Arcola Hall Baths: Trading the Tub for a Walk-In Shower
Plenty of hall baths were built around a five-foot alcove tub that nobody has filled in years. Trading it for a walk-in shower is a fair request. On a slab house that job starts with a concrete saw, and tile is the last thing to go in. Here is how it runs in an Arcola house, from the permit to the exhaust fan.
Veteran BuiltArcola, Texas
Before the tub comes out of an Arcola house
Arcola has issued its own building permits since it became a city in 1986, so a bath gut inside the limits means a City of Arcola permit before demolition and a city inspector on site before any wall closes. Step past the city line and there is no city permit to pull. The drain gets set the same way on either side, and we find out which side your lot is on before we write the scope.
Arcola sits on flat coastal ground, the Gulf storm season runs from June through November, and the air here is damp for most of the year. A windowless hall bath keeps every shower’s steam unless a fan pulls it out of the house. On a job here we size the fan to the room, run its duct through the roof or an outside wall, and flash the cap so a summer downpour cannot follow the duct back inside.
With a second working shower in the house, the hall bath can stay out for the whole job without much trouble. Without one, tell us at the first visit, and we stage the work to keep the room out of service for the shortest stretch we can. Water gets shut off on a schedule you know the day before, never as a surprise.
A tub drain sits at one end of the alcove, low and tight to the wall, and a shower drain belongs somewhere else, usually near the middle of the new floor. On a slab, moving it means saw-cutting a strip of concrete, digging out the fill underneath, running new pipe back to the line at a steady fall and getting it inspected before the trench is filled and patched. The valve moves too, up from tub height to where a standing person can reach it.
Whatever the old tile was stuck to comes out with it. Builders often hung alcove tile on plain gypsum board, and a wall like that goes soft behind the grout long before anything shows on the surface. The new walls go up as cement board or foam board with a waterproof membrane lapped over every seam and around the valve. The floor becomes a pan sloped to the drain, and before any floor tile goes down we plug the drain, fill the pan and leave it overnight to see whether the water line drops.
Hall baths are narrow, and the vanity wall is where the room gets won or lost. Once the old cabinet is off the wall, it is worth rethinking: drawers in place of one open sink base, a medicine cabinet set between the studs, a niche in the shower wall so shampoo stops living on the tub ledge. Sliding the vanity even a foot means new supply lines and one more short trench in the slab.
A hall bath that only needs a new faucet and fresh caulk does not need anyone cutting concrete, and we will tell you so at the first visit.
Should the hall tub go?
A walk-in shower is a good trade in some houses and a poor one in others, and we will tell you which one you have.
- Nobody in the house takes baths anymore, and stepping over the tub wall to shower has become the part of the morning everyone dreads.
- The tile around the tub is loose or sounds hollow when you tap it, so the walls are coming out whether the tub stays or not.
- The kids who used that tub have grown up, and the hall bath now serves adults and overnight guests who want a real shower.
- You already plan to replace the vanity and the floor, so moving the drain now costs less than coming back for it as a second job.
And when it does not
- If this is the only bathtub in a house with small children, keep it, because bathing a toddler in a walk-in shower gets old fast.
- If you plan to sell soon and buyers in your price range expect a tub somewhere in the house, leaving this one in place may be the safer move.
- If someone in the house will need to roll into the shower in the next few years, build it curbless now, because adding that later means cutting the slab twice.
The order we work in
- I
Measure and mark
We measure the alcove, find where the tub drain ties into the main line, check the slab for old cracks and mark where the new drain and valve will land. You get a written scope that names every cut in the concrete before any of them happen.
- II
Permit and tear-out
Inside the city limits, the City of Arcola permit is in hand before demolition starts. Then the tub, the old tile and whatever was behind it come out, the hallway floor gets covered, and dust walls go up so the rest of the house stays livable.
- III
Slab, pipe and walls
The slab is cut, the drain is set in its new spot with a steady fall, and the plumbing passes inspection before the trench is filled. New backer board, the membrane and the sloped pan follow, and the pan has to pass its water test before tile.
- IV
Tile, vanity and the last check
Tile goes on the walls and floor, the vanity and toilet are set, glass is measured once the tile is up, and the fan runs with the door shut. We walk the room with you and run every drain while you watch.
What we ask before we price it
- Who uses this bathroom every day, and does anyone still take baths in it?
- Is there another working shower in the house while this one is out?
- Is your house inside the Arcola city limits, or past the line?
- Do you want a shower door, or an open walk-in with a fixed glass panel?
- What needs to fit in the vanity that does not fit now?
Can a walk-in shower fit in a five-foot alcove?
Yes. Once the tub wall is gone, the old alcove, roughly five feet long and a little under three feet deep, makes a comfortable standing shower. We tape the new edge and the drain spot on the floor at the first visit so you can stand in it before anything is ordered.
Does the shower drain have to move?
Almost always. A tub drain sits at the far end, low against the wall, and a shower floor has to slope evenly toward its drain from every side. On a slab that means cutting and trenching concrete, which is why the slab work gets its own line in your written scope.
Will a walk-in shower splash all over a small bathroom?
Not if the glass and the slope are right. A fixed panel covering the shower head side, with the floor falling away from the open end, keeps the water in. A full door costs more and needs room to swing. In a narrow hall bath we show you both and let you choose.
Can you put the old vanity back?
Sometimes, if the cabinet is solid wood and the top has no cracks. Most builder vanities in hall baths are particleboard that has swelled at the base from years of splashing. We look at yours once it is off the wall and tell you plainly whether it is worth reinstalling.
What tile holds up best in a shower?
Porcelain, for most families. It soaks up almost no water and cleans up without staining. Pick a matte or textured finish for the floor so wet feet have some grip. Big tiles fight the slope on a shower floor, so the floor usually gets smaller pieces than the walls.
Can we use the shower the day the tile is finished?
Not quite. Grout and any sealer need time to cure, and the glass is measured after the tile is set, so it arrives a little later. You get the date the shower can be used in writing, and if an inspection moves that date, we call you right away.
Who shows up to do the work
Veteran Built works out of Cypress, and one of the two owners walks every bathroom with the homeowner before any price is written. That walk is where the questions get asked: which wall the plumbing lives in, whether the floor has ever been patched, how the house is used in the morning. The answers go into the scope in plain words you can check later.
An owner comes back while the walls are open, before tile goes up, to look at the waterproofing and the framing for the vanity. That check is the reason a bathroom stays dry for years instead of showing a stain on the hallway ceiling below the next summer. If something behind the old tub needs more work than the scope planned for, you see it in person, not in a text.