The office that issues Manhattan's licenses
The city's Risk Reduction office issues contractor licenses including general, electrical, plumbing and mechanical, and trade licenses including journeyman and master electrician, after a Prometric or ICC exam.
A bathroom job can bring several people into the house, and each of them may hold a different kind of paperwork. When a remodeler comes to look at the room, ask who will do each part of the work, whether that person is on the remodeler's crew or works for another company, and how you can reach them. If a name or a license on that list is unclear to you, you can ask Risk Reduction about it.
A drinking-water note for Manhattan
Manhattan's CY 2025 Water Quality Report says the city's drinking water is groundwater from 19 public water supply wells located near the confluence of the Big Blue and Kansas rivers.
Mapping the trades a bathroom brings in
Before you look at a single tile sample, sketch out who might touch the room. A full remodel can involve demolition, framing repair, plumbing, electrical work, a fan and its duct, waterproofing, tile, glass, drywall, paint and trim. A lighter refresh may need only a few of those. Ask each bidder to write out the trades their plan uses, in the order they expect them to arrive, and to name who keeps that sequence on track. A plan written this way lets you see where a gap in the schedule could open and who answers your calls while the room is torn apart.
Keeping, swapping or removing the tub
The tub is a big early choice, because so much of the room is arranged around it. A tub can suit bathing small children or a long soak. A walk-in shower can take the same footprint instead. Keeping both may mean giving up closet or vanity space.
Ask each remodeler what the swap would involve in your room: whether the drain would move, what happens to the wall tile and the floor where the tub sat, and how the new shower floor would carry water to its drain. If this is the only tub in the house, think about whether a future buyer or a visiting relative might miss it, and raise that with the designer.
Room to stand and move
A bathroom can look fine on paper and still feel cramped once the door swings in and someone is standing at the sink. Tape the outline of the new vanity, toilet and shower on the floor of the current room and walk through it. Can the door open fully without hitting anyone? Is there room to dry off outside the shower? Can two people pass each other on a busy morning?
Ask the designer to draw the clear floor space around each fixture, and ask which code the city applies and what spacing it calls for beside and in front of the toilet. If the door is the problem, ask about reversing its swing, a pocket door or a barn-style slider, and what each would mean for the wall it sits in.
Blocking inside open walls
When walls are opened to the studs, it is a good moment to add solid wood between them where something heavy may hang later. Grab bars, a towel warmer, a wall-hung vanity, a heavy mirror or a fold-down shower seat can need something firm to fasten to. Adding it while the wall is open can spare you from cutting into finished tile later.
Ask the remodeler to mark on the plan where blocking will go, at what height, and to take photos of it before the walls close. Keep those photos with your papers so the next person who hangs something knows where to drill.
Where the tile cuts will land
Tile layout begins from a starting line, and that line can set where the narrow cuts end up. A thoughtful layout can put full tiles at the most visible edge, center a pattern on the vanity wall, and keep thin slivers out of corners and doorways.
Ask each tile setter where they plan to start the layout on each wall and on the floor, what size the smallest cut piece will be, and how the grout lines will meet at the corners and along the top of the tub or shower. If a pattern such as a herringbone or a diagonal is in the plan, ask to see a dry layout before anything is set.
Hot water for a bigger shower
A larger tub, a second shower head or a rain head can draw more hot water at once than the old fixtures did. Ask the plumber whether the water heater you have now can keep up with the new fixtures, whether the supply lines feeding the bathroom are sized for them, and whether a mixing valve or temperature limit is part of the plan. Ask, too, how long it may take hot water to reach the room, and whether anything in the plan changes that.
Keeping dust in the room
Demolition and tile cutting can make fine dust that can drift through a house. Ask each bidder how they will seal the doorway, whether they will cover the heating and cooling registers in and near the room, where tile will be cut, and which path the crew will use to carry debris outside. Ask what the floors along that path will be covered with, and what cleanup looks like at the end of each workday.
What to ask every bidder in writing
Put the same list to each remodeler, and keep their answers with the proposal:
- Does this job call for a City of Manhattan contractor or trade license, and if so, which license do you hold and what is the number?
- Which city permits, if any, does this plan call for, and who applies for them?
- Who will do the plumbing and the electrical work, and are they your employees or subcontractors?
- Can you provide proof of liability coverage and workers' compensation before the start date?
- How will you tell me about damage found behind a wall, and how will that work be priced and approved?
- What does your written warranty cover, and for how long?
Questions about your homeowner's policy while the bathroom is under construction are for your insurer.