Bathroom Renovation Plumbing Checklist: What to Sort Out Before Tiling

A bathroom renovation goes wrong far more often because of plumbing sequencing than tiling or finishes. Pipework decisions made before the first tile goes down are the hardest and most expensive to undo afterward. Here’s what to sort out first if you’re planning a bathroom renovation in Midrand, Johannesburg or Pretoria.

Get the Pipe Layout Confirmed Before Anything Else

If you’re moving a toilet, basin or shower to a new position — even by a metre — that means rerouting supply and waste pipes, and that work needs to happen before any waterproofing or tiling starts. Deciding on final fixture positions early avoids the costly scenario of tiling being broken out again because a drain point turned out to be in the wrong place.

Check What’s Actually Behind the Walls

Older Midrand, Johannesburg and Pretoria homes often have galvanised steel or outdated copper pipework that’s worth assessing before a renovation starts, not after a leak shows up mid-project. If walls are already being opened up for the renovation, it’s the cheapest point in the whole process to replace ageing pipe sections rather than tiling over a problem that will need breaking out again in a few years.

Waterproofing Is Not Optional, and Not Something to Rush

Waterproofing needs to be tested — not just applied — before tiling begins. We flood-test the shower and any wet areas and leave it long enough to confirm there’s no seepage, which adds a day to the schedule but is far cheaper than discovering a leak into the ceiling below months after the renovation is signed off. Skipping this step is the single most common cause of bathroom renovations needing expensive rework.

Plan for the Geyser, Not Just the Bathroom

If the renovation includes a bigger shower, a second shower head, or a freestanding bath, it’s worth checking whether your existing geyser can actually keep up with the new demand before the project is finished — not after you’ve moved in and the hot water runs out halfway through a bath. This is also a sensible point to consider a geyser upgrade or relocation if the current unit is old or awkwardly placed.

Sequence Matters: Plumbing, Then Waterproofing, Then Tiling

Pipework and drain positions get finalised first, waterproofing gets applied and tested second, and tiling happens last — reversing any of that sequence is how renovations end up with tiles being broken out to fix something that should have been sorted earlier. Coordinating plumbing, electrical and tiling trades under one point of contact avoids the gaps that happen when each trade assumes someone else checked something.

Compliance Certificates

Any plumbing work involving new installations or significant alterations should be signed off with a PIRB-compliant certificate, particularly if you’re planning to sell the property in the next few years — a renovated bathroom without proper compliance documentation can become a sticking point during a property sale’s plumbing inspection.