Just about to start refurbing the bathroom (after 18 months delay and no bath). Going to do it myself as professionals want £2,000 to renew the floor and replace and fit fixtures and fittings - I can do it well for £750.

Need a power tool to cut short runs of existing chipboard flooring so that replacement sections can be put in (Original rotted). Part of this work is being done in confined space at the foot of an existing airing cupboard, so that the usual candidates i.e. jig, rotary, sabre or hand saw can't be used. This bathroom is very small !

Was looking at the Fein Multimaster , which is a professional/industry renowed power tool and although expensive £200, seems to be capable of doing the task and it is reputedly a life-time purchase. Looks like it will do all the other things that this job will throw-up to i.e. cutting metal and plastic pipes in confined spaces, plunge cutting wood and plasterboard, tile groute removal and general sanding.

The only other competitor is the Bosch DIY tool which whilst cheaper (£70) is less capable than the multimaster. And recent experience with other Bosch products (As recently reported by me on this forum) leads me to expect that it won't last nearly as long. Also the heavy cost of the Fein will be offset in that I will be doing the same to the kitchen in a couple of years time.

Does anybody have any experience of using the multimaster. Is there any downside to this tool.

Is Bosch v Fein no contest ? Are there any other multitools I should consider ?

Nick

Edited 1 May, 201016 yr by Clunkclick

Rather than buying, could you hire from a local tool hire place? Will you have future uses for said tool?

Looks like the HSS Hire group offer something similar @ £19 a weekend/£30 a week and there's a branch about 4 miles away.

That might well do the trick.

Shouln't need it for more than a couple of weekends.

Nick

Edited 1 May, 201016 yr by Clunkclick

Travis perkins can also be reasonable for hiring tools.

Nick - at risk of seeing tales of Grandma /eggs and sucking - check up on what batons are needed under bath . After years of only using bath as place to host shower - in your position -I'd only be fitting shower cubicle ,and saving space in bathroom .Depending on age of property ( and water supply -e.g are you on shared supply ,or separate )- another idea might be to look at whether it might be a good idea ( on the shower side) to fit a tank and pumped supply to a shower ( if you fit shower ) .Comes from experience of having had to put up with shared supply for many years - it's novel to shower with one hand on the water control -to save getting frozen or boiled .

Nick - at risk of seeing tales of Grandma /eggs and sucking - check up on what batons are needed under bath . After years of only using bath as place to host shower - in your position -I'd only be fitting shower cubicle ,and saving space in bathroom .Depending on age of property ( and water supply -e.g are you on shared supply ,or separate )- another idea might be to look at whether it might be a good idea ( on the shower side) to fit a tank and pumped supply to a shower ( if you fit shower ) .Comes from experience of having had to put up with shared supply for many years - it's novel to shower with one hand on the water control -to save getting frozen or boiled .

My place is a one bedroom, back to back end terrace, of 1980's vintage, of the sort that first-time buyers might consider. Bathroom is really small, so the choice is either a bath or a shower, or possibly a hybrid, but not independent units.

The original bath was equiped with the usual sort of after thought shower attached to the bath mixer bloc and the supply was gravity fed from water tanks in the loft above the bathroom .

Although, for house marketability purposes, you'd usually try and retain a bath ( I think the ladies prefer that to a shower), in the area where I live, this sort of property is a target for low-end buy-to-let owners who cater for the transient 24/7 working population (12 month lets) My guess is that they probably prefer a shower. Also, I prefer a shower. So that's what I'm going for. Anyway, if an incoming buyer wants the kit changed its easy enough to get this written into a new mortgage cost.

I discounted pre-fab shower cabinets as below £1500 they were small and crappy and above £1500 they usually too big and incorporated loads of bells and whistles (Sprays and steam) that I didn't need - also, universally, this latter type of cabinet needed a pumped supply. A pumped water supply would require the wiring-in of a new cooker grade (30amp) electrical supply for the pump, changing-out the consumer unit for one wilth more outlets, all of which would be difficult, costly and would have to involve a leccy professional - 2003 building regs say that only registered professionals can do new work in wet areas.

Also, I was against the idea because a pump is something else that can go wrong, as well as shove my electricity bill through the roof (Excuse metaphor).

Also considered OAP sit-you-down bath/shower. Didn't really go for that on style grounds and also theose sort of systems are usually tied to specilaist installation companies. I didn't want to spend out £1,500 to £3,000 on a bathroom contractor.

Intention is to fit a shower in the space occupied by the bath and leave the other bathroom fixtures and fittings as is or slightly refurbished i.e. new taps and drain for the basin.

Also, I'm having to refit a replacement chipboad floor as the bath waste leaked rotting one section and causing consequential failure in another. Further, to my dismay, on removing the defective floor I found that a number of the floor joists had split longitudinally (probably left outside and got wet on the building site) - athough they haven't moved in the 18 months since I took the floor up, I'm going to metal strap them so they don'y move. Also, because of an innovative arrangement of one of the joists which terminates on a back rather than side wall and because I'm going to load the bathroom floor with stud partioning on one side, i think it will be wise to put wood stretchers between the joists to create a strong box section. Over -engineered ? Rather that than have the whole lot move when its finished.

Additionally, the existing tiling round the old bath was on plasterboard on two sides and didn't go down to the floor, so that when splash water from the bath penetrated the side seals, it rotted the uncovered plasterboard. So plasterboarding on two sides of the bath space has got to be replaced and the remaining tiles on its surface recovered and re-used to match the rest of the bathroom - probably use a water proof board for this,

So I ,m going for gravity fed shower cubicle of my own design/construction to slot-in exactly where the bath used to fit, using expoxy/recovered stone shower tray and a cubicle constructed using waterproof board (Mermaid type or similar) on batttens/stud partion work. I intend to size the tray @ 1.5 metres as, without moving any of the other bathroom componets, space allows for only .80m depth. Putting the shower tray on a low plinth (marine ply) to give adequate fall for the drain pipe and water collection in case of leaks and, of course the whole side of the bathroom where the shower will sit will be boxed-in using stud partition and board covered. If finances allow, I may stretch to a glass door but that;s in the balance as the type I was thinking of (Simpson with 8mm glass) is both heavy and costly £400 - don't believe that 4mm glass would be robust enough if you knocked into it.

My place is single occupancy so shared water supply isn't a problem, but to safeguard against this for future buyers I will install a superior thermo controlled mixer.

Although, the existing gravity fed water supply provided adequate head of water, because the pipe routes down from the tanks to the basin and then up to the shower head, it probably doesn't supply as much pressure as a dedicated supply that comes off the tank imediately above it in the loft. So, if I can find sufficient enthusiam, I'll run a direct supply from the tanks to the shower.

Anyway, decided to buy a Fein. Arrived this week. What a tool ! R-O-G. Hope to do some experimental cutting today.

Nick

Edited 8 May, 201016 yr by Clunkclick

Going through something similar at the moment and we're ditching the bath in favour of a dedicated shower cubicle, but have left it to the professionals as we can't be without the bathroom for the weeks/months it would take me to do the job

We've got mains-pressure cold water to the bathroom and gravity-fed hot water so our current shower arrangement uses a PRV to equalise the cold pressure down to around 1.2 bar and isn't ideal. The new shower will be thermostatic (rather than mixer tap ) and make use of a Surrey flange on the hot water cylinder coupled with a pump to bring the pressure up to the mains cold pressure. Fingers crossed it'll make a big difference and make the house a bit more desirable on the market

Chris

Hi

Op asked about Fein Multimaster tools.

I have one of these and have found it very good for light work and detail sanding sash windows.

Using it to cut wood is a different storey completely! IT will do it but very slow - it is ideal for softwood door architraves (laminated floor fitting etc.

Chipboard contains a lot of sand and this blunts tools very quickly - the saw blades on the Fein tools are very fine pitch and wear down very very quickly and are an expensive throw away item. If you have more than a few inches to cut it will cost you a fortune in blades! (from memory about £8.00 each! or more )

You can get a disc cutter (abrotech I think is trade name) that will fit in a small angle grinder which is better option and also very much cheaper (try Axminster tools - on line and a few shops in south - I was in the High Wycombe one recently and excellent service (also do web sales) - they also list Fein tools)

Alternative id the classic approach of a very sharp bevel chisel and a mallet and chop through it.

Hope that helps.

Hi

Op asked about Fein Multimaster tools.

I have one of these and have found it very good for light work and detail sanding sash windows.

Using it to cut wood is a different storey completely! IT will do it but very slow - it is ideal for softwood door architraves (laminated floor fitting etc.

Chipboard contains a lot of sand and this blunts tools very quickly - the saw blades on the Fein tools are very fine pitch and wear down very very quickly and are an expensive throw away item. If you have more than a few inches to cut it will cost you a fortune in blades! (from memory about £8.00 each! or more )

You can get a disc cutter (abrotech I think is trade name) that will fit in a small angle grinder which is better option and also very much cheaper (try Axminster tools - on line and a few shops in south - I was in the High Wycombe one recently and excellent service (also do web sales) - they also list Fein tools)

Alternative id the classic approach of a very sharp bevel chisel and a mallet and chop through it.

Hope that helps.

I previously used a hand saw to cut the chipboard that I'm using as a temporary floor and that took for ever to do, blunting the saw in the process. Trouble is, there are no hardware stores/decent tool merchants/mobile grinders left round here to re-sharpen them for you - so these items become disposable - so the cost/convenience benefit comparison is £8 for a new Fein blade or minimum of a tenner for a new hand saw..

I'll do a few test bits with the Fein and see how it goes - may be using the metal blade.

But there are unfortunately some sections of the existing floor which need to come up which conventional tools can't handle.

Whilst you can just smash through most of the old chipboard flooring using a club hammer, there will be, at some point, a need to cut a clean joint for the new stuff to interface to.

One of the pieces of floor that needs to come out goes underneath a built-in airing cupboard and then onwards under a stud partition wall into another room. As I have no intention of extending this work into the other room cause it will involve ripping up the glued down contract carpeting and other problems, a clean cut in the chipboard floor needs to be made on the bathroom side of the stud partition - don't worry this junction is supported by a tandem floor joist, so no floor waving about in mid air. However, this is exactly where the airing cupboard sits. So there is no way, due to the restricted space, that a clean end could be made using conventional hand or power tools. It could be done (Imperfectly) by using a wire saw to connect up a line of pre-drilled holes using a minature dremel drill, but it would take ages and the line would probably be all over the place. Alternatively, I could demolish the airing cupboard, but this would also involve disconnecting the central heating/Hot water timer which some bright spark decided to site inside the airing cupboard (Don't you love British speculative building techniques ?).

I think the Fein will do the job here. As said before, perhaps I could use the carbide cutting fitment (which came with the blade kit ) in the hope it would be more resistant to the chipboard constituents, but that might leave a straight but ragged edge.

Fein do do a diamond tipped cicrular cutter blade for the multimaster, but thats £55.

Also, there is the final cutting for the new chipboard that is to be laid. This involves only 3 or 4 cuts across standard width water resistant chipboard flooring. So may be the Fein blade would stand up to that.

However, the cutting won't stop there as there will be a number of pieces of natural timber for the stud partions and further conti/chipboarding to be cut for the shower cubicle.

So perhaps a circular saw is needed there.

I'll see how the Fein handles the small remaining bit of old floor removal before making that decision.

Postscript

Had a quick look on the web for chipboard cutters for circular saws. Axminster are offering tungsten carbide at £63 and PTFE coated at £97 !!!.

I've got an old can of spray-on PTFE ! Mix-and-match !

Nick

Edited 9 May, 201016 yr by Clunkclick