Should I buy my own bathroom suite?
It usually saves money and gets you exactly what you want — most of our jobs run on customer-supplied suites. The trade-off is responsibility: if a supplied item arrives damaged or wrong, the delay is yours. Send the fitter your list before ordering and let them sanity-check sizes, and have everything delivered before strip-out day.
The online warehouses — Victorian Plumbing, Bathroom Takeaway, Plumbworld — sell the same or equivalent sanitaryware to trade brands at prices no fitter's supplier discount reliably beats. Buying your own also decouples the taste decisions from the trade decisions, which most clients prefer. We fit customer-supplied suites daily and happily.
The three failure modes to design out: dimensions (the 1700mm bath that does not allow for the wall's true, un-square length — send the fitter the spec sheet before you click buy); compatibility (wastes, traps and valves that do not mate — same fix); and timing (the job that stalls on day six for a shower screen arriving day eleven — everything on site before strip-out begins, no exceptions).
Where buying through the fitter earns its margin: single accountability when things arrive broken, and heavy or fragile items — stone trays, oversized glass — where the supply chain and the fitting need to be one plan. Many clients split it: fitter supplies the technical guts (valve, tray, trap), client supplies the visible choices (tiles, brassware, furniture). That split works well.
More in choosing a fitter, or browse all 38 questions on the FAQ index.
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