North Leeds Plumbing & Heating – Home Improvement and DIY Advice

Archive for May, 2009

Villeroy & Boch is a major German manufacturer of ceramics and household accessories. It actually began in France, in 1748, when namesake François Boch began a pottery company with his three sons. The company eventually moved to Luxembourg where it still operates a factory today. In 1801, the company officially moved its headquarters to Mettlach, Germany, just over the border from Luxembourg. François Boch merged his company with that of a competitor, Nicolas Villeroy, in 1836 to form the company we presently know.

Today, Villeroy & Boch makes all sorts of luxury bathroom accessories and fixtures unrivalled for quality, beauty, and durability. True to their origins as a porcelain manufacturer, Villeroy & Boch make top-of-the-line basins, bidets, bathtubs, toilets, and urinals, but they also make designer furniture, taps and mixtures, and designer radiators. Stylish and functional, Villeroy & Boch bathroom products add an elegant accent to the modern European home, flat, apartment, or country house.

Each product has various style lines, ensuring customers will be able to outfit their bathrooms by drawing on their own unique sensibility. The Aveo line of bathtubs, for example, is marked by organic curves, the Squaro by natural wood and stone elements, and the Bellevue by clean, modern lines. To accent your bathroom fixtures, Villeroy & Boch also manufacture colourful bathroom tiles in a diverse range of patterns and palettes. So whether you’re trying to capture the feel of the Alhambra or the look of the modern European city, Villeroy & Boch offers a range of functional solutions.

If you wish to add more warmth to your floor so that you do not have to step onto a cold floor after a bath or shower, then underfloor heating is the best option. Adding underfloor heating to your bathroom will provide you with more comfort and give your bathroom a more luxurious feel.

The bathroom is one of the most ideal rooms for underfloor heating, as underfloor heating is hygienic. There is less risk of bacteria growth as underfloor heating will keep your bathroom dry and make it a much safer environment. This also makes your bathroom much easier to clean, as there will be no build up of mould. Having underfloor heating can also reduce the stuffiness in the bathroom, as the heat is spread more evenly than with a radiator, preventing the room from getting too hot and reducing the risk of headaches.

Underfloor heating is suitable for normal bathrooms and even suites. There are many cable kits available for bathrooms with different types of floors such as tile, stone, concrete and also laminated floors. Many cable kits are designed for use in bathrooms of any shape and work well with Marmox insulation boards. The kits usually come with a programmable thermostat, floor sensor, fixing tape, heating cable and installation instructions. 

There are a number of ways in which you can install a cable kit in your bathroom. One way is to install it with flexible tile adhesive. Another is to install the kit into a flexible floor and using screed under the tiles.

Imperial Bathrooms periodically offers limited edition bathroom fixtures. Meant to serve as milestones in the company’s history, they market these limited editions as expressions of individuality and hope consumers will buy them to give their bathrooms a unique design edge.

Imperial limits production of each of these pieces to just 200 worldwide, making them truly rare and among the most exclusive consumer goods on the market. Likely ensuring no one you know will have the same bathroom as you, these limited editions are excellent ways for consumers to assert their individuality. Moreover, each limited edition is handcrafted and stamped with a special “Limited Edition” platinum logo. They also come with certificates of authenticity and can, in some cases, be custom made based on the customer’s individual tastes, ideas, and design needs.

At present, Imperial offers seven limited editions. The Jazz basin and cistern lid are downy white and accented with a textured pattern reminiscent of dried sand.  The Kinetic basin and cistern lid have ribbed patterns, and the Bathroom have a playful, childlike feel. The word “Bathroom” dances across the surfaces of this sink and cistern, making it perfect for a child’s lavatory.

For those looking for decorative patterns, the Zen basin and cistern lid are decorated with delicate blue flowers laid over white porcelain. The Frappe limited edition is similar, save that it’s dressed with yellow wildflowers, as is the Bubble and Pebble basins and cistern lids. The former portrays a busy, almost frenetic, dance of grey-blue bubbles, the latter delicate grey kisses that evoke river stones.

Bisque radiators are elegantly designed to emphasize the clean lines of the modern European bathroom and expertly engineered to steadily heat virtually any towel and any room of the house but provide especial comfort and warmth to the modern domestic bathroom.

Bisque offers over twenty five styles of radiators in thousands of sizes, colours, and finishes so finding one to fit any need, taste, and space won’t ever be a problem. Moreover, Bisque radiators can either be run electrically or via central heating so they can be used in virtually any space.

Bisque has a number of towel radiators, including the waffle-shaped B2; the horizontally-linear, ladder-like Bow Fronted, Deline, Quadrato, and Straight Fronted; the curving, snake-like Cobra-Therm; and the coiling Hot Spring and Mini Hot Spring.

The B2 has precise square proportions and a chrome rail that evokes geometry and fine architecture. The Bow Fronted, Deline, Quadrato, and Straight Fronted all have bars running horizontally across the radiators. The Bow Fronted and Straight Fronted have tightly packed, exposed dowels while the Deline and Quadrato have nested bars.

The Cobra-Therm swishes back and forth in curves of warm, serpentine meanders, making it perfect for warming multiple towels. The Hot Spring and Mini Hot Spring offer the consumer a towering coil of warmth. Both elegant and efficient, the Hot Spring was designed by Priestman Goode for Bisque. The Mini Hot Spring was designed by Paul Priestman for Bisque and stands as a more compact version of the iconic Hot Spring.