A tub to shower conversion costs $2,000 to $12,000, with a national average near $7,000. In Pennsylvania a straight swap runs closer to $3,796. A prefab stall dropped into the same alcove sits at the bottom of that range, and a custom tiled walk in shower sits at the top.
That’s the easy part of the decision.
The harder part is what you give up. Taking out your tub doesn’t change the number of bathrooms on your appraisal. There’s a different number it changes, and that number never shows up on an appraisal at all.
What a Tub to Shower Conversion Costs
The price depends almost entirely on one choice: whether the new shower is a manufactured unit or a tiled one built in place.
| Conversion type | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Tub cut (partial removal, low threshold) | $800 to $1,800 |
| Tub to prefab shower stall | $1,000 to $8,000 |
| Tub to tiled walk in shower | $3,500 to $15,000 |
| Full range across all types | $2,000 to $12,000 |
Those national figures come from HomeGuide’s tracking of 81 reported homeowner projects, which puts the average at about $7,000 and the extremes at $1,000 and $20,000.
Pennsylvania sits below the national middle. Fixr’s state data puts a tub to shower conversion here at about $3,796, a prefab walk in shower at $4,745, and a custom walk in or tub and shower combination at $7,592. Plumbers in the state run about $119 an hour and permits land between $142 and $380.
The one day conversion: acrylic system installers like Bath Fitter work in the $1,200 to $9,500 range and finish in a single day, because they line the existing alcove rather than rebuild it. You’re paying for speed and a warranty, not for a different bathroom.
Where the Money Actually Goes
The line items tell you more than the total does, because the total moves depending on which of these your bathroom actually needs.
| Item | Typical cost |
|---|---|
| Remove the tub and haul the debris | $70 to $800 |
| Repair walls, studs and subfloor | $170 to $1,800 |
| Prefabricated shower stall | $500 to $1,500 |
| Custom tile work | $800 to $3,000 |
| Shower pan | $500 to $3,500 |
| Glass shower door | $400 to $1,900 |
| Shower valve replacement | $225 to $575 |
| Plumbing modifications | $500 to $1,100 |
| Grab bars | $25 to $370 |
| Permits | $30 to $400 |
Two of those deserve more attention than they usually get.
The drain isn’t optional: a bathtub drains through a 1 1/2 inch trap at one end of the tub. A shower needs a 2 inch drain, and it needs it in the middle.
That means a plumber opens the floor, moves the drain 8 to 15 inches, and runs new pipe back to the main line. It’s routine work. It’s also the reason a conversion is a plumbing job rather than a fixture swap.
And it’s the item most likely to show up on the invoice when it wasn’t spelled out in the quote. Ask for it by name.
Waterproofing is what you’re really buying: cement board isn’t waterproof. It just doesn’t fall apart when it gets wet, and it passes water straight through to the framing behind it. Green board is rated for humidity, not for standing water.
What actually keeps water out of your walls is a bonded membrane meeting ANSI A118.10, either a sheet product or a liquid applied coating, installed over the backer before any tile goes on. Grout is porous by design and always will be.
So if a tiled shower quote doesn’t name the membrane, ask about it before you compare prices. Two quotes that look $1,500 apart are sometimes just one quote with a membrane in it.
If you’re weighing the conversion as part of a larger job, the full range of bathroom remodel costs will tell you where this line item sits inside the whole budget.
Does Removing a Bathtub Hurt Your Resale Value?
This is one question with three different answers, and they don’t agree with each other. Sorting them out is the whole decision.
What the appraiser does: nothing
The Uniform Appraisal Dataset is the rulebook every appraiser follows on a conventional mortgage. On the bathroom count it’s unambiguous: “A three-quarter bath is to be counted as a full bath in all cases.”
A three quarter bath is a room with a toilet, a sink and a shower. That’s exactly what you’re left with after a conversion.
So the bath count on the appraisal doesn’t drop from 2 to 1.5, or from 1 to anything. It stays where it was. The appraised bathroom count is one thing this project can’t cost you.
What the listing does: a little
Multiple listing services aren’t bound by appraisal rules, and local conventions vary. Some agents list a three quarter bath as a full bath, some flag it separately, and the photos tell the story either way. A buyer scrolling listings on a phone will see a shower and no tub in about two seconds, whatever the bath count field says.
What the buyer does: everything
This is the number that actually moves. NAHB’s buyer research has consistently found that roughly three quarters of home buyers want both a tub and a shower in the primary bathroom. Among first time buyers it’s the top rated bathroom feature of all, and better than a third of them call it essential rather than merely desirable.
That preference is about the house, not about the room. A buyer who wants a tub wants one tub somewhere in the house, not a tub in every bathroom. Which gives you a rule you can apply to your own floor plan today.
If the house keeps a tub: convert freely. A second bathroom with a tub in it, a hall bath the kids use, a basement bath: any of those covers the requirement, and converting the primary shower is the upgrade most buyers now expect.
If it’s the only tub in the house: think harder. Wilkes-Barre has a lot of older homes with exactly one bathroom, and in those the conversion narrows your buyer pool to people who don’t bathe small children and don’t want a tub for any other reason. That isn’t a disqualifier. It’s a smaller pool, and a smaller pool is a longer sale, not necessarily a lower price.
The house style matters too. A three bedroom home in a neighborhood full of young families is a different calculation from a two bedroom where nobody’s ever going to bathe a toddler.
What You Actually Gain in Accessibility
Accessibility is the most common reason homeowners give for a conversion, and it holds up. It’s just more specific than a shower being safer.
The CDC studied nonfatal bathroom injuries treated in American emergency departments and found an estimated 234,094 of them in a single year. Falls caused 81.1 percent. The highest injury rate in the room, by a wide margin, was in and around the tub or shower.
The detail worth knowing is which movement does the damage. In that study, 37.3 percent of injuries happened while bathing, showering, or getting out of the tub or shower. Only 2.2 percent happened while getting in.
Getting out is when you’re wet, when the surfaces are slick, and when you’re lifting a leg over a tub wall that stands 14 to 16 inches off the floor, usually with nothing solid to hold. That wall is the hazard. Removing it is a real safety improvement, and the rates say it matters more every decade: bathroom injury rates run 112 per 100,000 at ages 65 to 74, 241 at 75 to 84, and 515 at 85 and over.
The curb is where this gets specific. A prefab shower pan usually has a curb of 4 to 6 inches. That’s much better than a tub wall, and it’s still a step.
A barrier free or curbless shower removes the step entirely. It’s also the most expensive stall category there is, $2,000 to $4,100 for the unit alone before installation, because the floor has to be recessed or built up to let the pan sit flush. Tiled showers can be built curbless too.
So if accessibility is the reason you’re doing this, curbless is the version that solves the problem, and it needs to be in the quote from the start. Retrofitting it later means opening the floor twice.
Two more things worth doing while the walls are open:
- Grab bars, blocked properly: the CDC study cited research showing 63 percent of homes used a tub mat or nonskid strips while only 19 percent had grab bars. Bars screwed into tile without solid blocking behind it are decoration. Add the blocking during the rebuild and the bars cost $25 to $370 to install now, or a wall demolition to add later.
- A bench and a handheld sprayer: together they let someone shower seated. They add a few hundred dollars during the build and are close to impossible to retrofit into a finished stall.
Does It Make the Bathroom Feel Bigger?
Somewhat, and less than the photos suggest.
A standard alcove tub is 60 by 30 inches. A shower built in the same alcove occupies the same 60 by 30 inches. No floor is created. What changes is the sight line. A glass panel or a curbless entry lets your eye travel to the far wall instead of stopping at an opaque tub apron, and in a 5 by 8 foot bathroom that reads as a bigger room.
If you want floor back rather than the feeling of it, that comes from other moves entirely, and the small bathroom ideas that return real inches are worth measuring against your own room.
One real gain: the code minimum shower compartment is 30 inches square with 24 inches of clear space at the opening. Your 60 inch alcove is double that, so a conversion often lets you build a shower far larger than the minimum, or split the run between a shower and a linen cabinet.
Do You Need a Permit in Pennsylvania?
Usually yes, and the drain is why.
Pennsylvania’s Uniform Construction Code requires a permit to alter, repair or replace a plumbing system, and it specifically states that adding to or relocating waste or vent piping isn’t an ordinary repair. Moving a tub drain to the center of a new shower pan is exactly that. Wilkes-Barre lists plumbing among the trades that require a permit, and permit fees run by the cost of the work.
A liner style conversion that reuses the existing drain in place sits in a grayer area, and the answer depends on your municipality. Ask before the work starts rather than after, because the rules on when a permit is triggered vary between neighboring townships more than most homeowners expect.
Permit fees themselves are small here, $142 to $380 across Pennsylvania. The cost of skipping one shows up years later at closing.
How Long It Takes
- Acrylic or liner systems: 1 to 2 days. The alcove is lined rather than rebuilt.
- Prefab stall with a new pan: 2 to 5 working days, including demolition, the drain move, and an inspection.
- Custom tiled shower: 5 to 10 working days, sometimes longer.
Tile takes the longest for a reason that has nothing to do with labor hours. Waterproofing membranes, mortar and grout each need cure time, and a crew that works around those windows produces a shower that lasts. A crew that doesn’t produces a callback.
Plan for the bathroom to be out of service the whole time. In a one bathroom house that’s the real cost of the project, and it’s worth asking your contractor to schedule the demolition and the drain work back to back so the room isn’t sitting open waiting on an inspector.
How to Decide
Work through it in this order:
- Count the tubs in your house: if the answer after the conversion is zero, everything below matters more.
- Name the reason: accessibility, resale prep, or you just hate climbing into a tub to shower. Accessibility points you at curbless. Resale prep points you at keeping a tub. Preference is yours to make.
- Pick the build: prefab if the budget is the constraint and the alcove is standard, tile if you want it to look built rather than installed and you’re ready for the timeline.
- Get the drain and membrane in writing: both are invisible when the job is done, and both are where quotes quietly differ.
- Decide on curbless now: it’s a floor decision, and the floor is only open once.
If you’re at the start of a wider project, the full bathroom remodeling guide covers how a conversion fits alongside the rest of the room.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does it cost to convert a tub to a shower?
$2,000 to $12,000 nationally, averaging around $7,000. In Pennsylvania a conversion averages about $3,796. A prefab stall in the existing alcove is the cheapest full conversion at $1,000 to $8,000, and a custom tiled walk in shower runs $3,500 to $15,000.
Is a bathroom without a tub still a full bathroom?
For appraisal purposes, yes. The Uniform Appraisal Dataset states that a three quarter bath, meaning a toilet, sink and shower, is counted as a full bath in all cases. Local listing conventions vary and buyers form their own view, but the appraised bathroom count doesn’t drop.
Does removing a bathtub decrease home value?
Not by itself. It narrows your buyer pool if it leaves the house with no tub at all, because roughly three quarters of buyers want both a tub and a shower available. If another bathroom in the house has a tub, the resale concern largely disappears.
Do you need a permit to convert a tub to a shower?
In Pennsylvania, usually yes, because a conversion relocates and resizes waste piping, which the state code treats as more than an ordinary repair. Fees run $142 to $380. Confirm with your municipality, since local requirements differ.
Do I need a bigger drain for a shower?
Yes. A bathtub uses a 1 1/2 inch trap at one end. A shower needs a 2 inch drain near the center of the pan, so the drain gets moved 8 to 15 inches and new pipe is run to the main. Make sure this is priced in the quote.
What is a tub cut conversion?
A contractor cuts a section out of the front wall of your existing tub and finishes the opening, leaving a low threshold instead of a full tub wall. It costs $800 to $1,800 and takes a day. You keep the tub’s footprint and lose the ability to fill it, and it’s the cheapest way to solve a step over problem quickly.
Can you convert a tub to a shower without moving the plumbing?
Only with a liner or acrylic system that reuses the existing drain location. Any conversion that installs a new shower pan needs the drain in the center, which means moving it. The supply plumbing and valve are usually staying in the same wall either way.
How long does a tub to shower conversion take?
One to two days for an acrylic system, two to five working days for a prefab stall with a new pan, and five to ten working days or more for custom tile. Cure times for waterproofing and grout set the floor on the tile timeline.
Is it cheaper to install a shower or a tub?
A basic bathtub is cheaper than a shower, roughly $800 to $4,600 for the tub against $2,000 to $9,000 for a shower. The gap comes from the shower’s pan, waterproofing, glass and larger drain. A walk in tub, which is neither, runs $3,000 to $15,000.
Is converting a tub to a shower worth it?
If the house keeps a tub somewhere, it’s one of the better value moves in a bathroom, especially with a curbless entry and proper blocking for grab bars. If it removes the last tub from a family sized home, the money is better spent elsewhere until you’re closer to selling and can see who’s buying.
Thinking through a conversion for your own bathroom? 570 Remodeling handles tub and shower conversions across Wilkes-Barre and Luzerne County, and a free on site estimate is the fastest way to find out what your alcove and your drain will actually allow.
Get Your Free Quote
Tell us about your project and we will get back to you with a real number for your space. No pressure, no obligation.
