Wife and I think we want a walk-in tub with shower and I’m asking for anyone with knowledge here to cast some pearls. I could use them. I’m not handy and will either have a good carpenter/builder I know install it or one of the brand name seller/installers.

Unless persuaded otherwise, we want one of the small footprint sit in tubs with a door on the side and low threshold, no extras or frills.

Whether online or on the phone I’ve run into gobbledygook and evasions from ALL seller/installers. Safestep, Kohler and American Standard are scheduled to come look at our place and give us a bid. Home Depot and ilk are the only places that give features and price.

Experience, advice, warnings welcome.

Roger might be the man.

Good luck with those estimates. Seems they will try as hard as they can to upselll you from the base model you seem to want.

I'll be keeping my eye on this thread, one day the wife and I might want to go that route. Right now I use the regular tub/shower combo in the second bathroom and she uses the walk in shower in the master bath. Neither of us uses a bathtub regularly, so for now, the walk in works when we can' get over the edge of a regular tub, as in after knee replacement surgery.

Something to consider with the walk in tub is that you have to sit in it while it fills up and while it drains out. You may also need to upgrade your water heater.

Was looking at having a drop in tub and wall liner done for Khans bathroom and the updated plumbing and tub and shower fixtures done for it also.


8k.........


Fugg dat...

Had em do the updated fixtures and inside wall plumbing with access door to it thru a closet wall and new drain assembly with pipe.

925 bucks......
Bout a 3 hr job from Ben Franklin.

But that was all also late spring 2019.


I can only imagine cost now.......

Before you buy understand how they work.

The door opens almost to the floor, for easy access.

You MUST enter the tub while it is empty.

Then you must sit there and wait for the water to fill.

You must also sit and freeze your ass off waiting for the water to drain.

You can avoid the waiting to fill and waiting to drain buy climbing over the edge, but then you just defeated the purpose.

If you have medium to low water pressure the fill wait can be a royal pain.

You will prolly have to install a drain large enough to drain it fast, so as to keep you from freezing your ass off .

Also make sure your water heater is large enough to fill it without sending you Luke warm water towards the end.

Besides, never wash your face in the same water you have your ass in.

You do that in any bathtub, Jacuzzi, or swimming pool, not just in a walk-in tub.

Were it me I'd just get a Jacuzzi and forget the tub. I changed out all the tubs long ago and went to walk in showers. Pat Boone should've stuck to singing and golf.

Walkin in shower with a seat??

As others have pointed out you sit in it as it is filled and emptied. You will be rinsing yourself as it empties to keep soap scum off of you. The seals can and do go bad. A curbless tile shower is a much better idea.

GreggH

Be careful with estimates. This is one of the biggest rip offs for seniors. I had two, one was $12,000 the other $15000

In our former house, we had a walk in shower that had the same footprint as a common bathtub. Seats on both ends and a sliding glass door.

I sure miss that set-up.

Phuque that , I might as well just install a dive tank so I can repair and service dive gear while I wait for the tub to fill and drain!

I'd prefer a shower alone but wife likes the tub opton, though the comments here have me reconsidering.

Appreciate the info and comments. Very helpful.

My mother, who is 103, had a sit down shower installed a few years ago. It has 2 shower heads, one of them being a hand held mounted about waist height. She can sit on a stool and use it to wash all over. Make sure the stool has a back to keep an elderly person from rolling off backwards.

This one is one I installed for my MIL who used to live with us. The hand held slides up and down the bar so a person can sit on a stool and reach it.

Another thing to consider is that Jim has AIDS.

LOL

And you could have done all that yourself for $146

Just have to take a day off from Good Guys at Sunrise

LOL

A decent bathroom remodel done by a contractor will run you about $18-25k depending on fixtures and flooring. Those walk in tubs aren't cheap.

exactly. before or shortly after i retire i will eliminate the last tub in the house and do a tiled shower stall. i did mine downstairs with a seat, shelves, etc and my wife likes it. it takes up more space though and unless you do it yourself, it is pricey. i did mine and it only took me two years lol. talk about scope creep. started out as just a shower and ended up involving a jack hammer, sledge hammer and about 200 SF of tile. the next one will not be nearly as much.

Those commercials on TV make those walk in tubs with the door look cool.


Betty Sue in there soaking…

Nothing to trip on….

Not a care in the world….



Until the bubble guts hit.

Never tell you how long it takes to drain.

Now you trapped in brown pond water…..

Cant swim from it either.

The lodge/house we stayed at hog hunting a few years back had a [aprox] 6'X6' doorless walk in shower with a huge pan over head dead center as well as a wall mount similar to what Rock Chuck posted.
It had a plastic patio chair sitting in it.
I enjoyed sitting under that pan immensely each evening after those cold days out hunting.
Everyone there remarked how nice that shower was.

I took tub in our bathroom out, made a big shower with seat in it. It’s 5’x4’. I moved drain to the middle of the floor, built seat. That shower was nice when I broke my ankle 5 years ago.

And I keep telling you that it wasn't me that you got it from. I was wearing a condom. How many times do I have to tell you?

Jimothy,

We’ll add humor to the long list of schit you can’t do.

LOL

I wasn't supposed to tell, was I? Sorry,

Jimothy,

Your dad hates you.

LOL

Hahaha!

I am not going to call you daddy. I don't care how much it turns you on. I told you it creeps me out.

Do not tell my wife.....

We already have 1st floor shower, plus separate tub/jacuzzi .

2nd floor master bath has a walk-in shower with seat, hall bath has shower/tub.

Deck has big hot tub.

And it rains a lot up here.

Say, anyone know where I can get some tilapi or pirhaña for that thing- should make a dandy holding tank. Might have to drop the temp a tad.

Really great! Crawl in the empty SOB and then have to run COLD WATER in on your ass so your nuts will shrink up to a pea pod size! No thank you! This is the biggest con ever....along with that Relief Factor s hit!!

Mrs slumlord built her own custom 8x8 walk-in shower.

She had to one-up me after I built my 8x8 walkin Cool-Bot deer cooler.


First time Renegade ever came out to the house, it was dark...there were headlights on shining on the side of the house and her out there with a pick and a shovel digging a 12” footing. Haha

Ren said “what the hell is going on there”


His first introduction to Miss Pinger.

I'm liking the set up Rock Chuck built for his MIL, photo below.

Okanagan,
Check out this Delta shower valve.I t has a built in diverter to use 2 shower heads.
1 can be a conventional shower head,2-would be for a spray head similar to RC's

https://www.deltafaucet.com/bathroom/product/R22000.html

https://www.deltafaucet.com/bathroom/product/T24971-PR.html

Very handy,we install alot of these w/o many issues

That's the route I'm taking. Got it framed and walled, need to get busy on the tile.

Build seat out of brick and mortar, tile over the brick.

I used to work in residential construction and I would have to agree with some of the negatives already given for the walk in tubs. It takes a lot of hot water to fill one and the heater needs to be close or you're dumping cold on you until the hot water arrives. Drain time while freezing. You'd have a much higher power and water bill. The walk in showers with seats are vastly better.

dont buy one of those POS tubs.

I'd go with a shower without any lip to step over instead. My father installed a walk-in tub for my step-mother and she likes it, but you have to sit inside it and wait while it fills up. Then it cools down before very long and you either add more hot water or get out. When we built our home recently, we installed a shower without any lip at the bottom to step over. The floor is cut down for drainage (and reinforced). With this, you can get in and out when you want. You can put a chair/bench/stool in there if you want to sit, and it may very well be less expensive than a walk-in tub.

Around here these things were the hot ticket about 5 years ago, we installed 4 or 5. Slow fill, slow drain, hot water capacity were all issues. Think some of the new ones may have a drain pump, which would just be another maintenance issue do deal with.
I'm mid sixties, wife and I are planning a bath remodel, trying to think ahead. Large walk-in shower, with room for a chair, overhead (rainforest) shower head with a wand on the wall. Keep it simple.

+1



Properly maintained Jacuzzis and swimming pools have a chloride level between 1.0 and 3.0 parts per million, bathtubs don't.

That's our plan as I mentioned earlier in the thread
I want to move the shower, put it where 'her' jacuzzi tub currently resides......that's an issue currently.

Installed one for my in-laws a while back, not for the average DIY guy. I picked one with a pump that speeds up the draining and a heat pump to keep the water warm. They use a lot less water than a regular tub.

I don’t recommend this. A house gets tired of holding up the additional weight over time and the floor joists sag cracking the water proofing. A better method is a Schluter bench or several other pre made shower benches. Houses built in the 50’s-70’s are particularly susceptible as longer floor joist spans were common. In fact we abandoned the old mud beds and backer boards completely and only use the Schluter system. Other companies have now competing products.

GreggH

Our floor joists are on 12” centers in the walk-in shower. Also have a couple of screw jacks under neath too on pier pads. But it was laid out as such. Not a rehab or after build decision.

3 tiled benches, concrete block and mortar.

What Hanco said:

I'm told that starting in the 60's, the water bed fad cracked a lot of floor joists.