Bath Fitter turns 25 this year!

Bath Fitter would like to say Happy New Year and extend its warmest wishes to everyone for 2009! And a huge thank you, as well, to the thousands of customers who enjoyed our bath remodelling services in 2008. We are looking forward to bringing our bathroom solutions to plenty more homes in the next twelve months.

This is a landmark year for Bath Fitter. Twenty-five years ago, the idea for Bath Fitter came to the Cotton brothers from Montreal, Canada, out of personal experience. Sensing a need for a more sane approach to bathroom renovation, Bath Fitter was established in 1984. The company initially focused on building its reputation in high-end hotels by offering quick and professional bathroom remodelling with custom-molded products that fit right over existing fixtures – done in a matter of hours. This was a big plus for hotel owners who can’t afford to have rooms out of service for days at a time.

But the Cotton brothers knew their idea could go much further than hotels. Traditional bathroom renovations in homes can also be messy, costly, and time-consuming. What was a homeowner supposed to do if a bathroom becomes a construction zone for a week, or two weeks, or more? Not to mention the associated noise, chaos, and high cost. The Cotton brothers quickly learned that residential customers were just as eager to benefit from Bath Fitter’s custom-formed acrylic tub liners, shower bases, and wall-systems. The company grew very quickly, adding franchises coast to coast, starting in the late eighties and continuing right to the current day.

What are we looking forward to in 2009? While responses from our professionals may vary, typically, nothing makes our people happier than the look of pleasure and amazement on a customer’s face when they first see the finished product: a beautiful new bathroom, finished before the day is done.

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Quality and Service at Queens Bath Fitter

Bath Fitter‘s office in Queens, NY, serves one of the biggest markets in North America. It’s a big job, with lots of big-city pressures, but the Queens crew gets the job done with due attention to the small details – crucial for bathroom renovation work. Their steady supply of jokes and smiles helps, too!

Bathroom renovation in the New York City area has unique challenges. Manager Mark Donato notes that “there can be times when you are looking for parking, and it literally cannot be found for blocks.” When you’re carrying tools, as well as a Bath Fitter tub liner, shower base, or wall-system, those blocks add up. Then there’s the climbing of many flights of stairs, given that numerous customers in Queens and the area live in walk-up apartments. You’re not always lucky enough to find an elevator!

Sometimes, especially during tub-to-shower conversions, Bath Fitter installers will find a gas line underneath the skirt of the tub. This discovery will often be a surprise to the customer, and it complicates the installation, but Bath Fitter installers take it all in stride.

Perhaps the most unusual customer story to come out of the Queens office is the one about the brand new estimator who encountered a customer who was confined to his bed. Typically, an estimator needs to enter the customer’s home to take measurements of the bathtub and working space. In this case, the resourceful estimator was able to tell the customer all about Bath Fitter’s bathroom renovation solutions… while standing on a milk crate and talking through the window! The customer liked what he heard, and later, when his wife was home to let Bath Fitter inside, the measurements were taken and the installation completed at the appointed time.

It goes to show that in a big city, expect the unexpected.

Last but not least, it goes without saying that in a fast-paced environment, customers expect the same pace from Bath Fitter. They want service right here, right now. Needless to say, Bath Fitter’s one-day bath remodelling service is a perfect fit for Queens.

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Spirit of Giving at Long Island Bath Fitter

The spirit of giving started early this year at Bath Fitter’s Long Island location. Local staff found a great way to give back to the community and provide affordable bathroom renovation solutions at the same time. Here’s the deal: local customers can get great savings on the installation of a tub liner, shower base or wall-system – all they have to do is make a donation of canned goods. For every can that a customer donates, he or she gets a discount on their final purchase. The Long Island Bath Fitter location then collects all these cans and gives them to the Island Harvest, a long-time community organization that helps needy families in the area.

The manager of the Long Island branch says the worthy cause has attracted many customers. It’s a win-win for everybody – an updated bathroom, and the satisfaction of supporting Long Island families at the time of year when that help is most appreciated.

If you’re in the Long Island area and want to find out more, call 631-956-1459.

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Bath Fitter in Commercial Properties

A lot of people already know that Bath Fitter can install a new tub liner, shower base or wall system in residential properties such as houses, apartments, or trailers. What fewer people know is that our company can also renovate bathrooms in much larger properties. Bath Fitter’s commercial work has been a great fit for hotels, motels, clinics, and schools; one of our franchises has even done work on an oil tanker at sea!

Large, multi-unit installations are actually what put Bath Fitter on the map almost 25 years ago. Upscale hotels were the first to benefit from our fast but high-quality bath remodelling process. Since those early days, Bath Fitter has grown enormously and residential customers now represent the biggest part of our business. Nevertheless, there is a resurgent demand for our services from non-residential customers, too, and because our products are custom-made for each situation, we we’re always happy to take on a unique and challenging job.

For large scale remodels, the Bath Fitter advantage is exactly the same as for our hundreds of thousands of satisfied home customers. We don’t compromise on the durability, elegance, or professionalism of our work. Whether we’re installing one tub liner or one hundred, you can always count on our expertise.

When commercial customers call on us, they’re getting the benefit of a company that has the resources of a nationwide network of experts. We’re at over 200 locations and still growing.

Bath Fitter’s commercial division helps coordinate multi-unit installations. Over the years, we’ve been glad to help out medical clinics with our tub-to-shower conversions, which helps them better serve mobility-impaired patients. Best of all, we’ve been able to get the work done quickly, which minimizes disruption. Similarly, at hotels – where many customers see an elegant bathroom as integral to their overall experience – we’ve been able to refresh the tub, shower and wall-system, and help management provide guests with the highest standards in comfort and style.

In an increasingly competitive world, we can help any business maintain their bottom line by ensuring that remodelled bathrooms are ready to use the very next day. That’s a fraction of the time of a traditional renovation.

It’s no wonder, then, that more and more businesses and institutions are trusting their bathroom renovations to Bath Fitter.

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Bath Fitter: 25 Years of Bathroom Renovation

Next year marks Bath Fitter’s 25^th Anniversary. We are very excited about this major landmark. Lots will be going on during the anniversary year itself but already we’ve started gearing up. While continuing to provide affordable bathroom renovation solutions – installing tub liners, shower bases and wall-systems – we’ve also spent some time crafting some promotional messages that let customers know about the Bath Fitter difference.

Over the summer, we oversaw production of three new television commercials that focussed on the pride of Bath Fitter employees. Without doubt, Bath Fitter wouldn’t be where it is today without the commitment of its company employees and those of our over 165 franchises. Each commercial was narrated from the perspective of a Bath Fitter professional: one narrated by an estimator, one by an installer, and one from a quality assurance manager. The commercials illustrate the expertise of our team and their commitment to excellence.

Professionalism is key at Bath Fitter. We know it’s not enough to manufacture top-notch products. We need the best people standing behind them. That’s why training is so important to us. At Bath Fitter, every employee gets the tools he or she needs to serve the customer. Our estimators learn how to take precise measurements of the customer’s bathroom so that the tub liner or shower base, when ordered, will be an exact fit. Our installers undergo extensive, hands-on training at one of our factory classrooms. There they perform installations in a variety of scenarios that they can expect to find in customer’s homes. And in the manufacturing process, technicians custom-make the product in factories that are rigorously controlled for quality, cleanliness, and safety.

 We see the pride and professionalism of Bath Fitter employees shining through every day, and we hope that when our brand new commercials hit the air in 2009, that pride and professionalism will also shine through to those who have not yet met our team.

To learn more about Bath Fitter, visit us here.

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Bath Fitter – Green is Good

As promised a couple of weeks ago, today we’re bringing you information about Bath Fitter’s environmental approach to the manufacturing and installation of tub liners, shower bases and wall systems. Over our 25 years in business, we have continually refined these processes to reduce waste, recycle whatever we can, and cut down on energy use. Here’s how the Bath Fitter experience helps ensure that the environment comes out a winner when customers choose our products:

· Installing a new bathtub over the top of the old one eliminates the need to rip out old fixtures. This lightens the load for already overburdened landfills.

· Our wall system is placed over the top of the old one, further reducing the amount of debris that needs disposal.

· Acrylic tubs are good insulators, keeping water hotter for longer and saving energy.

· Acrylic materials last a lifetime, which means no need to replace them and less waste in landfills.

· We use the latest technology to reduce our electricity usage.

· Over 75 per cent of our shipping is free from the costly use of cardboard, pallets and shrink-wrap.

· At our plants, we recycle all the water that we use in the manufacturing process.

· Bath Fitter recycles all scrap plastic materials.

· Bath Fitter uses non-toxic installation materials and methods.

Given the increasing importance of environmental issues in North America today, we are working harder to bring this good news to our customers.

 

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Expansion at St. Eustache

Bath Fitter’s home in St. Eustache just keeps getting bigger. We’re at 270,000 square feet now; by the time this construction is over, we’ll be at 320,000. You can see the workers toiling away long hours, laying the foundations, and at the north end, part of the skeleton of the eventual extension is already standing.

When construction ends in the fall, there’ll be a much-needed home for the local corporate store. This’ll be a big help. Area customers will have a wonderful showroom where they can see Bath Fitter bathtubs, shower bases and wall systems. The expansion will also, of course, give added space to our factory and warehouse. With demand for bathroom products still so strong, you’ve got to have room for all those acrylic tub liners rolling out of production!

For those new who are unfamiliar with Bath Fitter, a few words about our company. Since 1984, we’ve been North America’s leader in one-day bathroom remodeling. We can install a brand new tub or shower base and wall-system over the old one in one day. We’re based in St. Eustache — just north of Montreal — and have another manufacturing plant in Springfield, Tennessee, not to mention a couple of hundred locations all over the United States and Canada. Some of these are corporate-owned stores; most are locally-owned franchises. Check out the About section for more about us.

Stay tuned for more about our exciting and growing company. Updates will be coming on at least a weekly basis. With so much going on, the challenge isn’t so much figuring out what to say, but finding time to say it!

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