Should You Replace Your Bathtub With a Walk-In Shower?
By Home and Design Studio
The tub you never use, the shower you wish were bigger, and the one question everyone asks about resale. An honest guide from a design-build firm.
Many homeowners step over a bathtub every morning to take a shower, and rarely or never fill it. Sooner or later the question comes up: should we take the tub out and build a proper walk-in shower?
It is a good question, and it has a clear answer once you look at four things: how many bathtubs your home has, how long you plan to stay, who uses the bathroom, and how your house is built.
This guide walks through each one. You will find a quick answer for your situation, the facts on resale value, the safety numbers, the three types of walk-in shower, and what the work involves. The goal is simple: you should be able to decide with confidence before you talk to any contractor, including us.
The short answer
Yes, in most homes you can replace a bathtub with a walk-in shower and be glad you did, as long as one bathtub remains somewhere in the house. If the tub you want to remove is the only one, slow down and read the resale section first.
Here is the same answer by situation.
Two or more tubs in the house, and you never use this one: replace it. You gain a shower you use daily and lose nothing a buyer needs.
It is the only tub, and you plan to stay 10 years or more: replace it if it serves your life. Ten years of daily comfort and safety outweighs a future buyer you have not met.
It is the only tub, and you may sell within about 5 years: keep one tub. Families with young children look for one, and you do not want to shrink your buyer pool.
Young children or grandchildren bathe here: keep it. Bathing a toddler in a shower is hard work.
Someone in the home has trouble stepping over the tub wall: replace it now. This is no longer a style decision. It is a safety decision.
You love a long bath: keep it, or plan both. A separate tub and shower is the most wanted primary bathroom layout.
The rest of this guide explains the reasoning, so you can check our advice against your own house.
"A house without a tub does not sell." Is that true?
It is half true, and the half that is true is worth understanding.
We have not found a reliable study that measures, in dollars, what removing a tub does to an American home's sale price. Be careful with anyone who quotes you an exact figure. What has been measured is what buyers say they want.
The National Association of Home Builders asked more than 3,000 home buyers to rate bathroom features. In its What Home Buyers Really Want study, 74 percent rated a primary bathroom with both a shower and a tub as essential or desirable. And 27 percent said they do not want a primary bathroom with a shower only.
Read those two numbers together. About one buyer in four may pass on a home with no tub in the primary bathroom. About three in four will not. Whether that matters depends on who buys homes on your street.
This is why designers and real estate agents repeat the same rule: keep at least one bathtub in the house. One tub keeps every kind of buyer interested. A second or third tub adds very little.
So the fear is real, and it is often aimed at the wrong bathroom. If your home has two tubs, the rule only asks you to keep one.
What other homeowners are doing
If you are thinking about a bigger shower, you have a lot of company. The 2026 U.S. Houzz Bathroom Trends Study surveyed more than 1,600 homeowners who were renovating a bathroom.
49 percent enlarged the shower, up 10 points from the year before. It was the most common upgrade in the study.
More than 7 in 10 addressed a special need in the project. For more than half of them, that need was still five or more years away.
Among those planning for aging, 63 percent added grab bars, 56 percent added nonslip flooring, and 55 percent chose a low-curb shower.
The pattern is clear. People are staying in their homes longer, and they are remodeling the bathroom for the person they will be in ten years, not only for the person they are today.
The step nobody thinks about until it matters
A standard tub wall is about fifteen inches high. At 40 you do not notice it. At 75, with wet feet, lifting a leg over it twice a day is a real risk. Think also about parents or older relatives who stay with you.
The numbers support this. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study estimated that 234,094 people aged 15 and older were treated in U.S. emergency rooms in one year for injuries that happened in a bathroom. Four findings stand out.
81 percent of those injuries were falls.
About two thirds happened in or around the tub or shower.
Getting out was far riskier than getting in: 9.8 percent of injuries against 2.2 percent. Wet feet and a wet floor make the difference.
The injury rate climbed with age, and for people 85 and older it was almost nine times the rate for people aged 15 to 24.
The study is from 2008, and it remains the most detailed national picture of bathroom injuries we know of. A shower does not remove the risk. A well-planned one lowers it: little or nothing to step over, a floor with grip, a bench to sit on, and solid backing in the walls for grab bars, even if the bars are added years later.
That last point costs very little during a remodel and is expensive to do afterward. If you are 50 and remodeling, build for 70.
Curb, low curb or curbless
"Walk-in shower" describes three different things, and they differ in cost and in construction. The difference is the threshold at the entry.
Standard curb. You step over a raised edge a few inches high. This is the simplest conversion, because the shower pan sits on the existing floor. It suits most tub replacements and is the most budget-friendly path.
Low curb. You step over a small edge you barely notice. The work is similar, with more care in waterproofing and floor slope. It is a good choice if you are planning ahead for aging and do not want to rebuild the floor.
Curbless. There is nothing to step over. The bathroom floor runs straight into the shower. To build it, the shower floor must be lowered or the room floor re-sloped, so framing or concrete is altered. It is the best choice for wheelchair or walker access, and it gives the cleanest look.
A curbless shower is the one people fall in love with in photographs. It is also the one most affected by your house. On a raised wood floor, the framing under the shower has to be modified. On a concrete slab, concrete has to be cut. Neither is a problem when it is planned and priced before work starts. Both are a problem when they are discovered after demolition.
For many homeowners the low curb is the practical middle. In the Houzz study above, 55 percent of homeowners planning for aging chose one.
What a tub to shower conversion involves
A standard alcove tub is 60 inches long and about 30 to 32 inches wide. That footprint makes a comfortable shower without moving a single wall, which is why this is one of the most efficient bathroom upgrades there is. The work follows a set order.
Demolition. The tub, the old wall tile and the wall board behind it come out, down to the framing.
Plumbing. The drain is replaced and repositioned, and a new shower valve goes in.
Framing. Solid backing is added for grab bars, a bench and the glass. A recessed niche is framed if you want one.
Pan and waterproofing. The shower floor is formed with the right slope, and the floor and walls are waterproofed as one system.
Water test. The pan is filled and left standing to prove it holds before any tile goes on.
Walls and floor. Tile or large-format slab is installed.
Glass. The enclosure is measured after the walls are finished, then made and installed. It is always the last piece to arrive.
Four things that must be done right
You will never see these once the shower is finished. Ask about each one before you sign with anyone.
The drain. A bathtub usually drains through a 1.5 inch pipe. A shower needs a 2 inch drain. A conversion that keeps the old tub drain is a shortcut, and a slow, pooling shower floor is the result.
The waterproofing. Tile and grout are not waterproof. The layer behind them is what protects your house. We explain the systems we use in Why HDS Uses DensShield or Schluter KERDI-BOARD for Shower Walls.
The valve. A new pressure-balancing or thermostatic valve holds the water temperature steady when someone flushes a toilet elsewhere in the house. An old tub valve should not be reused.
The permit. Replacing a tub with a shower changes the plumbing, and that work normally requires a permit from your city or county. A contractor who suggests skipping it is telling you something about the rest of the job.
One more choice shapes both the look and the price: the wall material. We compare the two most common options in Acrylic PVC vs. Porcelain Slab Shower Walls, and we cover budgets in How Much Does a Bathroom Remodel Really Cost?
Five questions to decide tonight
How many bathtubs are in the house, and which one would you keep?
When did anyone last take a bath in this one?
Do you expect to sell within five years?
Will small children bathe here in the next few years?
Who will use this bathroom in ten years, and how easily will they step into it?
If the house keeps a tub and your answers point toward the shower, you have your decision.
The answer that works in many homes
If your house has two bathrooms, you often do not have to choose. Keep one bathtub, ideally the one your family would really use, and convert the other into a walk-in shower.
Build that shower with a low curb, a bench, a niche at shoulder height, and backing in the walls for grab bars you may want later. The house keeps a tub for the next owner, and you get a bathroom that fits the people who live in it now.
See your shower before it is built
Every bathroom is different, and this decision is easier when you can see it. Book a free in-home consultation at (925) 300-8811 or through our contact form. We measure the room, talk through tub or shower honestly, and show you the result in photorealistic 3D before any work begins.
Design is included in every Home and Design Studio project. If keeping your tub is the right answer, that is what we will tell you. We work for the homeowner, not the sale.
You can also visit our Design Center at 2954 Treat Blvd in Concord, or start the conversation at any hour with Mireia, our AI Design Concierge, at mireia.design.
Design First. Budget Smart. Build Right.
Home and Design Studio is a California-licensed design-build firm (CSLB #1149050) serving homeowners throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, with a Design Center in Concord.
Sources
In the Bath, First-Time Buyers Really Want Both a Shower and Tub, National Association of Home Builders, Eye on Housing, 2022
Bathroom Products and Features Buyers Actually Want in 2021, Pro Builder, reporting the NAHB study
2026 Bathroom Trends Show Homeowners Are Planning For the Future, Pro Builder, reporting the 2026 U.S. Houzz Bathroom Trends Study
Nonfatal Bathroom Injuries Among Persons Aged 15 Years and Older, United States, 2008, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011
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