What a Tub-to-Shower Conversion in McGregor Actually Costs and How Long It Takes
A tub-to-shower conversion in McGregor typically runs between $3,500 and $10,000 and takes our crew five to seven working days from demolition to final silicone. The spread depends almost entirely on whether you’re keeping the existing footprint or relocating plumbing and how your 1950s-1970s concrete-block home handles the demo phase. Call (844) 638-7249 for a free on-site estimate with a written, line-item price you’ll have in hand before you make any commitment.
Most McGregor homeowners we talk to are tired of stepping over a tub wall they haven’t used in years. What they want is a low-threshold or curbless shower that’s easier to enter, simpler to clean, and actually fits how they live now. That’s the job this page covers, start to finish.
How We Convert a Tub to a Shower in McGregor Homes
The process is straightforward, but it’s not a one-day cosmetic swap. Here’s what the five working days actually look like on a McGregor job site.
Day 1: Protection and demolition
We seal off the work zone with floor-to-ceiling plastic containment, run a negative-air scrubber to keep dust out of the rest of the house, and disconnect the plumbing at the shutoffs inside the wall. The tub, surround, and valve come out. On McGregor’s older CBS homes, the tub ledger board is often anchored into block with rusted fasteners that fight you the whole way out - we budget an extra half day for houses built before 1980 because the demo is almost never clean. By noon, the subfloor and wall cavities are exposed and we can see what we’re really working with.
Day 2: Rough plumbing and structural assessment
This is the day that moves your price. We open the shower valve wall, inspect the drain line and trap, and check whether the floor joists or slab under the old tub have taken on moisture over the decades. In McGregor, where the water table sits 18 to 24 inches below grade, slab-on-grade homes from the 1960s and 1970s occasionally show efflorescence or spalling where a slow drain leak went unnoticed. If we find it, we fix it before anything gets covered up. The drain gets relocated to center the new shower footprint, and the valve gets roughed in at the height you choose.
Day 3: Pan and waterproofing
We slope a dry-pack mortar bed or set a pre-formed acrylic pan, depending on what you chose during the estimate walkthrough. Walls get cement backer board, taped, and coated with a fluid-applied waterproofing membrane that ties into the pan flange. This is the step that separates a shower that lasts 30 years from one that rots out in eight. Nothing gets tiled until the membrane passes a 24-hour flood test with a plug in the drain - we check it, you see it, then the tile goes up.
Days 4-5: Tile, fixtures, and glass
Tile installation runs two days for a standard alcove footprint. Your wall substrate choice - large-format porcelain versus subway tile versus solid-surface panel - determines the exact schedule. Fixtures and trim go in on day five: valve, showerhead, handheld slide bar if you spec’d one, and the glass enclosure or door. Our glass partner measures after tile is complete, so the glass arrives cut to the finished opening, not a rough guess.
Day 6-7: Final trim and walkthrough
Silicone at all change-of-plane joints, grout touch-up if needed, and a wet-test to verify drainage and valve function. You walk the shower with the crew lead, we point out exactly what was done and where your shutoffs are, and we don’t call the job complete until you sign off. Every tub-to-shower conversion we do carries our 730-Day Done Right Promise - if something isn’t right, we make it right, period.
The Options You’ll Choose Between
Every homeowner hits the same handful of decisions on this job. Here’s what the real trade-offs look like, not just the brochure version.
- Acrylic or solid-surface pan vs. tiled floor. A pre-formed pan in matte white runs toward the lower end of the price range, installs in a few hours, and never needs sealing. A tiled floor with a mortar bed costs more and adds a day, but it lets you match the floor tile to the walls and gives you a custom slope. For McGregor homeowners planning to stay long-term, the tiled floor is the more common choice.
- Wall material: acrylic surround, large-format porcelain, or subway tile. A one-piece or three-piece acrylic wall system keeps the job fast and under $5,000. Large-format porcelain tile (24×48 or similar) minimizes grout lines and cuts maintenance way down - it’s our most-spec’d option in this market. Subway tile is classic and material cost is low, but labor is higher because of all the grout joints. If your McGregor home still has original 1960s bathrooms, subway tile in a period-appropriate color ties the new shower to the house’s character in a way acrylic can’t.
- Curbless entry vs. low threshold. A curbless shower with a linear drain looks clean and works well if anyone in the home has mobility concerns. But in a slab-on-grade McGregor home, cutting down into the concrete to recess the pan adds cost and requires verifying that you’re not cutting into post-tension cables. A low-threshold pan (2 to 3 inches) avoids structural work and still gives you an easy step-in.
- Valve and fixture grade. A pressure-balance valve with a single showerhead is the baseline. Adding a thermostatic valve, a handheld on a slide bar, or body sprays moves the number up - not just on the fixture itself but on the rough-in plumbing. We stock Kohler and Moen as standard; specialty finishes or higher-flow systems are quoted per spec.
What a Tub-to-Shower Conversion Costs in McGregor, FL
A straightforward tub-to-shower conversion in McGregor - keep the existing footprint, acrylic pan, tile walls, standard valve - lands around $4,500 to $6,500. If you’re relocating the drain, cutting the slab for a curbless pan, going floor-to-ceiling with large-format porcelain, and adding a frameless glass enclosure, you’re at $8,000 to $10,000. Every estimate we write is line-item priced so you see exactly where your money goes.
Here’s what pushes a job toward the higher end:
- Plumbing relocation. Moving the drain or valve body more than 12 inches means opening the slab or reframing a wall. On McGregor’s CBS homes, coring into block for new valve placement is slower work than cutting drywall on a wood-framed house.
- Curbless pan on slab. Requires saw-cutting concrete, setting a recessed pan, and sloping the bathroom floor outside the shower footprint. Permitting in Lee County will flag this if the floor structure wasn’t originally designed for it.
- Water damage discovered at demo. We quoted a McGregor home last year where the tub overflow gasket had been leaking into the slab for what looked like a decade. The subfloor repair added $1,600 and two days. You can’t know until the tub is out, but you should budget a contingency.
- Material upgrades. Large-format tile, designer grout, frameless glass with a custom coating - each upgrade is a choice, not a default. We quote standard and upgraded options side-by-side so there are no surprises.
- Permit fees and inspection scheduling. Lee County requires a plumbing permit for a drain relocation or new valve rough-in. The permit cost itself is modest, but the wait for an inspection can add a day or two to the schedule - something out-of-area crews often fail to plan for.
Every estimate from us includes demo, disposal, rough plumbing within the existing footprint, pan or mortar bed, waterproofing, wall material and installation, standard valve and trim, and a final walkthrough. What it doesn’t include until we discuss it: structural slab work, full bathroom flooring outside the shower footprint, and paint or drywall beyond the shower alcove. No change orders get sprung on you mid-job - upfront pricing means the number you see is the number you pay.
What McGregor Homes Specifically Do to This Job
McGregor’s housing stock is heavily mid-century CBS ranch - concrete block with interior furring strips, built between roughly 1950 and 1980. That changes a tub-to-shower conversion in three ways right out of the gate. First, the plumbing wall is almost always block, so moving a valve body isn’t a matter of cutting drywall and re-sweating copper in an open stud bay; it means coring, sleeving, and sometimes furring out the wall to get the depth right for a modern valve. Second, those original cast-iron tubs weigh 300 pounds and the ledger is bolted into block with hardware that’s been rusting since the Johnson administration - demo takes longer and we plan for it. Third, the bathroom subfloor is typically a recessed slab, which means any drain relocation requires concrete cutting and a cold joint that must be waterproofed correctly or it’ll fail.
The Lee County permit timeline is its own factor - this is a post-Hurricane Ian market, and the building department is still processing elevated volumes of reconstruction work. A plumbing permit for a shower drain relocation doesn’t get same-day turnaround, and we build that into your schedule from the estimate stage so you’re not staring at an unfinished shower waiting on an inspector. If your home sits within the protected royal palm canopy along McGregor Boulevard, any exterior access for material staging near the right-of-way may need coordination with Lee County Urban Forestry - it’s a small step that trips up contractors unfamiliar with the corridor, and we handle it as a routine part of the job.
We’ve been working inside this market long enough to know which homes on the corridor had original terrazzo that the homeowner wants to preserve right outside the bathroom door, and which ones are full-gut renovations from Ian-related Bathroom Remodeling in McGregor that are already opened up. That context changes how we approach containment, floor protection, and sequencing.
Serving McGregor, FL - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the McGregor area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage - if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
Frequently Asked - Tub-to-Shower Conversion in McGregor
Five to seven working days from demo to final silicone, assuming no major structural surprises. A standard alcove conversion with an acrylic pan and tile walls sits at five days. Add a day or two if we’re cutting the slab for a curbless entry or if the Lee County plumbing inspection schedule pushes the rough-in sign-off to the following business day.
Yes, if we’re moving the drain or replacing the shower valve - which is virtually every conversion - Lee County requires a plumbing permit and a rough-in inspection before the walls are closed. We pull the permit, schedule the inspection, and make sure the work passes. A cosmetic swap with no plumbing changes sits in a gray area, but we recommend permitting it properly so there’s a record when you sell the home.
Sometimes. If the existing drain location works for a standard shower pan and the tub faucet height is acceptable for a shower valve, we can keep the plumbing where it is. That keeps the job simpler, faster, and at the lower end of the price range. Most McGregor tubs we see have the drain at the far end, not centered, so a drain relocation is more common than not.
Every conversion carries our 730-Day Done Right Promise - if something isn’t done right, we make it right, no runaround. That covers workmanship for two full years, one of the longest guarantees in residential construction. The materials themselves carry manufacturer warranties (Kohler and Moen fixtures, tile, and waterproofing membrane systems all have their own coverage), and we walk you through what’s covered under each before we start.
Not unless you change the scope or we discover hidden damage that couldn’t have been seen during the estimate - and if we do, we stop, show you exactly what we found, and give you a written change order before we touch it. The number on your upfront estimate is the number you pay for the work you approved. That’s the whole point of our pricing approach.
Free Estimate for Your Tub-to-Shower Conversion in McGregor
If you’re ready to turn a tub you don’t use into a shower you will, call (844) 638-7249 and schedule a free on-site estimate. We’ll walk the bathroom, talk through your options, and hand you a written price with line-item detail before we leave - no pressure, no black-box numbers. Derek Hollenbeck and our Bathroom Remodeling crew work out of our Fort Myers office and cover all of McGregor. If you’re also considering exterior work, homeowners along the corridor often pair an interior project like this with Metal Roofing in McGregor or Tile Roofing in McGregor during a larger renovation push. Calls are answered by a live person, 24/7 - no voicemail black hole.
Written by Derek Hollenbeck, Owner at Groundwork Construction Co., serving McGregor since 2014.