The Ultimate Guide to Bathtub to Shower Conversions

You step over the same tub wall every morning to take a shower, and the tub itself gets filled maybe twice a year. That mismatch is why a bathroom remodel from tub to shower is one of the most requested renovations there is, and it is also why the quotes come back so far apart, anywhere from $3,500 for a prefabricated conversion to $20,000 for a curbless tiled build. Most of that gap comes from how much plumbing has to move.

There are two versions of this project. A standalone tub-to-shower conversion leaves the rest of the bathroom alone, so the shower is the whole job. The other version folds it into a full bathroom remodel, where the conversion becomes one line item alongside the floor, the vanity, and the toilet. Most of the price confusion online comes from quoting a single number for both.

For finished examples across a range of budgets, see before and after tub to walk-in shower conversions.

Count the tubs before you commit to the conversion

Count the tubs in your house before this goes any further. A National Association of Home Builders survey found 74% of buyers want both a tub and a shower in the primary bathroom, and conversions hold their value best when a tub stays somewhere in the house. Removing the only one narrows your buyer pool, particularly among families with small children. Price that into the decision if you expect to sell within a few years.

The tub you have now sets the price

A drop-in tub in a tiled platform is a different job from an alcove tub with three walls already around it, and the estimate shows it.

• An alcove tub is the cheapest starting point. Three walls are already framed and the supply lines are roughly where a shower needs them.
• A corner tub means similar demolition and a harder layout. The footprint left behind is usually an awkward shape, and the drain rarely ends up where the new pan needs it.
• A freestanding tub is simple to remove and no help afterward. No surround walls exist, so the shower gets framed, sheathed, waterproofed, and tiled from scratch.
• A drop-in tub costs the most to convert. The platform and its framing come out before anything else begins, and plumbing runs are frequently routed inside them.

Bathroom remodel tub to shower cost, by scope

Every number below is a planning range built on scope. Where you fall inside one depends on your market, your building, and how far the plumbing travels.

A few things shift the total at every tier:

• Labor accounts for 40 to 60% of the number.
• Permits for work touching plumbing generally run $250 to $500.
• Set aside 10 to 20% as contingency. Old tub alcoves are a common place to find water damage and dated pipe, and that reserve is what keeps a surprise from becoming a stalled project.
• Dense metros run high. New York, Boston, and the Bay Area regularly price a tiled conversion at the top of its range, and co-op and condo buildings add insurance requirements, elevator scheduling, and restricted work hours.

A Queens condo shows what the full-remodel version costs in an expensive market. The homeowners replaced a cramped, dated bathroom with a terracotta-tiled walk-in shower in place of the tub, a double vanity sized for two people getting ready at once, and a washlet toilet. The finished bathroom came to $31,400 over a five-week build. See the the tub to shower conversion completed by Art Deco Enterprises.

What remodeling a bathroom from tub to shower actually involves

Pull a tub out and the drain is suddenly in the wrong place. A tub drain sits at one end of the alcove, while most shower drains go near the center of the pan, or along one wall for a linear drain, so relocating it means opening the floor to reach the trap. With a basement or crawl space underneath, that is routine. Over a concrete slab, or in a condo where the ceiling below belongs to a neighbor, it becomes a design constraint instead.

The valve comes out too. A tub-and-shower valve carries a diverter and a drop to the spout, and neither does any work in a shower-only setup, so the wet wall gets opened. Crews often find old galvanized supply, a rotted stud bay, or a slow leak the tub surround had covered.

Then the waterproofing gets rebuilt from nothing. Tile is not waterproof, so a tiled shower needs a membrane system behind it and a pan built to slope. The tub it replaced did that job by itself. Homeowners cut this line when a quote comes in high, and it is also the repair that means tearing the tile back off.

Ask what your quote assumes about the drain and the valve, and what happens if the wall opens on something unexpected. Rerouting plumbing is the most common reason a conversion goes over estimate.

What fits where the tub was

A standard alcove tub measures 60 inches long and 30 or 32 inches deep. That opening takes a 60x30 or 60x32 shower base with no framing changes at all, and the alcove conversion is the cheapest version of this project for exactly that reason. Older houses turn up 54-inch tubs and other odd widths. Reframing the opening to fit a stock base is minor work, not a red flag.

Here's the thing that surprises a lot of homeowners: you will not gain floor space. The footprint measures the same before and after. You get a clear sightline where a tub apron and a shower curtain used to block one, and no rim to step over on the way in. Both are worth having. Should you need the room itself to be bigger, that becomes a bathroom layout question.

Curbed or curbless: decided before framing

Ask for a curbless shower after the framing is up and the crew has to undo work you already paid for.

A curb is a low tiled lip at the entry that contains water reliably for very little money, and it is what most conversions get. Going curbless puts the shower floor flush with the bathroom floor, so the shower floor has to drop in order to create slope. Either the subfloor gets recessed between the joists or the rest of the bathroom floor gets built up.

The slope needs to reach roughly a quarter inch per foot toward the drain, and the waterproofing membrane has to extend past the shower onto the bathroom floor, since no curb is there as a second line of defense. Expect curbless to add $800 to $2,500 over a curbed build, plus time on the schedule.

Shallow joists, a concrete slab, or a condo board can each rule it out, so raise it at the site visit. Curbless is the right call for wheelchair access and aging in place, and it is the only entry a wheelchair can roll straight into. A low-threshold shower gets you most of the open feel without the subfloor work.

Base, walls, and glass

The base, the tile, and the glass are where you have real control over the cost of your tub-to-shower conversion.

• A prefabricated base is the fastest and lowest-risk option. The component most likely to leak arrives already built, while a tiled pan gives you any shape and tile you want and depends entirely on the installer getting slope and membrane right.
• Tile costs more in labor than in material. Small formats and intricate patterns move the price further than a high per-square-foot tile does, so tile installation costs track hours on site.
• Glass is where the enclosure budget goes. A framed slider is the least expensive, semi-frameless costs more, and a frameless panel or door runs roughly $550 to $1,400 installed. A single fixed panel with no door is the cheapest way into the open walk-in look, though heat and steam escape the shower and overspray reaches the room.

One fixture, or the whole bathroom

Should the rest of the bathroom come out at the same time? With a floor, vanity, and toilet in good shape, a standalone conversion is the cheaper path and you are done inside a week or two. You will be looking at a new shower next to an older floor, and a visible threshold where the two tiles meet.

Fold the conversion into a full bathroom remodel when:

• The floor is coming up anyway. Running one tile across the whole room and into the shower is a layout decision made at order time, costs nothing extra, and does more for a small bathroom than any other single choice.
• You want curbless. The subfloor work reaches past the shower footprint, so the room is already disturbed.
• The plumbing is old. Opening one wall to find galvanized supply usually means opening several more.
• The layout is wrong. Moving a vanity, a door swing, or the toilet only makes sense while everything is already out.

Stay standalone when the rest of the bathroom is recent, or when the budget calls for phasing. Converting now and redoing the floor in two years works fine, as long as your contractor knows the plan and builds the threshold detail for it.

Timeline for a tub to shower remodel

Build your tub-to-shower conversion schedule around the glass order. Everything else follows a predictable sequence, and the glass does not.

• Prefabricated conversion with the plumbing staying put: 3 to 7 days
• Tiled conversion: 2 to 3 weeks
• Conversion inside a full bathroom remodel: 4 to 8 weeks

Those are build times. And that's before you get to design, material lead times, and permit review, all of which routinely take longer than the construction itself.

Glass gets templated only after the tile is set, then fabricated, so plan on about two weeks between a finished shower and a usable one. Ask early whether your contractor will hang a temporary curtain rod.

Accessibility features worth building into your conversion

Blocking behind the tile costs almost nothing during framing and saves a great deal later, and the same holds for most of the accessibility work on this list. 

• Have plywood blocking installed between the studs. Retrofitting a grab bar into finished tile costs far more and rarely ends up where you want it, so put blocking at the entry and along the back wall whether or not bars go in now.
• Choose a curbless or low-threshold entry. Getting rid of the step matters more than every other feature on this list.
• Size the shower for a bench if you want one. A built-in bench needs enough depth to stay clear of the spray, and a teak stool does the same job with no construction when the footprint is tight.
• Put the valve near the entry. Reaching it from outside the spray matters more than where it looks balanced, and a lever handle beats a knob.
• Add a handheld on a slide bar. It is cheap and it gets used every day.

The exhaust fan almost always needs upsizing

A shower puts far more steam into a room than a tub does, and the fan sized for the old bathroom usually cannot keep up with the new one. Plan on 1 CFM per square foot for a bathroom under 100 square feet, more with a high ceiling or a fully enclosed shower, vented to the exterior rather than into an attic.

Questions to settle before you sign

What should you have answered before a contract gets signed? These, at minimum:

• Is the drain moving, and what is the access like from below?
• Is the valve being replaced, and what is the plan if the wall opens on old pipe?
• Curbed, low-threshold, or curbless, and can the subfloor take it?
• Prefabricated base or tiled pan, and who warranties the pan?
• What waterproofing system goes behind the tile?
• Is blocking going in for grab bars?
• Is the exhaust fan being upsized, and where does it vent?
• What is the contingency, and what happens to the schedule if it gets used?
• Is anything else in this bathroom coming out within five years?

Find the right contractor through Block Renovation

A tub to shower conversion hides more work behind the wall than almost any other single-fixture project, and the contractor you pick determines whether that work gets done properly or gets covered up. Block Renovation matches you with vetted local contractors who compete for your project against a scope reviewed by experts, so missing line items and red flags surface before construction rather than during it. Payments run through Block and release as the work progresses, and every contractor in the network provides a one-year workmanship warranty.

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