Bathroom Fitters In Long Eaton, Sandiacre And Borrowash: Costs, 1930s Semis, The Flood Zone And Who Signs Off The Work

Long Eaton is a town of roughly 37,000 people wedged between Derby and Nottingham, with the Erewash Canal of 1779 running through its middle and the River Trent along its southern edge. Sandiacre sits a couple of miles north of it at junction 25 of the M1, and Borrowash is a village on the A6005 halfway back towards Derby. All three are in the borough of Erewash, which matters more than most people realise when a bathroom is being planned, because it is Erewash Borough Council and not Derby City Council that handles the building control paperwork. We fit bathrooms in all three towns from our base in Derby, and the questions we get asked are reliably the same: what will it cost, is the house in a flood zone, why is there limescale on everything, and who actually signs the job off. This guide answers all four.

Why These Three Towns Get Their Own Guide

A lot of what we write on this site is about Derby itself. Long Eaton, Sandiacre and Borrowash are close enough to feel like part of the same patch, yet the paperwork, the rivers and a fair chunk of the housing are different enough to deserve their own page. Our bathroom fitters in Long Eaton page covers the services we offer across the town. This post is about the detail underneath.

The short version: a different council does the sign-off, the ground near the two rivers is low and wet in places, the water is hard, and the houses run from lace-factory terraces through 1930s semis to estates finished in the last decade. Each of those costs a different amount to refit. Nothing on that list should put you off. It should just make you fussy about who you hire, because a fitter who has only ever worked in the city will be learning some of it on your job.

Lace Factory Terraces, 1930s Semis And Estates Built Since

Long Eaton grew on lace. The big tenement factories that still line parts of the town, Harrington Mill on Leopold Street among them, were built in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and the red-brick terraces off Tamworth Road and around the station went up to house the people who worked in them. Most of those terraces have a two-storey rear outrigger with the bathroom upstairs over the kitchen, or a single-storey bathroom tacked onto the back at ground level. Either way the room has outside walls on two or three sides, a long waste run and, more often than not, a soil stack bolted to the back of the house.

Sandiacre has a similar story on a smaller scale. Springfield Mill on the canal was a lace factory before it became flats, and the streets between Derby Road and the Erewash have the same mix of Victorian terraces and interwar semis. The semis are the bulk of the work we do in both towns. Built between the wars along roads like Wilsthorpe Road, College Street and Derby Road, they have a bathroom that was planned from the start, a suspended timber floor upstairs, a boxed-in waste through the side wall, and frequently the original galvanised or lead pipework still buried somewhere behind the plaster.

Borrowash is mostly twentieth century. There is a Victorian core along Nottingham Road, but the bulk of the village is 1930s to 1970s semis and bungalows, with newer estates filling in the gaps. Bungalows in particular are worth mentioning, because every bathroom in them is a ground-floor bathroom, with everything that means for drainage falls and floor build-ups.

The Price Of A New Bathroom In Long Eaton, And Where It Parts Company With Derby

Our pricing bands do not change at the borough boundary. Replace the suite in its existing positions with modest tiling and you are looking at £3,500 to £5,000. Change the layout, tile floor to ceiling, fit a proper shower and new flooring and the realistic range is £5,000 to £9,000. What does change between Derby and these three towns is which end of those bands the typical house lands at, and why.

The outrigger bathroom in a terrace is the usual reason a Long Eaton quote creeps up. Cold external walls on three sides mean we specify insulated backer board rather than plain plasterboard, and the waste run back to the stack is long enough that the fall has to be checked rather than assumed. Old pipework in the 1930s semis is the next one. If we open a wall and find lead or galvanised steel, it gets replaced, because tiling over it and hoping is how you end up with a stained ceiling in the room below. Then there is access. Terraced streets around the station have no rear access and no driveway, so the skip sits on the road and needs a permit from Derbyshire County Council as the highway authority, which is a different body from the one you would deal with in Derby city.

Newer estates on the edges of all three places are the opposite. Stud walls, a combi boiler at mains pressure, plastic pipework and a bathroom that was designed around a standard suite make for a quick refit that usually lands at the lower end. One other thing worth knowing: because these towns sit on the county border, you will get quotes from the Nottingham side as well as the Derby side. Compare them on what is actually specified, not on the headline figure.

Downstairs Bathrooms Between Two Rivers

Long Eaton sits on the flat ground where the Erewash meets the Trent, and Sandiacre is on the Erewash a little upstream. The Environment Agency does not treat the whole of either town as a flood risk, but it does run named flood warning areas for the parts that are. There is one for the Trent and Erewash at Sawley and Long Eaton around the B6540, one for the Erewash at Long Eaton covering properties around Bennett Street, one for New Sawley near Wilsthorpe Road, and one for the Erewash at Sandiacre taking in Station Road. Borrowash is on higher ground above the Derwent, with the warning area stopping at the B5010 on the way down to Elvaston.

What that means for a bathroom is specific and limited. If your house is upstairs-bathroom only and well away from those areas, nothing changes. If you are planning a downstairs bathroom, a wet room or a bungalow refit on a street that does sit inside one, it is worth building the room so that a few inches of water does not write it off. In practice that means a cement-based backer board rather than plasterboard on the lower walls, a screeded floor rather than chipboard, a wall-hung pan and basin so the floor can be hosed out, electrical spurs and sockets set higher than usual, and a non-return valve on the drain so that a surcharging sewer cannot push water back up through the shower waste. None of it costs a great deal more if it is decided at the start.

Before you decide any of this, put the postcode into the government’s long term flood risk service. It separates river flooding from surface water, and in these towns the surface water result is often the one that matters, because the ground is flat and the drains are old.

Severn Trent Water And The Limescale Problem

Every tap in Long Eaton, Sandiacre and Borrowash is on Severn Trent supply, and the water is hard. You will already know this if you have ever cleaned a kettle here. In a new bathroom it shows up first on the shower glass, then on the chrome, then inside the shower head, and after a couple of years it can start to choke a thermostatic valve.

We plan around it rather than fight it afterwards. Glass with a factory-applied easy-clean coating stays clear far longer than plain toughened glass. Rub-clean shower heads with silicone nozzles can be scaled off with a thumb. Brassware from a manufacturer with a proper spares network means a replacement cartridge is a ten-minute job rather than a new tap. If the pipework is being replaced anyway, a whole-house softener on the incoming main is the one fix that stops the problem at source, and a 1930s semi with the stopcock under the kitchen sink is usually an easy place to put one. If you want to know how hard your own supply is, Severn Trent’s water quality checker on their website gives a reading by postcode.

Who Signs The Work Off: Erewash Building Control And Part P

This is the bit people get wrong most often, usually because the house has a DE postcode or the fitter is based in the city. Long Eaton, Sandiacre and Borrowash are all in Erewash, and Erewash Borough Council runs its own building control service with its own fees, forms and inspectors. Derby City Council has no say in a bathroom on Tamworth Road.

Most bathroom work is not notifiable. Swapping a bath, basin and toilet in the same positions, retiling and redecorating need nobody’s permission. Three things do need notifying. New electrical circuits or alterations inside the bathroom zones fall under Approved Document P, and the simplest route is an electrician registered with NICEIC or NAPIT, who tests the work, issues the certificate and notifies Erewash for you. A new soil connection or a moved stack comes under Part H and should be notified too. And a new extractor fan where there was none before is a Part F matter. If the person doing the work is not scheme-registered, a building notice goes to Erewash before it starts, a fee is paid, and an inspector comes out.

We covered the zones, the IP ratings and the shaver socket rules in our guide to bathroom electrics in Derby, and all of it applies in Erewash in exactly the same way. The only difference is which council receives the paperwork. Whatever route you take, keep the certificates. A buyer’s solicitor will ask for them, and a missing Part P certificate for a shower circuit is one of the more common reasons a sale slows down.

Getting To You From Derby

We are based in the north of Derby, and the run out to these towns is straightforward. Borrowash is a quarter of an hour along the A52 and A6005 past Spondon. Long Eaton is either the A6005 through Draycott and Breaston or the A52 and then down from junction 25, and Sandiacre is just off that same junction. On a normal morning it is twenty-five to thirty-five minutes in the van, and we do not put a travel line on the quote for any of the three.

What the distance does change is how we organise a job. Materials get delivered to the house rather than carried from the van each day, the skip is booked and permitted before we arrive, and we aim to keep the days consecutive so you are not without a bathroom any longer than necessary. We also survey in person rather than from photographs, because a photograph of a Long Eaton outrigger bathroom tells you nothing about the pipework under the floor or where the stack actually runs.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which council deals with building control for a bathroom in Long Eaton or Sandiacre?

Erewash Borough Council, not Derby City Council. Long Eaton, Sandiacre and Borrowash all sit inside Erewash, which runs its own building control team and its own planning department. If your electrician or fitter is registered with a competent person scheme they notify Erewash for you. If not, a building notice goes to Erewash before the notifiable work starts.

Is my house in Long Eaton in a flood zone?

Some streets are and most are not. The Environment Agency runs named flood warning areas for the Trent and Erewash at Sawley and Long Eaton, for the Erewash around Bennett Street, for New Sawley near Wilsthorpe Road and for Station Road in Sandiacre. Put your postcode into the government’s long term flood risk checker to see whether your own address falls inside one before deciding how to build a ground-floor bathroom.

How much does a new bathroom cost in Long Eaton, Sandiacre or Borrowash?

Swapping a suite in the same positions with light tiling tends to come out at £3,500 to £5,000. A full refit with new layout, tiling to the ceiling, a decent shower and new flooring usually sits between £5,000 and £9,000. A rear-outrigger bathroom in a Victorian terrace, or a 1930s semi that needs its old pipework replaced, pushes towards the top of those bands.

Do I need an electrician with Part P for a bathroom in Borrowash?

Any new circuit or alteration inside the bathroom zones is notifiable work under Part P of the Building Regulations. A NICEIC or NAPIT registered electrician can self-certify and send the notification to Erewash Borough Council. Anyone else has to apply to Erewash building control, pay a fee and have the work inspected and tested. Ask to see the certificate before you make the final payment.

Does the water in Long Eaton cause limescale?

Yes. The area is on Severn Trent supply and the water is hard enough to leave a white crust on glass and chrome within a few weeks if nothing is done. Specify coated shower glass and a shower head you can scale off by hand, keep a squeegee in the enclosure, and if the pipework is being replaced anyway, a softener on the incoming main deals with it at source.

Planning a bathroom in Long Eaton, Sandiacre, Borrowash or anywhere else in Erewash? Get a free quote and we will come out, look at the floor, the stack and the water pressure, and give you a figure that holds.