Walk-in shower cost dataset

Cost by size, and which sizes are standard

National figures, converting a tub alcove, tiled walls, moulded pan, sliding glass, niche. The transfer and roll-in columns are the two sizes in Department of Justice, 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design, §608, which govern public buildings and not private homes.

The row worth stopping on is 60 by 32, the standard American tub alcove. It clears both published sizes as it stands, because the roll-in standard asks for a 60-inch entry and a tub alcove is exactly 60 inches long. Whoever framed that opening in 1975 was not thinking about accessibility, and it does not matter: the opening is already the right shape. A 36 by 36 shower goes the other way — it meets the 36 by 36 transfer size and fails the roll-in one, which is a real difference rather than a technicality. US Access Board, Guide to the ADA Standards — Bathing Rooms explains what each is for.

The four choices that move the number

National figures on the default 60 by 36 shower, changing one thing at a time.

Glass

Entry

A level entry takes this shower from $4,799 to $5,560, a difference of $761. Almost none of that is the shower. The drain needs fall and a level entry means the fall comes out of the floor structure — headers and sistered joists over a wood floor, or breaking out and re-pouring over a slab. It is the least visible money in the job and the most commonly under-quoted. No step at all. The cost is not in the shower: the floor structure has to drop far enough to give the drain its fall, which means recessing or sistering joists over a wood floor, or breaking out concrete over a slab.

Base and walls

What is there now

Line items

Every optional line shows here at its own band, whether or not the default job includes it. The default is a 60 by 36 inch shower with 77 square feet of wet wall.

The reasoning behind each figure

Strip out the existing shower or tub

• Six labourer hours to take out an existing shower, five to take out a bathtub, none where the opening is new. Taking out a tub is the cheaper of the two because there is no mortar bed to break up.
• ⚠️ Breaking out a mortar bed or cutting old tile is respirable crystalline silica work under OSHA 1926.1153, which is why it is done wet and why a crew that does it dry is telling you something about the rest of the job.
• It also tells you what you are buying: until the walls are open nobody knows whether the studs behind them are sound, and on a shower older than about twenty years the odds are not good.

Skip and disposalestimated, ±50%

• A tiled shower over a mortar bed weighs several hundred pounds once it is broken up, and it goes out as construction waste rather than in the household bins.

Moulded acrylic or solid-surface panestimated, ±50%

• One moulded piece with the slope already in it. There is nothing inside it to fail, which is why it is the base a plumber will suggest when nobody asks for anything in particular.
• It comes in manufactured sizes, so the opening has to suit the pan. That constraint is the reason so many American showers are 60 by 32 or 60 by 36 inches.

Bonded foam tray and sheet membraneestimated, ±41%

• A pre-sloped tray with the waterproofing on the surface rather than buried under the mortar, so a leak shows up at the tile instead of soaking the structure for a year first.
• Cuttable to size, which is what you are paying the premium for over a moulded pan: it fits the opening you have rather than the opening somebody manufactures.

Traditional mortar bed over a linerestimated, ±43%

• Sand and cement, sloped by hand over a sheet liner. The cheapest material on this list by a wide margin and the most expensive in hours, which is the opposite of what people expect.
• Any shape and any size, including the ones nobody makes a tray for. What you are buying is the person, not the product.

Set and slope the base

• Three and a half hours for a moulded pan, four and a half for a foam tray, seven for a mortar bed built and sloped by hand.
• This is the hour that decides whether the shower works. Water finds the low point whatever the tile looks like, and a base that drains to the wrong place cannot be corrected afterwards without taking it out.
• ⚠️ The wage is official BLS data adjusted to your area, but tile and stone setters are published for only 141 of the 530 areas in our index — the thinnest coverage of any trade on this page. Outside those 141 this hour is priced from the broader construction group for the same area, which is a real approximation and not a rounding.

Materials to recess the floor structureestimated, ±49%

• Headers, sistered joists, a dropped section of subfloor and the fixings, or the patching materials where a slab has been broken out.
• It is the least visible money in the whole shower: none of it can be seen once the floor is down, and all of it is what makes a level entry drain.

Carpenter: recess the floor for a level entry

• Seven carpenter hours. This is the line that surprises people: a curbless shower costs more because of the floor, not because of the shower. The drain needs fall, and level entry means that fall has to come out of the structure.
• ⚠️ Seven hours is our estimate for a straightforward case. If the joists run the wrong way, or the bathroom sits over a finished ceiling, or the span is already at its limit, the answer is an engineer rather than a bigger number, and that is not priced here.

Plumber: drain, supplies and valve rough-in

• Four hours to connect a shower where the drain already is, and nine where it has to move. Moving it means opening the floor and re-cutting the fall, which is the same physical problem as the curbless line and is charged separately from it.
• Reusing the existing drain position is the single cheapest decision available in this job, and in a conversion from a bathtub it is nearly always available: the tub drain is already at one end of the alcove and a shower drain can go there.
• Centring the drain looks tidier and costs five more plumber hours plus the floor being opened. It is a preference, not a requirement, and it is worth knowing which of the two a quote assumed.

Mixing valve and shower trimestimated, ±55%

• A pressure-balancing valve, the head and the trim. Pressure balancing is what stops the water going scalding when a toilet flushes elsewhere in the house, and it is standard on every new shower valve sold.
• A head carrying the EPA WaterSense label must use no more than 2.0 gallons per minute, against the 2.5 gpm federal maximum. Over a ten-minute shower that is five gallons, and it costs nothing extra to specify. Retrieved 2026-08-23.

Thermostatic valve instead of pressure-balancingestimated, ±54%

• Holds a set temperature rather than only holding the ratio between hot and cold, and lets a second outlet run independently. The difference you feel is that the water is the same temperature at the start of the shower as at the end.
• It is a genuine upgrade and it is also the point where a valve becomes a piece of furniture. The step above this is entirely about looks.

Backer board and waterproof membraneestimated, ±40%

• Cement or foam backer board over the studs and a liquid or sheet membrane over that, on every wet wall. Priced per square foot of wall inside the shower.
• It is invisible the day the tile goes on and it is the only thing between the water and the framing. Almost every shower that has to be rebuilt early was tiled onto something that was never waterproof, and no amount of sealing the grout afterwards fixes that.

Wall tileestimated, ±67%

• Ceramic through porcelain through stone, which is why the band is three to one on its own. A plain field tile sits at the bottom; a large-format porcelain or a natural stone sits at the top, and the same shower can be finished at either end.
• Trim, edging and the adhesive are inside this figure rather than added after it.

Solid-surface wall panelsestimated, ±41%

• Sheets cut to the opening with sealed joints. Dearer per square foot than most tile and cheaper installed, because it is one day of work instead of three.
• There is no grout in it, which is the reason most people who have lived with a tiled shower choose it the second time.

Acrylic surround kitestimated, ±39%

• Three moulded panels for a standard alcove, priced here per square foot of wall so it can be compared with the others on the same line.
• It is much the cheapest wall available and it only exists in the sizes somebody manufactures. If the opening is not standard, this option is not really an option.

Set the wall surface

• About ten minutes a square foot for tile, and three to four for panels. The gap is the whole argument between them: panels are a day, tile is three, and the tile is being set by somebody whose hour costs more than a labourer's.
• A small format or a pattern pushes the tile figure up steeply, and a mosaic can double it. The rate here is a straightforward field tile.

Recessed niche: frame, waterproofing and trimestimated, ±50%

• A waterproofed recess between two studs, with tile trim to its edges. Cheap while the wall is open and impossible afterwards, which is the whole reason to decide now.
• It has to miss whatever is already in that stud bay, so its position is decided by the plumbing and the wiring rather than by where it would look best.

Build and tile the niche

• One and three-quarter hours: cutting the opening, framing it, waterproofing every corner of it and tiling the inside.
• The waterproofing is the point. A niche is a hole deliberately cut in the wall of a shower, so it is the place most likely to leak and the place where a shortcut is invisible.

Built-in bench: framing, waterproofing and tileestimated, ±49%

• Framed, waterproofed and tiled, sloped very slightly so that it drains rather than holding a puddle.
• It takes floor area out of the shower, so on anything under about 36 by 60 inches a folding seat is the better answer and it is not priced here.

Build and tile the bench

• Three hours. It is the item most often added for somebody who cannot stand for a whole shower, and the item most often built without the slope.
• Like the niche, it is waterproofing rather than carpentry: a bench is a horizontal surface inside a shower, and water sits on it.

Grab bars and the blocking behind themestimated, ±55%

• The bar is the cheap part. The blocking behind it, solid timber let into the studs before the board goes on, is what makes it hold.
• Putting blocking across the whole wet wall now costs almost nothing and leaves every future position available. Fitting bars into finished tile means either hitting a stud wherever it happens to be, or trusting an anchor in a sheet of cement board.

Fit the blocking and hang the bars

• Three quarters of an hour a bar, which is mostly the blocking rather than the bar.
• Done while the wall is open it is trivial. Done afterwards it is a different job at a different price, and that asymmetry is the whole argument for deciding now.

Fixed glass panel, supplied and fittedestimated, ±45%

• One sheet of tempered glass on a channel. No hinges, no track, nothing to fall out of adjustment, and it is the glass that is still working in fifteen years.
• It leaves an open entry beside it, so the shower still needs enough length that the spray does not reach the room.

Sliding or bypass doors, supplied and fittedestimated, ±54%

• Two panels on a track, needing no swing space, which is why they survive in bathrooms where nothing else fits.
• The track is the part that collects soap and hair and eventually the part that fails. A top-hung set costs more and does not have a bottom track to clean.

Frameless hinged glass, supplied and fittedestimated, ±48%

• Thick tempered glass carried on heavy hinges clamped to the panel. Usually the most expensive single item in the whole shower, and priced supplied and fitted because a glass shop measures, makes and hangs it as one job.
• ⚠️ It cannot be measured until the tiling is finished, and it is then made to order. Two to four weeks between a shower that looks complete and a shower you can use is normal on this option, and it is worth knowing before rather than after.

Extractor fan, duct and grilleestimated, ±51%

• Fan, rigid or insulated duct, and a grille through the wall or the roof. Ducted to outside air, never into a loft.
• A bathroom fan that discharges into a loft moves the moisture rather than removing it, and that is where it condenses. If the shower is being rebuilt anyway, this is the cheap moment to fix a duct that goes nowhere.

Electrician: wire and duct the fan

• Three electrician hours to mount it, run the duct and wire the switch. More where there is no existing route out, which in a bathroom in the middle of a ground floor can be most of the work.

Grout, silicone and sealerestimated, ±52%

• Grout for the joints and neutral-cure silicone for every internal corner and along the base.
• Corners move; grout does not bend, so a corner grouted rather than siliconed cracks within the year. It is a few dollars of material and it is the commonest visible defect in a new shower.

Grout, seal and final clean

• Two and a half hours: grouting, then siliconing the corners once the grout has cured, then cleaning the haze off the tile.
• It is a separate visit from the tiling because the grout has to go off first, which is why a shower is never finished on the day the last tile goes on.

Not included in this dataset

The rest of the bathroom

This page prices a shower, not a room. Floor tiling outside the shower, the vanity, the toilet, the lighting and the painting are a bathroom remodel, and there is a separate calculator for that.

Rot or damage found behind the old shower

Studs and subfloor soaked by a shower that leaked for years are the commonest surprise in this job, and nobody can price them before the wall is open. Ask for the hourly rate for repairs in writing before the strip-out starts, because that is the moment you lose the ability to compare quotes.

Moving walls, windows or the room itself

Making the shower bigger by taking space from a cupboard or a bedroom is framing, and possibly structural. It is a different job with a different set of trades.

Anything that makes this a medically necessary installation

This is a construction estimate. It is not an assessment of what somebody needs, and the accessible dimensions quoted here are a published federal standard for public buildings rather than a recommendation for any particular person. An occupational therapist assesses that, and does it properly.

Lead and asbestos work in older houses

Sheet flooring, mastic and some wall boards from before the eighties can contain asbestos, and painted surfaces in pre-1978 housing bring the federal lead renovation rule into play above its own threshold. Testing comes first and neither is priced here.