When are toilet facilities not usable during a bathroom refurbishment?

Hi Jon, With good planning and co-operation from whoever is doing the refurbishment, the WC should only be genuinely "not usable" ie not physically connected if the wall behind the WC has to be skimmed and when the wall and floor tiles go down. To give you an idea the WC could be removed at 08:00 in the morning, the wall behind could be skimmed and the WC re-fitted by 12:00 noon. With floor tiling, you have a similar problem. Remove WC at 8:00 AM in the morning, lay the floor tiles (using a rapid set tile adhesive), grout the floor tiles and re-fit the WC by 6:00PM. Wall tiling would be similar to floor tiling. Depending on who does the tiling, they may want to leave the adhesive to dry for 24 hours before grouting in which case the WC would have to be re-fitted between tiling and grouting. As you can see, it can be done without drastic inconvenience but it does rely heavily on organisation, trades being on hand and everything working like clockwork. You will probably pay a little more for the priviledge of having a working WC for most of the time because of the constant removal and re-fitting of the WC. Also in a small bathroom, it is much more difficult to work in the space with the WC in place. Hope this helps. Tony Boundy TB Renovations

Hi Whenever I do a bathroom there is always a toilet that can be used apart from the odd hour or so if the walls need plastering as once the plastering is done a toilet can always be put back in. Even with 2 toilets in the house it's inconvenient not to have a toilet upstairs. But that's just how I work - customers needs first. Hope it makes sense. Martin Croxley Home Improvements Ltd

In a property with more than one toilet area its not unusual for the w-c to be out of action for a few days during a bathroom refurbishment. But in a property where there is only one w-c your installer should, with proper planning, have the w-c at least temporarily connected at the end of every working day.

If you speak to your contractor you can discuss (if not changing locations) leaving the w/c pan till later on in the refurb, or they can put it back at the end of each working day.