BATH RESURFACING VIDEO ON YOUTUBE

So finally we have ventured into video and produced a video about our bath resurfacing services.

This video particularly helps explain all about our “ROLLS ROYCE” technique and why we are the UK’S leading bath resurfacing, re enamelling and repair company. Hopefully you’ll enjoy it.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omtk6ZoQGHA]

There will be more YOUTUBE videos to come on our services and different tips and advice on caring for your bath. Do let us know if you want us to cover anything specific.

We currently re enamel baths and basins in London Edinburgh, Glasgow, Brighton and most major cities. We are expanding all the time so if you need help do contact us.

NEEDLE SHOWERS- YOU’LL GET THE POINT!

Unlike nowadays where a thermostatic shower is considered the norm rather than a luxury it was not common for a house that was built prior to 1920 to have a shower installed. At the time this would have been quite a hefty additional expense. Indoor plumbing was still somewhat of a luxury for many sectors of our society.Even where indoor plumbing was common, such as the big cities, showers were used primarily by men, and not women. Hard to believe though it is the streams of water were widely felt to be harmful to women. A woman was definitely the weaker sex in Victorian and Edwardian Britain. If a woman did want to shower it was recommended she take the advice of her physician.

So, well up until the 1930s, most women would not consider showering. What need was there for a shower fixture in the home? Bathing was done in the bathtub. But showers were used in the home for medicinal or therapeutic purposes. Shower sprays were believed to stimulate the action of the skin, and make some people healthier. Even today many modern advertisements for showers or showering products promote the invigorating feelings produced by having a shower. Power showers are a must and a luxury shower with additional jets is even better.

But, there were some people who specified showers be installed in their pre-1920 homes, and those people tended to be wealthy. Very Wealthy. The showers that had the most therapeutic value were the ones that had multiple sprays that would apply jets of water to specific parts of the body. These showers were called needle showers, since the fine jets of spray would strike the kidney area, ribcage, liver or spine like fine needles. These elaborate showers were very expensive, commonly costing from 10 to 15 times more than installing a very good standard complete bathroom. So in todays standards if you spent a relatively modest £5000 kiting out your new bathroom your needle shower would cost you a staggering £50,000 minimum. And you can buy reproductions today ranging in price from £9000 to £20,000. Perhaps not quite as expensive in comparison but certainly a luxury item.

This might help explain the rarity of antique showers today, especially the ribcage or needle showers. They were mainly only found in a very few affluent homes. And owners of such homes also were more likely to upgrade and modernize their homes on a fairly regular basis. Brass has always been a highly sought after commodity, so these showers did not tend to hang around once removed from their original installation. They were scrapped out for brass, and lost forever. Such a shame. So finding an original is rare indeed.

Today there are a few company’s that reproduce Needle showers and they are still sought after luxury items.

JOHN BOLDING ANTIQUE BASINS RESTORED

We were asked to restore some old antique sinks in an old property. When we arrived we found a lovely old property having its original features, fixtures and fittings restored and renewed. As there were over a dozen bedrooms it was a relatively big undertaking.

The basins were part of the restoration work so we were called in as the restoration experts to restore them. We had to repair some cracked sinks. We did also restore some fantastic antique baths in this property.

The basins we were asked to restore were in the bedrooms. As an aside the bedroom vintage wallpaper looks fantastic! There were quite a few sinks that were cracked or completely broken. Repairing cracked sinks is a specialist job.

The fact that the basins had lasted so long was amazing. They were original John Bolding Basins from the first Bolding works. This dates the basins circa 1880-1890.

John Bolding and Sons Ltd were great rivals of Thomas Crapper & Co ltd and in 1963 John Bolding and Sons ltd became the owners of Thomas Crapper and Co ltd. The basins by Bolding are quite distinctive and very aesthetic.

Normally these particlar sinks would be beyond repair. However we have developed an innovative restoration process which we have been using for the last 18 months with great success. So now whereas architectural salvage company’s or private individuals were having to dispose of beautiful antique basins we can restore them. We think we are the only bath and sink restoration company that can fix sinks with cracks or damage such as this.

Once repaired we would normally resurface the sinks completely. They would look fantastic, feel fantastic and look virtually new. However the John Bolding Emblem/Logo would be lost. That was not an option in this situation. So we had to very carefully colour match and blend in our restoration work so that the sinks were renewed but the repairs were virtually invisible and the logo stayed intact. Thus preserving the heritage and integrity of the sinks. As you can see the results are fantastic. Restoration work like this is priceless. These basins could have ended up being thrown out with all the history and heritage lost with them. Now they can be admired and used for the next 100 years.

If you have some historic or antique basins, baths, bidet or toilets you would like to salvage and bring back to life contact: The Bath Business, The Bath and Basin restoration specialist. They can help you.

How Do You Increase the Value of Your Home for Very Little Money

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Having your Bathroom Suite resurfaced should increase the value of your home.  It will help your suite look brand new, clean and fresh. At the very least new bathroom taps can help update and improve the bathroom in readiness of a quick sale.

Like many people, you may be looking to sell up and move house. If so, you’ll want to ensure you give yourself the best possible chance of receiving or even exceeding the asking price for your current property.

Today’s housing market is scary enough for most people. The possibilities of receiving a bid that matches or exceeds the value of your property can be impossible to obtain. If you are offering potential buyers exactly what they are looking for you are in with a chance of reaching your desired sale price. For example, a poorly decorated bath-room or a cluttered bedroom can often be enough to put off many people from considering an offer for your home. You might already be aware that certain areas of your house could benefit from being spruced up, but you simply can’t afford the outlay required to renovate them. As a result, the offending room is often left in its existing condition additional items of furniture or bric-a-brac are utilized to hide the room’s shortcomings. Quite frequently the offending room becomes a storage center.

Unfortunately, this might well end up costing you money & perhaps damaging the potential value of your property. However, this need not occur, especially if the difficulties are being caused by your bathroom.

As the bathroom is the most visited room in the house. Along with the Kitchen it is considered vital that the bathroom most impresses the buyer. If you have lived in your existing property for a number of years, there’s a good chance that your bathroom will have remained the same since you first moved in. Perhaps you renovated it yourself years ago to suit your own tastes.

You might well think that having a pink sink and toilet is acceptable and common. There is nothing that will put off a potential buyer more than dated coloured sanitary-ware in a bathroom! Combine this with a dull, worn peach bath and you may as well wave your house sale goodbye.

Potential buyers have their own ideas with regards to their perfect bathroom. Factors such as flooring and types of storage are important to them. Many want a clean, modern or traditional Victorian white bathroom suite with chrome fittings and ample storage. Resurfacing a coloured suite to white can help achieve the look most buyers are looking for.

Regardless of different tastes the Bathroom must look clean and fresh. Even a nicely tiled and floored bath-room will not impress the buyers if the bath is worn, stained and looks dull or dirty. Even marked taps will put them off a potential sale. Luckily this is something that can be rectified fairly easily and not necessarily expensively.

Taste and style of baths or tap fittings can be as varied as the owners. Generally speaking, as long as your bathroom is clean and fresh looking with bright fixtures and fittings, a potential buyer will go away without having to worry about completely ripping out the bathroom and starting from scratch. By giving them something to work with, you are significantly increasing your chances of selling the property.

Achieving the above is not an expensive task. Resurfacing a complete bathroom suite can cost around £600. Not ripping out the old bathroom and not having to redecorate will save you not only in time and money but also a lot of organizing of different workmen and an awful lot hassle. So it’s well worth doing. You may only need to have the bath resurfaced. In this instance it will only cost around £300 and you can end up with a lovely new looking bathroom. 

Check http://tinyurl.com/2f69lks for a quote and information.

Once you bathroom suite is looking pristine again you can look at investing in some lovely accessories. This need not cost a lot of money and at least you can take these with you once you sell. Lovely luxury towels, some scented candles and other bath time accessories all help your potential buyer paint a picture of themselves relaxing comfortably in your bathroom.

If you’re looking to sell your house over the next few weeks or months, make sure you take a good look around. Invite a neighbour or friend round to gauge their opinion before you put your home on the property market. Get several estate agents around to gauge their opinion also. It is their job to help you sell and a good agent will give good advice.  Do clear out all your clutter. Remember, a pink bathroom might be gorgeous to you, but to a potential buyer, it might not be as desirable.

If at the end of the day if you decide not to sell all is not lost. You will have a lovely luxurious bathroom to relax in. It will not have cost a fortune to accomplish & it will be very likely that your home will have increased in value due to the small amount of renovation work carried out. It really is a “win, win” scenario. A glass of something nice might be in order whilst you relax in your bathtub.

https://www.thebathbusiness.co.uk

Tips on Cleaning Your Bathroom

Most of us like to think of our bathrooms as a luxurious haven we can escape to, even if only rarely. It’s the room we want to have a lovely long soak in and relax after a stressful or busy day. For us to get the most enjoyment from our bathrooms it is essential that they are clean.

First of all make sure you have all the cleaning materials and equipment you will need. There’s nothing more irritating than having to run up and downstairs getting another cloth etc. It’s a good idea to get a little box with everything you’ll need prepared beforehand for each time you need to do the job. If you live in a house with more than one bathroom you can have a small box of cleaning liquids and cloths etc in each bathroom. Bring the large equipment such as Hoovers, mops etc to the bathroom.

Dust down the corners, ceiling, top of cabinets etc. You may need a set of step ladders to reach. Dust any fans or vents. If these have been neglected you may need to give them a scrub with a liquid bathroom cleaner and a cloth. Once up to scratch though they are easy to keep clean.

Get rid of any laundry or empty toothpaste tubes etc. Clear the bathroom of rubbish and nick- knacks to make your job easier.

Bathroom rugs can be shaken out or put in the laundry. If you have a shower curtain this can also be taken down to be washed and put in the laundry. It should be put back up immediately afterwards to dry. The shower curtain can’t be tumble dried. Then spray a general bathroom cleaner on counter tops. Once you have sprayed the bath, toilet etc you can start wiping the surfaces down with a cloth.

If you have an original Victorian cast iron bath be very careful what cleaner you use. Many are not suitable for enamel and will eat and erode the surface. In fact we end up restoring these baths frequently. With original cast iron baths it’s best not to leave any cleaner on it for any length of time.  Apply the cleaner and wipe the bath down right away. Otherwise the cleaner may react and your bath will be damaged very quickly.

A general liquid bathroom cleaner is normally very good for all types of baths. Cast iron, Acrylic etc. This kind of cleaner can also be used on sinks, shower trays etc. Don’t use any cleaners that have abrasive particles in them as these can scratch your bath and over time you will begin to find the bath is harder and harder to clean. If in doubt some warm water, washing up liquid and a good bit of elbow grease will suffice.

If you live in a hard water area then your sanitary wear can be affected by limescale. The limescale can build up causing damage to your bath or wash hand basin as well as leave unsightly marks. Often the damage is such that the only way to resolve the issue is to have The Bath Business come in and resurface your bath and/or wash hand basin. However, once your bath or bathroom suite has been restored by The Bath Business there are some things you can do to avoid limescale building up again.

Sometimes a bath is positioned in such a way that not all the water can drain away from it and there is always a little puddle around the plug hole or waste. In you suffer from limescale then this area will become affected. It may be worth getting a plumber in to re align the bath. If this is not possible as the bath is a solid cast iron bath or moving it would cause redecorating issues the problem can still be resolved.

The first thing you should do when you have finished taking a bath or finished using your wash basin is dry it. Lime-scale deposits come to settle in the bath or basin once the water has evaporated off. If you rinse your bath or basin after using and dry them the limescale will get wiped up with the water rather than being left in the bath to settle.

This can help avoid limescale deposits but inevitably sometimes you may forget, or you have a guest staying over or your teenage son/husband can’t see the point in all this work after a nice long bath. So you may still get some limescale building up on the bath or sink despite your best efforts. The best thing to do in this instance is to dab on white vinegar to the affected area. The vinegar will react with the limescale without destroying the enamel.

Vinegar is a very handy cleaning agent.

If you ever find your cistern or vanity unit seems to suffer from condensation after anyone has had a bath or shower in the room you can use vinegar to resolve this. Put 2/3 water and 1/3 vinegar solution in a spray bottle and spray over your cistern etc and wipe down with a cloth. Next time someone has a shower the condensation should not affect the sprayed area.

How about bathroom mirrors? They inevitably get marked or can look streaky. Vinegar comes up trumps again. The following solution works wonders with bathroom mirrors. If you feel in the mood you can always use this solution on other mirrors or your windows in your home as well.

• Pour Vinegar into a bowl or pan, then crumple a sheet of newspaper and dip it in the vinegar. Apply to the mirror.Wipe the glass several times with the same newspaper until the mirror is almost dry. Then shine it with a clean soft cloth or dry newspaper.

Something in the ink seems to help create a really nice shine on the glass. However wear gloves or your hands will be covered in ink!

As with most cleaning prevention is better than cure. Rather than letting dirt or grim build up it is best to deal with it as you go along. Fortunately bathrooms do tend to have tiles or flooring that is very easy to keep clean if grim is not allowed to build up on them. There are sprays you can purchase which are very good for glass shower screens. If sprayed after each use, mildew etc can be avoided. Some people keep old toothbrushes to help clean tricky areas in the bathroom. These are very good for getting into shower heads and such. However if you have young children it’s probably best not to use these in case one of your youngsters picks up the wrong toothbrush. If everyone in your home rinsed down the bath, sprays the shower screen etc after each use then rather than having to clean the bathroom on a daily basis you may well be able to do one big clean in a week. Off course if you have a bathroom that is used extensively by a lot of people you may not be able to avoid daily cleaning. It’s still worth making sure everyone does clean down the bath etc after each use. At least then your job of cleaning  will be made much easier.

How To Clean A Shower Head

The most eco-friendly approach involves the use of vinegar again. Soak the shower head (removed) in a solution of half distilled vinegar and half water for a couple of hours. Afterwards, rinse thoroughly.

Or, use a liquid descaler and an old toothbrush. If you live in a hard water area, you may have to do this job regularly.

As always, do a test patch first to check that your shower head will not be damaged by chemicals.

How To Clean Taps

It’s worth bearing in mind that some taps, particularly those with gold or brass finishes will be damaged by a build-up of toothpaste. If you can wipe and dry the taps after every use that is ideal. However as discussed previously some family members or guests may not be expected to do this or simply just forget.

The best solution is to clean regularly with a solution of washing up liquid, rinse and dry. Do not use an abrasive cleaner on taps. If you need to remove limescale you can try dabbing on the white vinegar again. You might need to scrub the limescale off with but the vinegar does help break the limescale down and dislodge it. Or you can soak a cloth in a descaler and wrap it round the taps. Do not leave for longer than the manufacturer recommends or your taps could be damaged, and always do a test patch first if you’re not sure. Once finished, rinse thoroughly and dry. Another good way of dealing with limescale on taps is to put lemon juice in a spray bottle. Squirt your taps once a week to help deal with and prevent limescale. An added benefit is the lemon smell is quite nice .

 How To Clean The Toilet

Regularly wipe down the toilet seat with a solution of mild bathroom cleaner or washing up liquid. Don’t forget to clean the outside of the bowl and the cistern on a regular basis also.

You can add a toilet cleaner, normally in the form of a hard block, into the cistern to help clean the bowl. Check with the manufacturer. Some modern toilets have fittings within the cistern that corrodes with these cleaners. If the manufacturer says it’s okay to use these type of cleaners in the toilet then this will clean the toilet to some degree with every flush.

For thorough bowl cleaning, use a toilet brush, not forgetting to scrub under the rim. Rinse the brush with bleach afterwards, and flush the loo over it to clean it off. Some people prefer disposable toilet brush cleaners so once you’ve finished scrubbing you simply flush the brush away.

If your loo has built up limescale this can be really unsightly. It is possible to remove this.  Sometimes it is a matter of draining the toilet down and applying vinegar or another limescale remover to the affected areas and scrubbing it off. Once done however just make sure you keep the loo clean and use cleaners with limescale remover if necessary to prevent build up again.

Another thing you can try if your toilet has reached the unsightly stage is pouring a can of Cola into the pan and leaving it over night. Flush away in the morning. Slightly worrying how effective this popular drink is at cleaning.

My favorite trick for cleaning the toilet are denture tablets. Put one in the bowl and one in the cistern. Leave for 1 hour and flush. You’ll have a sparkling toilet in no time!

Using more than one toilet cleaner at a time will release toxic gases so don’t try that.

The last things you should do is sweep or Hoover the floor and then mop your bathroom floor.

Let us know any tips on cleaning the bathroom you’ve found useful. We might include them in our blog!

https://www.thebathbusiness.co.uk

Bath Resurfacing, A Brief History

Bath Resurfacing, as a professional service, is a relatively new industry, dating back decades rather than centuries. The oldest company in the UK that is still resurfacing baths is in its 4th decade.

However, once bathrooms were pretty much ubiquitous, different industries and services came to be built up around them. One of these was Bath Resurfacing.

Bath Resurfacing itself is an off-shoot of the car refinishing trade. In fact, in America, the usual term used to describe the trade is “Bath Refinishing”; not “Bath Resurfacing” or “Bath Re-enamelling”, both of which are the terms mostly used in the UK. At The Bath Business we describe what we are doing as ‘Bath Resurfacing’ generally. We feel it best describes what is actually being done to your bath.

Although there are quite a lot of companies that do Bath Resurfacing professionally, and each of these may have their own system or materials they use, the one common denominator is that all of them spray on the new surface. And the techniques and methods used have been derived from the car refinishing trade. Bath resurfacing has been around long enough now that many who do it may never actually have sprayed a car (I’m one of them) but this doesn’t change where the industry itself sprang from. And fortunately as materials and techniques improve in the car industry, the benefits of this can be used when resurfacing a bath.

Many of the tools, equipment and techniques would be fairly familiar to anyone who has spayed cars, although there are some differences due to the fact of where you are working and what you are spraying.

Many of a car sprayers’ tools will be run by compressors. In other words, they are air driven. Not just his spray gun but other things such as polishers, sanders, etc are all air driven. But compressors are bulky, heavy items, even small ones; so for mobility purposes, most bath resurfacers will use electrical sanders and polishers.

Again, the primers used by a bath re surfacer will often be different as the surfaces he is spraying onto are not the same as a car sprayer. The Bath Business uses a primer or bonder that has been designed specifically to adhere the new surface to the enamel bath. Without this special bonder the new surface would not adhere, or if we did do something to make it adhere of the bath then chipped there would be a problem. Our special primer ensures that if you chip the bath at some point the surface is adhered so well that no water can then reach under the new surface.

The car industry is the major mover and shaker in the development of spray paints and systems. For example, in the mid 90’s BMW unveiled its development of a water-based, coloured base-coat with a clear lacquer sprayed over it. At the same time, other companies were spending a lot of money doing research and development of water-based systems for cars. A lot of bucks have been spent on this. And the result of all this is that today cars are sprayed with a water-based coloured coat with a clear lacquer on top.

These developments trickle down to the Bath Resurfacing industry.

The idea of putting a new surface onto a bath is, however, not a new one at all. In fact it probably pre-dates the cast iron enamelled bath itself.

The first enamelled cast-iron baths began to appear in the late 1800’s, around 1870 and 1880. (Interestingly, one of the figures credited with its development was David Dunbar Buick, who is much better known for going on to found the Buick Motor Company in 1903. The success of this company [although not run by  Buick himself by this point] went on to fund the formation of  General Motors.)

Prior to this the baths most people used  were made of galvanized metal. The kind of thing you see in a western movie where the hero is soaking in a tub with his hat on, smoking a cigar. Once he’d finished, the water would be tipped out and the bath hung back on the wall.

These galvanized baths began to get painted on the inside. I came across one of these baths which had been installed into a bathroom. The old man who owned the property told me that when he was a child, the bath was painted once a year and he was the one sent to get the paint. I got the impression that there was a specific paint which was used. Very like the DIY kits you can get today, of which “Mr Tubby” is probably the best known. They can be covered in layers and layers of old paint. Stripping this off is definitely not a job for the faint hearted.

The Bath Business delivers a professional bath resurfacing service. We resurface bathroom suites, baths, sinks, toilets and shower trays. We also deliver a professional invisible chip repair service again to baths, sinks shower trays etc. So we don’t sell DIY kits. We do suply a chip repair kit to our past customers and we are looking at supplying our materials and system to other professional bath resurfacing companies.

When exactly painting galvanized baths started as a practice is something I’m not sure of, but is does seem to be the earliest example of Bath Resurfacing, and as I said, may even predate enamelled cast-iron baths.

Bath Resurfacing as a profession is, today, practised in many countries, but to say it is world wide would give a slightly wrong impression. It seems to be based mainly in those countries with a strong anglo-saxon culture or bent. America, Australia, Canada, etc. In a lot of countries, the idea of having a bath is somewhat odd and not really part of the culture. Hence, no Bath Resurfacing.

There are some gaps in what’s been written here, and if anyone has some information that I’ve not, I’d really like to hear from you. Some of the things I’d like to know are: Where did Bath |Resurfacing originate as a professional service? When? What were the first materials and equipment used?

I’d guess that the answers to these are that it was North America, probably after WW II and that Epoxy Resin was what was sprayed. But there are guesses. If you know more about this, please e-mail me at thebathbusiness@live.com and I can include it here in this article. Thank-you.

If you want to know more about the services we provide at The Bath Business then please look at our website, https://www.thebathbusiness.co.uk

We operate on London, Edinburgh, Surrey, Kent, Brighton, Manchester, Birmingham,Glasgow and throughout the UK.

Services include: bath re-enamelling, bath chip repairs, bathroom suite, enamelling, bathroom renovation, re-enamelling, resurfacing, re-surfacing a bath, enamel repairs, chipped enamel, cast iron bath sales, bathtub refinishing,bath tub resurfacing,