So we had a plumber over to remove the tub in our “nasty” bathroom at the bottom of our house. This tub looked like someone had throw it away, then who ever was working on the bathroom before us had spotted it and decided to save a little money by using it. It was an old, ugly and nasty shade of yellow where the rest of the bathroom is mostly white. It was built onto a shoddy looking pedestal and was an all around gross installation. It didn’t help things when our cat decided to start pissing in it, but it didn’t exactly hurt things either.
So upon removal, we discovered a few things. The installers were not very good, it didn’t meet any sort of code and it was rotting out. Keep in mind, the tub was never, ever used. If it had ever been filled with water it probably would have collapsed through the mounting. The drain in the concrete is in a bit of a weird place, hence the pedestal instead of relocating it (expensive). These are the things I believe we can do to resolve this problem.
- Replace with similar tub and shower assembly, but do it right. This will involve a reasonable amount of cement removal to relocate the drain to the proper place. It will also cost the most, probably between $5,000 and $6,000. Seems like a lot of money for something we’ll never use, but if it were to increase the sale price of the house or make it sell faster, it could be worth it.
- Replace with full size shower stall, hopefully with the drain located closer to where the drain is now. In theory, less cement removal should be cheaper, but finding one of these 60″ shower only units is a little harder. Google only found me a couple and none of Lowes/Home Depot didn’t seem to have anything like it. Not sure how much it would cost, it might only be $500 or so cheaper.
- Don’t replace with a shower or tub, perhaps with a big utility sink instead.
In any of the above cases, we are going to swap the side that the washer and dryer are on so that we can make the bedroom an official bedroom. Since the dryer, heater and water heater all draw air from that bedroom it isn’t legally allowed to be a bedroom. We humans like our oxygen, but so does fire. To solve it, we can flip the washer and dryer into the bathroom, wall (or door) off the heater and water heater and then ventilate the room they are in to the outside (can’t draw combustion air from the garage, gasoline fumes are very inflammable).