Dolphin Bathrooms

I must admit at first when my wife wanted a new bathroom I did not think it would cost as much and take as long as it did but when you watch what is happening you can see there is a lot more work than you think there would be.

We looked about for different bathrooms from different companies and as we had a bad time with our kitchen when I got one of my mates to do it and although he is still my friend he will not be getting any more work from me we thought we would get the company to do the whole lot this time.
Our bathroom is quite small and the four walls were tiled completely and it still had a coloured bathroom suite, which means it was very old (this was in when we moved in 3 years ago).

So we saw on television and in newspaper adds that Dolphin Bathroom were having a sale, so we decided to call them up and get a quote from them.
The salesman came out to see us and was friendly and was there for about 4 hours and didn’t pressure us once into buying a bathroom from them.
When he quoted the price of £6000 I nearly chocked but when we discussed this decided to go for it.
The surveyor came out and again took nearly 3-4 hours planning the bathroom and then he told us his plans based on our ideas of course and everything looked great.

We then checked the web to see if there had been any recommendations on Dolphin but we couldn’t find much if any and all we found were complaints which made us unsure and we also saw things on Watchdog about the company and we started to have big doubts in going ahead with Dolphin.
We did check up with a few places and a lot said as they have been going for over 30 years they are of course going to get complaints and no one really ever says when they are satisfied really do they?

A lot of the price for the bathroom was the labour as it had to be stripped out completely and started from scratch. We knew from our experience in the kitchen and as our house was quite old the plaster on the walls was not very good so if anything went wrong they had to deal with this and at no extra cost to us.
As we thought the walls had to be completely stripped back to the brick and the four walls re-plastered. This would have cost us quite a lot so I’m glad we got a company to do the whole lot which Dolphin do.
This took about 3 days and as the plaster had to dry this took another 4 days before they could start work on fitting the bathroom.

The following week they came to start fitting the bathroom and there was an inspector there everyday and we also got a phone call everyday from Dolphin to check if they had basically turned up to start work and if we were happy with the work and how it was going etc. which I thought was very professional.
The workers knew what they were doing (which they should) and I was keeping a close eye on them to make sure as you can’t trust anyone these days you don’t know!! I made quite a few cups of tea and coffee in those 2 weeks.

We were left without a bath for 2 days and a shower for one night but one of our friends let us wash at theirs so that was fine so it wasn’t to much of an inconvenience. We always had a toilet and they tried to leave the bathroom in as much a decent state as they could before they left every night. And as I like to see what is going on I checked the place out (as you do) every night and although I’m not a skilled worker I’m OK at DIY so I was pleased the workmanship looked very good. When they finished the men also left us their numbers along with Dolphins and if we had any problems we could contact them directly and save time going through Dolphin directly.

After 2 weeks they finished (early December 2002) and everything was looking great and we’ve had no problems since.
Everything is warranted for a year and we also got phone calls a few weeks after the work was finished to see if everything was still alright and we were happy with everything and if we had any complaints or issues we wanted to bring up.

Just a few weeks ago we again saw Dolphin Bathrooms on Watchdog and the troubles some people have had are unreal and shocking but I think It’s all down to the workmen you get from your area at the time and thankfully we got good ones.

I think if you get your new bathroom and everything goes fine (which it should for the money you pay) you don’t seem to bother saying or doing anything about it but if you’ve had a bad experience you want as many people to hear about it as possible and quite rightly so and in the same situation I’d probably do the same.

All I can say is I would recommend Dolphin Bathrooms to anyone especially in the Edinburgh area and if you get the same workmen as we did. We are really pleased with our new bathroom my wife more so, phew!!!!