Tub-to-Shower Conversion

What comes out with the tub

Most conversions start with a five-foot alcove tub boxed in on three sides. A steel or acrylic tub comes out in one piece once the wall tile around its flange is cut away. A cast iron tub is a different animal. It is heavy enough that we usually break it up in place under drop cloths rather than carry it down a finished staircase, and we tell you that before demo day so the noise is not a surprise.

The tile around the tub almost always comes down to the studs. In older Massachusetts houses that tile is often set in a thick mortar bed over wire lath, or glued to plaster, and neither makes a sound base for new work. Once the wall is open we can see what the old tub was hiding: soft framing along the outside wall, old galvanized supply lines, a drain that has been patched more than once.

If the house was built before 1978 we treat painted surfaces as if they contain lead and work lead-safe. The rest of the bathroom and the path through the house get covered before anything comes out.

Demolition also tells us about the floor. Decades of splash at the front edge of a tub can rot the subfloor right where the new shower entry will be, and that wood gets cut back to sound framing and replaced before anything new goes over it. We would rather find it now than build a new shower on top of it.

The drain and valve the tub was hiding

A tub drains at one end through a fairly small line. A shower generally needs a larger drain under the plumbing code, and you may want it somewhere else: centered under the new floor, or a linear drain along the back wall. Moving it means opening the floor and checking which way the joists run. We do not notch a joist to make a drain fit. If a joist is in the way, it gets headered off properly, and you hear about it before the floor is closed.

The valve changes too. A tub valve feeds a spout and a diverter, which go away. The new valve sits at a height that suits a standing shower, and a handheld on a slide bar is worth considering if anyone in the house may need to sit down someday. The controls should be reachable from outside the spray so nobody has to step into cold water to turn it on.

All of the plumbing is done by a licensed plumber under a plumbing permit, with a rough inspection before the walls are closed. We schedule around that inspection so the job does not sit waiting on it.

If a joist is in the way, it gets headered off properly, and you hear about it before the floor is closed.

Fitting a shower floor into a tub-sized space

An alcove built for a tub is roughly thirty inches deep, which makes a narrow but workable shower. There are two honest ways to build the floor. A preformed base is quick and dependable. A tiled floor sloped to the drain on a waterproofing membrane gives you more freedom with the drain and the tile, and we flood test that pan before any tile goes down.

People often ask for curbless. On a first floor over a basement it can sometimes be done by recessing the subfloor between the joists. On a second floor it often means structural work that a conversion was never meant to include, so we price it as an option and let you decide with the facts in front of you. A low curb is usually the practical answer.

Glass gets measured after the tile is set, never before. The walls in an older house are rarely plumb, and a fixed panel or door has to be made to the finished opening, not the drawing.

Keeping a tub somewhere in the house

Before we take out a tub we ask one question: is it the only one in the house? Plenty of buyers with young children want at least one tub, and if this is it, a conversion can narrow your market when you sell. If there is another tub elsewhere, the question mostly goes away.

The decision is yours. We give you a straight answer about how we see it and leave it there. Some owners who plan to stay for good convert the only tub anyway because nobody in the house can step over it safely, and that is a perfectly sound reason.

Taking the tub out also opens up a little room to work with. The space where the tub deck and spout sat can become a niche, a bench at one end or a fixed glass panel that keeps the spray in without a door. If the wall beside the alcove allows it, the shower can sometimes grow a few inches longer than the old tub. We walk through those options with you before the layout is final, so the new shower is built for how you use it rather than copied from the tub it replaced.

How a conversion runs with Modern Remodeling

It starts with a walkthrough. We look at the tub, the floor under it from the basement if we can, the window if there is one in the alcove, and how you actually use the room. The written scope that follows names the drain location, the valve, the type of shower floor, the tile and the glass, so there is no guessing later about what was included.

If we find rot or a bad drain line once the walls are open, you get a call that day with photos and a written change before anything extra is done. Steve started this company after years of working for contractors who lacked communication, and that is the reason he runs it the way he does. The bathroom gets cleaned up at the end of every day, and you know what is happening next.

At the end we walk the finished shower with you. We run the water, check the drain, look at the grout and caulk lines up close, and show you how the valve and handheld work. If anything is not right, it gets fixed before we call the job done.

See the rest of our bathrooms work, or browse the gallery for rooms we have finished.