There are many great reasons to get a tub to shower conversion. Many people are doing this these days as a way to improve their bathrooms, and with good reason. For one thing, a lot of us simply find taking a shower a lot easier than having a bath every day. It can also help you to save space in your bathroom and your home as a whole, and can be a great way to find it easier to keep the bathroom clean too.
But before you get your tub to shower conversion carried out, and certainly before putting any money down, you’ll need to make sure that you know all there is to know about it. In this post, we’ll take a look at seven of the most important questions you should always ask before you have your tub to shower conversion carried out. As long as you ask these questions, you’ll be much more likely to make the right decisions.
First of all, and perhaps most basically, you will of course want to know what the advantages are of having a shower rather than a bathtub in your home. You might well already have some idea of what the advantages might be, of course - after all, that is why you have started thinking about having this done! But it can also help to look into some of the distinct and clear advantages so that you can cement in your mind why this might be the way for you to go.
One of the major advantages of a shower is that a shower tends to give you a greater return on investment, particularly with water usage. They also tend to be less wasteful than baths, and you’ll use a lot less water on the whole, so if you are trying to be eco-friendly they are definitely the way to go. A shower is often the better option for elderly members too, who might find it hard to get in and out of the tub. Showers tend to look more modern in a bathroom, aiding your decor, and are easier to clean and maintain.
With all of these advantages of having a shower rather than a bathtub, you can see why so many people are thinking about making this change in their bathrooms right now. If you are keen to enjoy these benefits, you might want to consider whether it’s time for you to do the same as soon as possible. A shower could really be the way forward for you and your family.
A lot of people will be keen to renovate the entire bathroom while they are having the tub to shower conversion carried out. After all, you might want the whole room to look its very best, and this is a good way to make sure that you are doing so. If you are keen to do this, you’ll of course want to make sure that the renovation is carried out as professionally as the shower renovation itself, which often means using the same team and contractors for both tasks.
There are definitely benefits to renovating the entire bathroom. While you are already doing work on that room, you may as well use that opportunity to improve the look of the entire area of the home. Similarly, you could end up adding a lot more value to the home in the process, and all within just the one effort. All in all, it could be done in a matter of days, including the whole renovation and the tub to shower conversion too.
There are reasons you might wish to postpone the renovation until after the conversion is complete, too. In some cases, you might just be keen to get your conversion done so that you can allow your elderly family members to wash each day without hassle, and that might mean just getting it done as soon as possible. It’s up to you, but you should carefully consider whether you want to renovate the entire bathroom before you start planning out the conversion itself.
If you have never done anything like this before, you might find that it feels a little intimidating trying to work out how to actually plan for it. You might find yourself wondering how to start planning for the tub to shower conversion, and what you are going to be able to do in order to make sure it goes right from the very start. Good planning is usually the most important part of the process, as it ensures that the errors are kept to a minimum so you are not going to pay out for mistakes.
The first part of your plan should probably be to work out whether you have the right amount of space for whatever kind of shower you are thinking of having. If you don’t, it might be necessary to change your desires here, so that you can fit in some kind of shower at the very least. You might need to make modifications to the tub alcove that is already set in there, so be prepared for that. Also consider other complexities, such as the toilet and sink, and anything else that the bathroom might be affected by.
Once you have got this down, you have started to properly plan for your tub to shower conversion, and you can begin moving on to the next part of the project. That might mean it is time to start calling in the experts, so you can discuss your project with them at length.
One of the issues that a lot of people find themselves wondering about is whether or not it is important or necessary to relocate the shower - and if so, how to actually go about doing that. There are some considerations to bear in mind here, and you might indeed find that relocating the shower turns out to be a good option or even the best course of action on the whole. For instance, you might be able to rearrange the entire bathroom to be more sensibly designed, more modern, or more aesthetically pleasing in some other way.
On the other hand, it might not always be necessary, and if you are looking to get the job done quicker you might want to consider not relocating the shower at all, but rather placing it where the bathtub already stands. You will save a considerable amount of cost and effort if you keep the shower where the bathtub was, so that is something to consider in all of this. If you do decide to move things around somewhat, you will also need to make sure that you are not making things too difficult for yourself. That means keeping the shower attached to the existing water supply, if possible, and using existing drain lines.
If you do that, it will be a lot easier to plan it all out, while also reducing costs and difficulties, as well as saving time. That is certainly a good reason to consider keeping the shower in the same place.
As we have already seen in some detail, the length of time that such a project as this will take you is always going to depend on a variety of factors within the project itself. For instance, if you are relocating the shower to a different part of the bathroom, then that is going to add on a significant amount of time. Similarly, you can expect it all to take much longer too if you are renovating the bathroom at the same time, as the conversion will simply become a part of that larger project, and its completion might thus be delayed.
Conversely, using a professional team and making sure that the whole project is planned out as thoroughly as possible in advance, will certainly help in keeping the timeframe down as much as possible. You should therefore definitely make sure that you are doing these things, especially if you feel that you might be in a rush somewhat.
In general, with all of that taken into account, a tub to shower conversion can take anywhere from five days to three weeks, but on average it will be in the one to two weeks mark. So you should ideally make sure that you have at least this amount of time spare before you even consider carrying out a tub to shower conversion. The last thing you want is to get halfway through and find that your life is disrupted for too long. As long as you have thought about it carefully, however, that shouldn't happen, and you will find that you feel a lot better about it.
It should go without saying that you always want your tub to shower conversion to be as professionally carried out as possible. As such, it is a good idea to make sure that you are aware of all of the relevant factors that can affect its quality. As long as you are aware of that, you should be able to get it to the highest possible quality, and you’ll find that you feel a lot more in control of the project on the whole.
One of the greatest factors in all of this is the skill level and expertise of the professional team who are carrying out the work, not to mention their level of dedication too. You will find that an experienced and professional team is always so much better than a team who don’t know what they are doing, and of course better than the DIY route as well. So you should make sure to seek out professional help as much as possible with this kind of project.
Beyond that, the quality of the materials will also make a big difference to the quality of the tub to shower conversion, and you should aim to source the best materials that you can possibly buy. That way, you are going to have a much better conversion project, and the whole bathroom will look better for it too.
Finally, if you have to change out pipes or replace them, this can affect the aesthetic quality of the finished project, so it is best to avoid this wherever possible. As we saw earlier, that generally means moving around as little as possible, trying to keep the shower in the same place, and not over-complexifying things for no good reason. If you do all that, it should be of the highest quality.
If you are concerned about the value of your property, perhaps because you are thinking about potentially putting it on the market in the near future, then you are going to want to know whether a tub to shower conversion is going to help you out on that front or not. This is actually not all that straightforward to answer, because it depends on what the housing market is doing at any one time, what personal preferences are currently focused on, and a range of other factors.
In general, however, you are going to find that having a shower rather than a tub in your bathroom does tend to add more value to the home than just having a bathtub. So if you currently have a bathtub, that might be something that you want to think about. With a shower, you might be able to gain a lot more interest in your property when you try to sell it - and the conversion itself could end up paying for itself pretty soon.
As long as you ask these questions, you are going to feel so much more ready for the tub to shower conversion, and all of the benefits that it can bring.
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Providing bathroom remodeling services in the Houston Metro area.
Proud father and husband. A big comic book nerd and sweets are my kryptonite. I fell in love with the remodeling industry in 2008 and it's held a tight grip on me ever since.
