Out of every bathroom project we get called for in Covington, this is the one that comes up most. Someone has a tub in the main bathroom or the guest bath, nobody has actually taken a bath in it for years, and it just sits there taking up space and holding a ring that will not scrub off. They want it gone and a real shower in its place. We do a lot of these, so here is what we have learned: why people convert, what the work actually involves, what it costs in Covington, and the one thing we tell people to think about before they pull every tub out of the house.
Why Covington homeowners keep asking for this
Most of the houses we work in around Covington went up in the late 1990s and 2000s, and they came with the same builder-grade setup: a fiberglass tub-and-shower combo in a 60-inch alcove. Twenty-five years later the tub is scratched, the surround is stained, and the whole thing feels cramped. A walk-in shower in that same footprint feels twice as big.
The reasons people give us are pretty consistent:
- The tub never gets used. If the kids are grown, or there were never kids, that tub has been a shelf for cleaning supplies for a decade.
- It is a pain to clean. The combo unit has corners and a lip that trap grime.
- Stepping over the wall is getting harder. This is the big one for older homeowners, and it is not a small worry. Falls are the leading cause of injury for adults 65 and older, and more than one in four of them falls each year, with getting in and out of the tub being one of the riskier moments of the day.
- They want the bathroom to look updated before they sell.
A curbless or low-curb walk-in shower handles most of that. You step in instead of over, it is one open space to clean, and it reads as a current bathroom to a buyer.
What a tub-to-shower conversion actually involves
People sometimes picture this as a quick swap: pull the tub, drop in a shower. It is more than that, and the parts you do not see are the ones that matter.
Here is the work, start to finish:
- Demo. We pull the old tub and surround and open the wall to see what is behind it.
- Plumbing. The drain moves. A tub drains in one spot and a shower in another, so we re-run the drain and usually reset the valve height for a shower head.
- The pan. We build a proper shower pan, either a mortar bed we slope by hand or a pre-formed pan, depending on the size and the design.
- Waterproofing. This is the step that separates a shower that lasts from one that leaks. We waterproof the pan and the walls before a single tile goes up.
- Tile and surround, or a solid surround if that is the look you want.
- Glass, either a door or a fixed panel.
- Fixtures, lighting, and paint to finish it off.
If you are picking tile for the walls and floor, we wrote a separate guide on choosing the right tile that is worth a read before you go shopping.
How long it takes
A standard tub-to-shower conversion in a 60-inch alcove is usually a five to seven day job. Custom tile work, a larger footprint, or moving a wall adds time. We give you a real timeline before we start, and we tell you up front if your bathroom has something that will stretch it out.
What it costs in Covington
For a straightforward conversion that keeps the shower in the tub’s old spot, most of our Covington jobs land between $7,000 and $14,000. What moves that number is the tile you choose, whether we are hand-building a mortar pan or setting a pre-formed one, the glass, and how much the layout or plumbing has to change. You get a written, line-itemed estimate, so you can see what the demo costs, what the materials cost, and what the labor costs, with no surprise charges showing up in week two.
Do you need a permit to convert a tub to a shower in Covington?
Usually yes, at least a plumbing permit. Because a conversion moves the drain and swaps the fixtures, the City of Covington treats it as plumbing work, and those permits go through the city’s Permit Services office. If any electrical gets touched, that part goes through Washington State Labor and Industries. We pull the permits and schedule the inspections, so you are not the one sitting on hold. If the project also moves a wall or changes the structure, that adds a building permit, and we handle that too.
Should you keep at least one tub?
Here is the thing we tell everyone, and it is not what most contractors lead with: think about resale before you pull every tub in the house.
If your home has two or more bathrooms, converting the primary bath to a walk-in shower is almost always a smart move, especially if that is where you start your day. But buyers with small kids want at least one bathtub somewhere in the house, and a home with zero tubs can be a harder sell to a young family in a neighborhood full of them. Covington leans toward families, so this matters here more than it would in some markets.
Our usual advice: convert the bathroom you actually use, keep a tub in a secondary or kids’ bath, and you get the shower you want without shrinking your buyer pool down the road. If you only have one bathroom, that is a different conversation, and we will walk through it with you on the estimate visit.
Why doing it right is worth it
A tub-to-shower conversion done wrong does not fail right away. It fails about two years later, after water that slipped past bad waterproofing has been sitting in the wall and the floor the whole time. By then it is not a tile repair, it is a rebuild, sometimes with a subfloor replacement on top of it. The waterproofing and the pan are the parts nobody sees and the parts that decide whether the shower lasts fifteen years or two.
We do not subcontract this work out. The crew that opens your wall is the crew that closes it back up, which is the main reason our showers hold. Once the job is done, keeping the new tile sealed and clean is simple, and we put together a short guide on maintaining bathroom tile so it still looks right years from now.
Thinking about converting a tub in your Covington home?
We do tub-to-shower conversions across Covington and the rest of our service area, and we are glad to come look at your bathroom and put a real number on it. The estimate is free and there is no pressure. You can see the full range of what we do on our Covington remodeling page, or call us at (206) 773-8264 and we will set up a time to come by.
Written by Vasile Teterea, owner of Firm Remodeling LLC. Licensed Washington contractor, registration FIRMRRL783PU, remodeling bathrooms, kitchens, and basements across King County for over a decade.
Tub-to-shower conversion questions we get a lot
Is a tub-to-shower conversion worth it?
For most Covington homeowners with more than one bathroom, yes. You get a bigger, easier-to-clean shower and a more current bathroom, usually for $7,000 to $14,000. The one caveat is resale: keep at least one tub somewhere in the house for buyers with young kids.
How long does a tub-to-shower conversion take?
A standard conversion in a 60-inch alcove is usually a five to seven day job. Custom tile, a bigger footprint, or moving a wall adds time. We give you a realistic timeline before we start, not after.
Do I need a permit to convert a tub to a shower in Covington?
Usually at least a plumbing permit, since the work moves the drain and changes the fixtures. Inside Covington city limits that goes through the City of Covington Permit Services. We pull the permit and schedule the inspection for you.
Curbless or low-curb shower, which is better?
Curbless looks the cleanest and is the easiest to step into, which is why older homeowners often ask for it, but it takes careful floor and waterproofing work to get right. A low-curb shower is a little simpler to build and still easy to enter. We will tell you which one makes sense for your floor and your budget.
