Advice on bathroom renovation

I lived in a cooperative and repeatedly reported leaks through my bedroom wall from the bathroom next door. The residents remodeled their bathroom and did nothing about the pipes in the wall; they didn't even contact the coop about checking the pipes within the walls. After the reno was completed, a pipe finally burst and the water ran all weekend. So the plumber said he needed to rip out the new tile to address the leak. The resident wanted them to rip out our bedroom wall to access the pipes and denied access to their apartment. Since we knew the bathroom had been renovated, we called a specialist in who restored damaged walls in pre-ware buildings. We had just spent a few thousand dollars restoring the wall from the lathe outward and didn't want our wall ripped out either. Fortunately, the plumber said he needed to access the pipes from the bathroom. We finally reported he leak to the building's dept. to break this impasse. The residents were forced into breaking open their newly tiled wall to replace pipes.

Contact your managing agent and explain the issue. If the building has contracted with a plumbing agency, they may be the best ones to check the pipes.

You are describing a gut Reno of the bathroom. Rip it all out and rebuild it. When the walls are down the lumber can assess the pipes etc, you don't say the size or type of finishes you are hi king about or the fixtures it will contain. Reno can be anywhere from $20k to $80k and up. Depends on what you want. Of course there are coop fees for approval and maybe an architect although you probably don't need that. Give more details and we'll give you a better estimate.

Thanks for the advice! I don't have a ton of details because we haven't given it much throughout yet but in general we don't want anything fancy, just standard white subway tiles, plain white toilet, bathtub and sink. So hopefully we could do it at the low end of that range. This is helpful.

Bon5555,

Kylewest is as usual spot on. The first thing you need to do is get the alteration agreement from your management company. That will explain what you need to do as well as your buildings rules. Then you should meet with a couple of contractors (3 is enough) and let them send you proposals (there should be no charge) I think you are more or less looking at 25-30k for a typical bathroom in Manhattan.

Depending when the plumbing was last replaced, you coop may want the wall lines replaced back to the risers.
If you are replacing the floor they are also likely to specify Laticrete 9235 or similar to tank the floor.

Quick question to the resident experts (Prime & Kyle), when you say that typical bathrooms in manhattan start around 20k to 30k, is that all-in (labor, materials, insurance, permits)? All of quotes I've gotten have been 30k just for labor for a modest sized bathroom. All-in I'm looking at 40k+ for something mid level. Seems very high.

Kevin,

You should be able to get it done for 25-30 all in, I am saying that without looking at it but that is typical. Is the building requiring anything special like waterproofing all the walls or anything special about the plumbing?

Thanks Prime. Nothing special (at least not in the estimate). The only thing remotely non-vanilla is a dropped ceiling for lighting. I'll meet with a few more contractors to see if any have a more reasonable labor rate.