What Does a Tub-to-Shower Conversion Cost in Cypress Lake?
A tub-to-shower conversion in Cypress Lake, FL typically runs between $3,500 and $10,000, with most straightforward layouts falling in the $5,500-$7,500 range. The job takes a crew 3 to 5 working days from demolition to finished silicone. That price includes removing the old tub, rerouting the drain to center a shower base, waterproofing the new footprint, installing a shower pan or tile floor, new valve and trim, wall surround or tile to the ceiling, and a glass door. Call (844) 638-7249 if you want a fixed number for your specific bathroom layout - estimates are free and laid out line by line.
In most Cypress Lake homes built during the 1970s and 1980s, the original tub is a cast-iron or steel alcove unit set tight on three sides. The plumbing is almost always on the wet wall shared with a hallway or a second bathroom, and the drain is at the tub end. Converting that space to a right-sized shower is some of the most consistent work we do across Lee County. Whether your motivation is aging in place, easier cleaning, or just finally getting rid of a tub nobody uses, a well-done conversion permanently changes how the bathroom functions. And if you are already thinking about a wider refresh, this fits neatly inside a Bathroom Remodeling in Cypress Lake project.
How We Handle a Tub-to-Shower Conversion - Day by Day
Day 1: Protection, Demo, and the First Decisions
We lay floor protection from the entry door to the bathroom, section off the work zone with zip-wall, and cut power to the bathroom circuit. The tub is removed in pieces if it’s cast iron, or lifted whole if it’s steel or acrylic. Once the alcove is bare, we open the wet wall to inspect stud condition, supply lines, and the tub drain stack. In Cypress Lake homes that took water during Ian - even if the drywall was replaced - sill plates and bottom stud sections often show lingering moisture damage that nobody caught during the initial muck-out. This is the homeowner’s first real decision point: if we find rot, you choose whether to repair the affected framing at a known cost or expand the scope. By end of day one, the alcove is stripped to studs and the drain is capped.
Day 2: Drain, Valve, and Curb Configuration
A standard shower drain needs a 2-inch line; most tubs drain through a 1½-inch pipe. We cut the slab inside the alcove footprint to upsize the drain, center the new P-trap, and slope it correctly under the shower base. This is also the day we relocate the valve body if you want the controls on a different wall or at a different height. In slab-on-grade CBS homes - which describes nearly every house we work on in Cypress Lake - cutting the floor is the part of the job that takes the most finesse and makes the most noise. By early afternoon we pressure-test the new connections and start closing the subfloor. If the shower design calls for a curb, we frame it now.
Day 3: Waterproofing and Wall Board
The entire alcove gets a bonded waterproofing system. We use sheet membrane or liquid-applied membrane depending on the substrate, run it continuously across the floor-to-wall transition, and seal every penetration with pre-formed collars. This is not a step where we take shortcuts. Florida humidity and the daily wet-dry cycle inside a shower surround will find a pinhole in a single season. Cement backer board goes up, taped and mudded at the seams, and the shower pan - whether it’s a pre-made acrylic base or a mortar bed for tile - is set and leveled. The shower valve trim rough-in is completed and capped until finish day.
Day 4: Tile, Surround, or Solid Surface
Wall finish installation is a full-day event. If you chose large-format porcelain tile, the setter works in horizontal courses with a leveling system to keep lippage flat. Subway tile or mosaic takes longer but opens up accent-band options. Acrylic or solid-surface surrounds go in faster but demand precise adhesive coverage to stay bonded on exterior walls, where the block wall temperature swing from Cypress Lake’s afternoon sun can cause expansion and contraction behind the panel. The floor tile - if tile is your base - goes in last, pitched toward the drain. By end of day, all visible surfaces are in place, and the job goes quiet for a minimum 24-hour cure.
Day 5: Fixtures, Glass, and Final Walkthrough
We install the showerhead, arm, escutcheon, handle, and tub spout delete cap, then hang the glass door or enclosure panel. The silicone goes on at every change-of-plane joint - corners, floor-to-wall, curb-to-wall - and needs a few hours to skin over before water hits it. We run the shower, check for leaks at the valve and drain, and walk you through cleaning and maintenance for whichever surface you picked. The bathroom is left clean, functional, and ready for same-day use once the silicone cures. From the day we start demo to the day you take your first shower, the timeline almost never exceeds five working days on a standard alcove conversion.
The Options You’ll Choose Between
Every tub-to-shower conversion comes down to a handful of material and configuration choices. Here is what we walk you through before the estimate is final.
- Shower pan: pre-formed acrylic vs. tile-over-mortar. Acrylic pans install in hours, are dead-level out of the box, and clean with a wipe. The tradeoff is limited size and color options. A mortar-bed tile floor lets you match the wall tile perfectly, pitch the floor exactly how you want, and run any shape - but it adds a full day of labor and material cost.
- Wall surround: acrylic/solid surface vs. ceramic/porcelain tile. A solid-surface surround has no grout lines and no ongoing maintenance beyond a squeegee. Tile gives you pattern, color, and a higher-end look. In Cypress Lake, where summer humidity keeps bathroom surfaces damp longer, we recommend large-format porcelain tile with epoxy grout if you go the tile route: fewer grout joints, no sealing ever, and less real estate for mildew to grab hold.
- Showerhead and valve: single-function vs. multi-outlet. The baseline is a pressure-balanced single-handle valve with a fixed showerhead. Upgrading to a thermostatic valve with a diverter lets you add a handheld, a rain head, or body sprays - each added outlet pushes the plumbing labor up, and the rough-in valve itself costs more.
- Glass door: framed vs. semi-frameless vs. fully frameless. A framed sliding door is the most economical and works in standard-width alcoves. Semi-frameless and fully frameless doors feel custom and open up the visual space, but they cost more to fabricate and require dead-plumb walls. In a 40-year-old Cypress Lake home where the walls have settled slightly out of square, we sometimes recommend a semi-frameless design simply because it tolerates a small deviation without looking crooked.
We show you actual samples and give you a written line-item bid that locks in the materials you select. No allowance games, no “we’ll figure out the tile later” pricing. If you decide later to integrate this with a full bathroom remodeling package, the tub-to-shower portion of the estimate stays exactly as written.
What a Tub-to-Shower Conversion Costs in Cypress Lake, FL
Realistic pricing for a standard 60-inch alcove tub-to-shower conversion in Cypress Lake lands at $4,500-$8,000 on the finished end, with small or unusually configured spaces starting around $3,500 and 72-inch or custom-layout jobs reaching $9,000-$10,000. Every estimate is itemized so you see what drives the number.
Five variables push the cost up or down. First, the condition of what is behind the tub: rotted sill plates, termite damage, or corroded galvanized supply lines hidden inside a 1978-vintage wet wall add framing and repipe work that no one can quote before the wall is open. Second, whether the drain relocation requires a long slab cut to reach the main stack - a tub on an exterior wall far from the stack runs higher than a tub sharing a wall with the toilet. Third, tile versus acrylic: an acrylic surround-and-pan package trims material and two days of labor compared to full tile. Fourth, glass door style: a fully frameless custom door alone can add $1,200-$1,800 to the job. Fifth, whether you want us to pull a Lee County plumbing permit and schedule the rough-in inspection. Our written estimates include the permit and inspection by default - we do not bury it as a line item after the fact.
How Cypress Lake Homes Shape This Specific Job
Nearly every house we convert a tub in around Cypress Lake was built between 1972 and 1986. That means cast-iron or steel tubs set on a thin mortar bed over a slab, with 1½-inch copper DWV lines embedded in the floor. Cutting into a 40-year-old Lee County slab to upsize and re-center a drain is routine for us, but it is not a small detail - it is the single most invasive part of the job, and it requires a Lee County plumbing permit with a rough inspection before the floor gets closed. The permit backlog in the county post-Ian has improved, but we still plan for a 3-to-5 business day window between the rough inspection call and the inspector’s arrival - that gap is baked into our timeline so you are never stuck waiting with an open floor.
Moisture is the other uniquely local factor. Cypress Lake’s humidity and the FEMA flood-zone reality in AE-rated parcels mean that slab moisture vapor transmission is higher here than in inland Florida. We test the exposed slab after demo and specify a vapor-impermeable shower pan membrane when readings come back elevated. It adds a small material cost and prevents the slow wicking that causes efflorescence blooming through grout joints two years after the job is done. Homeowners here have also become far more diligent about contractor verification since 2022 - asking for a CGC license number, proof of workers’ comp, and a completed wind mitigation report even on interior remodeling - because the wave of post-Ian storm chasers left a lot of half-finished bathrooms across Lee County. We carry our license visibly on every estimate, and we encourage you to check it.
Some homeowners use a tub-to-shower conversion as the trigger point for exterior upgrades too. We have had Cypress Lake clients schedule this alongside Metal Roofing in Cypress Lake or Tile Roofing in Cypress Lake replacement - not because the jobs overlap, but because the homeowner prefers to handle all the major improvements in a single coordinated window rather than live through construction twice.
Serving Cypress Lake, FL - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Cypress Lake 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 Cypress Lake
Plan on 3 to 5 working days for the full job, assuming a standard alcove and no hidden framing surprises. Day 1 is demo and wall inspection; day 5 is glass and final silicone. If the Lee County plumbing inspection schedule adds a waiting day between rough-in and close-up, the calendar timeline extends, but the actual work-on-site days stay the same. Call (844) 638-7249 and we can give you a schedule commitment in writing based on your specific bathroom.
Yes. Moving or upsizing a drain line in a slab requires a Lee County plumbing permit with a rough inspection, full stop. Any contractor who tells you they can skip the permit on a drain relocation is asking you to take a risk with your insurance coverage and resale disclosure. Our estimates include the permit cost, and we schedule the inspection as part of the job.
Sometimes, but not as often as people hope. A tub drain sits at one end of the alcove; a shower needs the drain roughly centered so the floor pitch works. If the slab cut to recenter the drain is small, it is part of every conversion. A very narrow alcove can occasionally keep the drain near the original location if we use a linear drain at the wall, but that design costs more in materials and still needs a slab cut to upsize the pipe from 1½ to 2 inches.
Every tub-to-shower conversion we complete in Cypress Lake is backed by our 730-Day Done Right Promise. If something is not right, we make it right - no prorating, no fine print about “normal wear and tear.” Manufacturer warranties on the shower pan, valve, and glass door run separately and we register every product warranty for you at completion.
In the Cypress Lake market, removing the only bathtub in a home can narrow the buyer pool slightly - families with young children often want at least one tub. The tradeoff is that a well-executed walk-in shower appeals strongly to the 55-plus buyer segment and to anyone who plans to age in place. If the home has a second bathroom with a tub, converting the primary bath to a shower is almost always a net value-add. If it is the only bathroom, we talk through the implications honestly before you commit.
Get a Fixed-Price Estimate for Your Tub-to-Shower Conversion in Cypress Lake
If you are ready to price the job, call (844) 638-7249. We will schedule a free on-site visit, take measurements, open the wet-wall access panel if there is one, and hand you a written proposal with a line-item scope and a firm price. No allowances, no change-order surprises, and a live person answers the phone whenever you call. The estimate is completely free, and the 730-Day Done Right Promise means the work is good for two full years after we finish.
Written by Derek Hollenbeck, Owner at Groundwork Construction Co., serving Cypress Lake and Lee County with upfront pricing and projects backed in writing.