Shower Installation Christchurch

A good shower is one of the best upgrades you can make to a Christchurch home, especially on a cold winter morning. The difference between a shower that works for twenty years and one that leaks into the framing comes down to the parts you never see: the fall to the waste, the membrane and the mixer behind the wall.

We install moulded units, tiled showers and level-entry wet floor showers, and we check your hot water and water pressure before you choose the fittings.

Pricing: quotes are free, and every job gets a fixed price before we start, so there are no surprises on the invoice.

Shower Installation Jobs We Handle Across Christchurch

• Shower installation
• New shower install
• Shower waterproofing
• Wet floor shower
• Level entry shower installation
• Replace shower with new unit

Tiled level-entry or a moulded unit?

Most new showers fall into two camps, and the choice changes the cost, timeline and paperwork. A moulded acrylic unit comes with its own tray and walls, is quick to fit and has the fall built in. A tiled shower, especially a level-entry design with no step, looks better and suits anyone with limited mobility, but it relies on a site-applied membrane and a floor formed to fall to the waste. If your current shower only drips, leaks or runs cold, shower repairs may solve it without a new install.

• Moulded unit: faster install, fewer trades, often a like-for-like swap
• Tiled shower on a tray or with a hob: moderate build, membrane under the tiles
• Level-entry wet floor shower: no step, floor graded to a floor waste or linear drain

Falls, membranes and the floor waste

For a shower with level access, BRANZ explains that the Building Code's E3/AS1 asks for a fall of at least 1:50 towards the floor waste, extending 1,500 mm from below the shower rose. An enclosed shower with upstands needs at least 1:60. Getting this wrong is the most common reason water ends up on the bathroom floor instead of down the drain.

Under the tiles, the membrane is what keeps water out of the framing. Acceptable Solution E3/AS2 cites the code of practice for internal wet area membranes, and Level recommends flood testing the waterproofed floor before tiling. On timber or plywood floors the whole floor should be waterproofed, not just the shower area. We work with qualified waterproofers and seal waste and mixer penetrations the way the membrane system requires.

How It Works

Does a new shower need building consent in Christchurch?

It depends on what changes. MBIE guidance treats replacing or repositioning a shower within an existing bathroom in a house as exempt building work. Adding a shower where there was none increases the number of sanitary fixtures, which needs consent.

Tiled showers are where it gets less clear. Waimakariri District Council has published guidance on when a tiled shower needs consent, and a 2024 MBIE determination found that installing a wet area membrane while replacing linings in an existing house can fall within the exemption for linings. Lowering a slab or changing floor framing for a level-entry shower moves you back into consent territory. The building owner decides whether work is exempt, so we talk it through with you first and, if consent is needed, supply the plumbing details for Christchurch City Council, Selwyn District Council or Waimakariri District Council. For a bigger job, it often makes sense to treat it as bathroom renovation plumbing.

Choosing a mixer that suits your hot water

The mixer goes into the wall before tiling, so it has to be right first time. A mixer designed for mains pressure can perform badly on a low pressure system fed from a header tank, and some rain heads need more flow than an older cylinder can give. We check your hot and cold supply before recommending a valve.

Thermostatic mixers hold a set temperature when someone else turns on a tap, which suits children and older users. Hot water to a new shower must also be temperature limited, usually by a tempering valve at the cylinder, and we check yours works. If pressure is the real problem, we look at water pressure across the whole house rather than just the shower.

What affects the cost of a new shower

Every shower installation is quoted for free once we have seen the space, and the price is fixed before work starts. The main things that move it are:

• Moulded unit swap versus a tiled or wet floor build
• Moving the waste, especially through a concrete slab
• Floor framing changes to create a level-entry fall
• Linear drains and concealed or thermostatic mixers
• Whether building consent and inspections are involved

Showers in Christchurch homes

Older timber houses on piles, like many of the bungalows in Beckenham and the cottages in St Albans, usually give good access underneath, so moving a shower waste is often simple, though old timber floors may need new substrate before a membrane goes down. Slab floors make waste changes harder, and on homes rebuilt on TC2 or TC3 land with an engineered foundation, any cut into the slab needs checking with the designer first.

Cold is the other local factor. A shower on an exterior wall of an older, lightly insulated house puts the supply pipes in a cold cavity, and Christchurch's hard frosts can freeze pipes in exactly that spot. We route and lag the pipes to suit. If an old shower has been leaking, we can arrange leak detection first so you are not tiling over damp framing.

Why Choose Cheeky's Plumbers for Shower Installation

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Shower Installation Across Christchurch

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