What height should bathroom fittings go at?

Bathroom fittings get put at heights copied from a showroom or set by whichever tile course was convenient, and then a household lives with them for twenty years. Almost every one of them has a governing rule that is about a person rather than a number, and the rules are quick to apply if you do it before drilling rather than after. The elevation drawing puts them all in one place.

Step by step

1. Set the basin by the tallest regular user.Stand at the position and mime washing your hands. The rim should be at a height that does not make you stoop. A rim set too low is the single most common bathroom regret, and it cannot be changed without redoing the plumbing and the tiling. A family with young children is far better served by a step than by a basin set low for a child who grows.
2. Set the mirror by eye level, not by the basin.The centre of the mirror at eye level for the usual user, and the top edge above the tallest user's eye line. A mirror hung to look centred over the basin, without reference to anybody's height, is the reason people crouch to see their face.
3. Set a cabinet clear of the mirror and its own swing.A mirror cabinet solves both at once. A separate cabinet needs its door swing drawn on the wall before drilling, so it does not foul the mirror, the light or somebody standing at the basin.
4. Set the shower riser rail by the tallest user at the top of its travel.The head, at the highest position the bracket reaches, has to be above the tallest user's head with the spray angled down. Work back from that. The rail's fixed bracket centres then determine where the holes go, so check both fixings land in tiles rather than grout.
5. Put the towel rail where it is reachable from inside.You should be able to reach a towel from inside the bath or the shower without stepping out onto a wet floor. A rail on the far wall is the reason towels end up on the floor, and it is a slip risk as well as an annoyance.
6. Put the toilet roll holder slightly forward of the seat front.Within a seated arm's reach, at about the height of the seat or a little above, and forward of the front edge of the seat rather than behind it. A holder set back behind the seat line is the most common fitting error in a bathroom and it is genuinely awkward for the whole life of the room.
7. Put a robe hook where a garment hangs clear of the floor.On the door back or a free wall, high enough that a dressing gown does not trail. Two hooks are almost always better than one.
8. Mark it all out and live with it before drilling.Stick masking tape on the wall in the exact positions and leave it for a day. Use the room. The mirror that seemed right at the shop is often 100mm out for the people who actually use it, and tape costs nothing to move.
9. Apply the three constraints that override every preference.First: the fixings must miss the pipes and cables, so detect before you commit. Second: a weight-bearing fixing goes through the body of a tile and never through a grout line. Third: anything electrical near the bath or shower has to suit that zone, and the zones dictate what may go where.

Tips

• Take the heights from the family, not from a standard. A household of tall adults and a household with a wheelchair user want genuinely different bathrooms.
• If you are refitting a bathroom for someone who may need grab rails later, put noggins in the walls at the likely positions while the walls are open. They cost almost nothing then and are a wall-opening job afterwards.
• Photograph the wall with all the pipes and cables visible before it is boarded and tiled, with a tape in the shot. It answers every future drilling question.

Common mistakes

• Setting heights to line up with tile courses — The tile module has nothing to do with how tall the people using the room are. Move the fixing to suit the person, and pick a position within a tile rather than on a grout line.
• Setting a basin low for a small child — The child grows and the basin does not move. A step is removable; a basin is not.
• Putting the toilet roll holder behind the seat line — It is out of comfortable reach for the entire life of the bathroom, and moving it leaves two holes in the tile.