Hitchin's older housing punishes shortcuts. We level the floors, prepare the walls and tank the wet areas before a single tile goes on — then guarantee the tiling for two years.
Over 25 years in the trade · Which? Trusted Trader · 9.83/10 on Checkatrade · £2m public liability insurance
Hitchin sits east of our Bedfordshire base and forms part of our regular Hertfordshire coverage alongside Harpenden and St Albans. We cover the town centre, Walsworth, Westmill, Purwell, Oughton Head and the surrounding SG4 and SG5 villages, taking on full bathroom refits, wet rooms, accessible adaptations and the plumbing and drainage work that older properties keep generating.
Quote visits to Hitchin are usually arranged within the same week. Emergency cover runs 24/7 on a monitored phone at £120 per hour, booked smaller work is typically £60 per hour, and full bathrooms and kitchens are fixed-priced after we have seen the room — the only caveat being genuinely unforeseen issues behind the walls or floor.
Hitchin has a high proportion of genuinely old buildings: timber-framed and Georgian properties near the Market Place and Sun Street, long runs of Victorian terracing around Walsworth Road, and interwar and post-war housing spreading out from there, plus newer developments on the fringes. In practice that means bathrooms squeezed into rooms that were never designed to be bathrooms, floors that slope visibly, lime plaster on solid walls, and services that have been rerouted repeatedly over a century.
The work Hitchin homeowners come to us for reflects that: refits in period houses where the floor and walls need building back to true, replacing bathrooms in Victorian rear additions, wet rooms in houses with awkward drainage, level-access adaptations for people staying in a long-owned home, and the repeat plumbing and drainage repairs that come with old pipework and hard Hertfordshire water.
Get my fixed-price quoteFull Hitchin refits where the preparation — levelling, strengthening, tanking — is priced in rather than discovered later.
Read more →Tanked wet rooms in period properties, with floors rebuilt to a proper fall so the water goes to the drain and not the joists.
Read more →Tiling by our own tiler on walls and floors made true first — level lines, tight joints, two-year guarantee.
Read more →Replacing century-old pipe runs, seized valves and failing joints with work that will not need revisiting next winter.
Read more →Level-access showers and grab rails fitted into solid period walls with correct fixings and sensible layouts.
Read more →24/7 emergency response for Hitchin leaks, blockages and loss of water at £120 per hour.
Read more →That is not the full list — see every service we cover in Hitchin and across Hertfordshire.
Over 25 years of working on houses where nothing is square and nothing is standard. That is the difference between a bathroom that fits and one that has been forced in.
172 verified Checkatrade reviews and Which? Trusted Trader endorsement, with reviewers repeatedly naming the standard of the tiling and the communication.
Electrician, tiler, Gas Safe engineer and carpenter, all vetted and Which? endorsed. No unknown crews turning up at your door.
Fixed price after a site visit, a realistic timescale in writing, one year on parts and plumbing and two years on tiling.
Age is the defining factor here. These four issues account for most of the surprises in an SG4 or SG5 bathroom strip-out.
Victorian and older joist runs in Hitchin were never sized for a full bath, a stone-resin tray or large-format tiles. Deflection cracks grout and breaks seals, and a sloping floor makes a wet room drain the wrong way. Strengthening and levelling first is not optional, and it is why we look under the floor before quoting.
Tiling straight onto old lime plaster or a poorly keyed solid wall is a delamination waiting to happen, and it traps moisture in a wall that was designed to breathe. The right approach is to take the wet zones back to a sound, tanked substrate and leave the rest of the room able to cope with the moisture it gets.
In houses this old the pipework is an archaeology of lead, iron, copper and plastic joined in every way imaginable. Isolation valves often do not isolate. We replace the runs we are working on rather than teeing into something that is one knock away from failing.
Hertfordshire's water is hard and it scales valves and elements quickly. Combine that with cold solid external walls and weak extraction and you get both mechanical failures and persistent condensation. Both get designed out in a proper refit: serviceable fittings, correct ventilation, insulated detailing where it is needed.
01
We come and look at the actual room, check the floor, the walls, the pipework and the ventilation, and listen to what the room needs to do.
02
One written price with a realistic timescale. The only caveat is a genuinely unforeseen issue behind the walls or floor.
03
Old suite out, pipework and cabling run, floors levelled and strengthened, wet zones tanked — the work you never see again.
04
Our own tiler sets the walls and floor, then the suite, valves, lighting and extraction go in and get tested properly.
05
Sealed, cleaned, snagged with you present, then guaranteed — one year on parts and plumbing, two years on tiling.
Anything not covered here, call Owen McDonagh on 07533 646033 and ask. Quotes are free and the phone is monitored 24/7.
See every area we cover, browse our services or return to the homepage.
We work out of Ampthill in Bedfordshire and cover Hitchin and the surrounding Hertfordshire towns and villages as part of the same weekly run.
We will look at the floor, the walls and the pipework, tell you what the room really needs, and put one fixed price in writing.
Need someone in Hitchin today?
Emergency cover runs 24/7 at £120 per hour and the phone is always monitored.
07533 646033£2m public liability insurance · Which? Trusted Trader · 9.83/10 on Checkatrade
Request Your Free Estimate
Tell us about the job — we'll come out, measure up and send one fixed price.