Bath Re Enamelling

If the enamel on your bath is getting worn, rough, stained or just hard to keep clean, then you are probably searching for a way to sort this out, and you've ended up looking at this page on Bath Enamelling.

Below is a skirted bath that we re enamelled in situ. This was a beautiful big bath that needed re enamelled on the inside and the outside. The re enamelling produced a beautiful finish as you can see. The finish is mirror like and the bath is now restored to looking like a new enamelled bath and is also now very easy to clean.

People use the term "Bath Enamelling or "Bath Re-Enamelling" to mean two different services.

One of these is the spraying of a new coating onto your bath. This is normally done without removing the bath. The taps, overflow and the waste are left on the bath. The tiles are not touched. And the job is generally completed in a day. When people talk about having your bath re enamelled in situ, this is the process they are talking about.

This is the service we deliver. It can be confusing for the customer as this service is called Bath Enamelling as well as Bath Re Enamelling

We can take an old worn bath that is rough to the touch, hard to clean, has lime-scale and perhaps covered in stains with a dirty tide mark and transform it into a bright, shiny bath that is smooth and easy to clean.

We don't need to take out the bath to do this. We do not need to remove or loosen the taps, the overflow or the waste.

We get the job done in a day and the bath is fully usable the next.

The rest of the bathroom is not put out of action, and as soon as we have left it can be used. So if you have a busy household you can be assured that when the kids return from school and others return from work the shower, toilet and washand basin are all available for use.There will be no need for you to re-tile, re-grout, re-plumb or re-fit taps, etc.

We can also re enamel your bath in our workshop. In this instance the bath is un-plumbed and would be couriered to us to be re enamelled.We can often take more time restoring the bath back to it's original finish in our workshop and also have taps reconditioned or feet chrome or nickel platted, painted or polished to a very shiny, chrome like finish.

As you can see from our pictures the resultant finish of a re enamelled bath is a deep, long lasting high gloss finish. One of the advantages of re-enamelling the bath is that the surface is not prone to the chemical damage that can occur with the original enamel bath. Their surface was applied before many of the chemical cleaners available today existed. The re enamelled surface is resitant to many modern chemical cleaners. It is also very easy to clean so can be cleaned with washing up liquid. Another advantage of re enamelling is durability. Although not impossible to chip it is more flexible and therefore harder to chip than the original.

Sometimes the bath has been really badly etched by chemical cleaners or even water draining over a long period of time. The etching can be as lines running down the bath or along the bottom of the bath. In this instance even though we can re-enamel the bath and have it looking great the original cast iron bath has been damaged and this etching will be noticeable. Some people don't mind as it is part of the character of the bath. However if you do wish to have any etched area as smooth as possible you would need to let us know.

Situations like these where the enamel has been eaten away can be sorted out but it would not be done as part of a regular enamelling job, which can be done in a day. Where there is etching like this and the customer wanted it to be as perfect as possible we would require two days to re-enamel the bath.

Bath Enamelling is also used to refer to a service where the bath is removed, sandblasted to take off existing enamel, and then the bath has new vitreous enamel melted over it at a very high temperature. Vitreous enamel is just coloured glass. The temperatures required to do this can be in excess of 800 degrees celsius. For this reason the job cannot be done in situ and your bath has to be taken away. Even a workshop facility cannot deal with this unless they employ a furnace. This really is "enamelling" in the fullest sense of the word.

We don't deliver this service.

If a bath resurfacing or bath re-enamelling company says they are going to enamel your bath or even re-enamel your bath in situ or in a workshop then they mean they will be putting a new surface on your bath. It will not be vitreous enamel.

The procedure for Bath Re-Enamelling is as follows:
  The bath-room is fully prepared. Silicon seal is removed from around the bath before we begin re-enamelling. This step is omitted if the bath is being re-enamelled in our workshop.
  The bath is then chemically cleaned. This ensures all oils, shampoo residues etc are cleaned off the surface of the bath and the bath now has a smooth, clean surface ready for re-enamelling. We then mask your bathroom to protect the tiling and flooring.
  A special clear bonder is applied. This has been especially formulated specifically to enable new surfaces to adhere to enamel.The bond is so good that if you were to badly damage or chip your bath the water would not be able to penetate the bond. So apart from the damaged area the rest of the new surface would continue to adhere to the bath. See note below.

Prior to this bonder being developed some companies used a product called Epoxy resin. Some still do. Epoxy resin will yellow over time. The finish is not a deep or shiny as the finish achievable with our system. When it was developed it had to accomplish several jobs, ie adherance to a new surface, shine etc Now there are better products available that also do these jobs but individually. Epoxy resin is fairly cheap however and it can do the job. It's just not a standard we feel we should be providing for our clients.

Other companies would use an acid etch. This would quite literrally eat the enamel away so it was very rough and a new surface could adhere to it. It was not always consistent in results.

Next we spray on th new surface Generally 3 to 4 coats are applied. The correct thickness is applied to ensure a high gloss and durable finish. The surface applied is designed to withstand very high temperatures as well be resitant to chemicals in modern cleaners

A lot of Bath re-enamelling companies finish here. The Bath Business is dedicated to providing a superior service to the customer so we take further steps to ensure a beautiful finish on your bath.
  We heat the area and leave the bath to dry. This off course takes additional time. When another company could be packing up we are still on the job.
  We then polish the bath. We always polish the bath when re-enamelling it. Our technicains are very skilled and get a fantastic "off the gun" finish. We always polish the bath no matter how good the finish as although the polishing is hard work and takes additional time it ensures a very smooth, even, dust free finish. Even a fantastic off the gun finish will not be dust free. The bath looks fantastic once polished as you can see from the pictures.
  Masking is removed and new silicon sealant is re-applied as necessary
  The bath is ready to use again within a few hours of re-enamelling.

A similar procedure is also applied when re-enamelling sinks, wash hand basins, shower trays etc. Some steps are not always necessary, such as silicon sealant, but otherwise the preperation and re-enamelling are the same.

We can re-enamel your bath or bathroom suite if you live anywhere in London. So Chelsea, Richmond, Central London etc are easily covered by our technicians. We can also re-enamel your bath if you live anywhere in Surrey, Hampshire, Slough, and Hertfordshire.

We have also decided to expand our bath re-enamelling services in the South East of England. So now we are able to take on a lot more work and provide a higher level of service in Brighton, Hove, Shoreham, Worthing, Eastbourne, Portsmouth etc.

And because we are the UK's leading bath resurfacing and re enamelling company we can also service Kent more efficiently. We can re-enamel or resurface your bath or bathroom suite in Canterbury, Folkestone, Deal, Ramsgate and even Dover.

In Scotland we cover the whole of Glasgow, Edinburgh and the surrounding areas as well as the Scottish Borders and Aberdeen.

The Bath Business , re enamelling and resurfacing specialists are able to re-enamel whole bathroom suites to any colour almost anywhere in the UK.