Alpharetta Tub-to-Shower Conversions

Primary bathrooms in Alpharetta's 1980s and 1990s houses were often built around a garden tub set into a tiled deck, with a separate shower stall beside it. Those two decades produced more than half of the city's housing, according to the Census Bureau. If your garden tub mostly sits there, turning it into a walk-in shower can give you a much roomier shower than the old stall ever was.

TrueNorth Showers is based in Marietta, and Robert, the owner, handles every Alpharetta conversion himself. Most take 1 to 3 days.

Before the tub comes out

Two questions settle most of it. The first is whether the house will still have a tub. If the hall bath has one, there’s still somewhere to bathe a child, and a tub for whoever buys the house next, so the primary bath can go to the shower you use every day. If the garden tub is the only one, think about how long you plan to stay.

The second is what to do with the old stall. You can leave it as a second shower, turn it into a linen closet, or tear out both and build one large walk-in shower across the whole space. That last option means more plumbing work and a longer job, and it gives the room the most open layout. The Alpharetta shower installation guide walks through what these primary suites usually look like.

If there’s a window over the tub

After the conversion, a window above a garden tub sits in a wall of the shower, and that changes what the glass has to be. Building codes treat low glass that close to a shower as a hazardous location, so it generally has to be safety glass. Water is the other concern, since the sill and trim will now take spray. Sort out the window at the estimate, before anything gets ordered.

How a garden tub conversion goes

1. Demolition: the tub, its deck, and the tile around it come out, and the floor underneath gets inspected.
2. Plumbing: the drain moves to suit the new shower base, and the valve goes up to standing height, since a tub valve usually sits low.
3. Framing: blocking for grab bars or a seat goes into the open walls, and the window gets dealt with if there is one.
4. Finish: the base is set, seamless Swanstone or tile-look NexTile panels go up, and the glass and trim go on last.

Most conversions take 1 to 3 days, and combining the tub and the stall into one shower lands at the longer end.

Price

The free in-home estimate gives you the exact price, which depends on how big the space is and whether the old stall comes out too. For typical ranges, see the walk-in shower cost guide, or read about tub-to-shower conversions and walk-in showers in Alpharetta. Materials carry manufacturer warranties, and the work has a 2-year workmanship guarantee.