A customer sends a photograph of a bathroom from a magazine and asks what it would cost. The honest answer spans a range wide enough to be useless, because the price depends on whether the bath stays where it is, what is behind the tiles and whether the floor will take the weight of what they have chosen.
Scoping is the job before the job.
Step 1: establish whether the layout changes
Keeping fittings in place is a refit. Moving the bath, toilet or shower means new drainage and pipework, which changes the project entirely. This single question separates two very different price bands.
Step 2: establish the room and its condition
Size, ceiling height, whether it is upstairs or downstairs, floor construction, the age of the property and whether there is any known damp or leak history. Older properties routinely surprise installers, and asking early sets expectations.
Step 3: establish the tiling scope
Full height or half height, floor tiles, the size and material chosen and whether existing tiles come off. Tiling is frequently the largest labour element and the one customers underestimate.
Step 4: establish the electrics
Lighting, extractor fan, shaver sockets, underfloor heating and whether an electric shower is involved. Electrical work brings its own requirements and often another trade.
Step 5: establish who supplies the fittings
Whether the customer is buying the suite or the installer is supplying it, and whether anything has already been purchased. A customer who has bought something unsuitable needs to know before it is delivered.
Step 6: establish timing and living arrangements
Whether there is a second bathroom, whether anyone works from home and whether there is a deadline such as a family visit. This shapes the schedule as much as the work does.
Step 7: capture it in conversation
SpideyChat for plumbers captures scope, photos and timing at any hour, following the same structured approach as alarm and CCTV quote requests that need site details.
Customer: How much for a new bathroom? Assistant: The bathrooms page shows price bands for a like-for-like refit and for a full redesign with moved plumbing. Could you tell me whether you plan to keep the current layout, roughly the room size, whether tiling is full or half height, and send a couple of photos? That gives the team enough to give you a realistic range.
Step 8: explain what could change the price
Hidden problems behind tiles and under floors, such as rotten timber, failed waste pipes or inadequate joists. Explaining that these are possible, and how they are handled and priced, prevents a mid-project argument.
Accessibility and adapted bathrooms
A growing share of bathroom work involves adapting a room for someone with limited mobility, including level access showers, grab rails and wider doorways. Asking whether the work is for accessibility changes the design conversation entirely, and families arranging it are often working to a discharge date or a deteriorating situation rather than a decorating whim.
Send the lead where it needs to go
Captured enquiries can flow into your own systems using webhooks on Pro, as described on the integrations page.
Smaller work alongside
Not everything is a full installation, and price questions for routine jobs are covered in plumbing callout charges and other price questions, while emergencies follow leak and burst pipe enquiries at midnight. Coordinating a disruptive job in someone's home works much like AI receptionist for moving companies.
Setting it up
Publish price bands, what affects them and the photos you need, then capture scope at any hour. Try SpideyChat on your own site, or read about capture on the features page.