is because almost nothing can happen in parallel.

Strip out comes first, and until it is done nobody knows what is behind the walls.

Then first fix plumbing and electrical, while the walls are open. Any change of layout happens now or not at all.

Then waterproofing, which needs to cure and ideally be flood tested before anything covers it.

Then screed to form the fall, then tiling, then grouting, each with its own drying time.

Then second fix: fitting the sanitary ware, the taps, the lights and the door. Then glass, which is measured after tiling and takes days to arrive.

Then silicone, and a curing period before the shower is used. Rushing that last step is how a new bathroom starts leaking in month two.

Ask every contractor to price the same list, and use this tool as that list.

Specifically ask whether waterproofing is included and what system. Whether the strip out and disposal is included. Whether the tiles are supplied or by you. Whether the glass is included. And whether making good outside the bathroom is included.

That last one catches people. Getting a bathroom out of a flat means carrying it through the hallway, and the hallway usually needs touching up afterwards.

Then compare the totals. If one is much lower, find out which line it is missing rather than assuming it is a better deal.

And agree a payment schedule tied to stages rather than dates, so payment follows progress.