The Open Shower Co. knowledge base

Reference

About The Open Shower Co.

Who this company is and what it sells, where it works, how a project runs, what the guarantee covers, and — at length — what it deliberately does not claim. It carries no founding date, headcount or project count, because none of those is on the record and an About page is where a company is most tempted to invent them.

Bathroom remodeling glossary

One hundred seventy-eight terms that turn up on a shower or bathroom quote, defined in plain English with the practical consequence of each one: curbless, groutless, pre-slope, pressure-balance, allowance, change order and the rest. Written to be general to the trade rather than specific to us.

Where the knowledge base's facts come from

How the history and reference pages are sourced and checked: the fact sheet behind each page, the second pass that tries to refute it, and the page check that traces every sentence to a claim. It lists the 211 archives and agencies the 1,139 documents come from, publishes the 2,229 claims behind 45 pages as JSON, one file per page, and describes the copies of every cited document kept so a page can be checked years from now.

A photograph archive of Central Ohio water, sewers and bathrooms

The 221 historical photographs, postcards, maps and drawings gathered for the place histories and the building-history pages, from the Columbus Metropolitan Library, the Library of Congress and Wikimedia Commons, each shown with its archive, identifier, date, the reason it was gathered and the rights statement the archive publishes, quoted word for word. City sewer photographs dated to the hour, Sanborn title blocks that grade a town's water, the state hospital's grounds, Flytown's alleys and Delaware's spring.

What a bathroom project costs

Bathroom remodel cost in Columbus, Ohio

What bathroom work actually costs in Central Ohio, given as installed prices covering product and labor together rather than a materials-only figure, and why published national averages mislead when applied to one house.

Estimate Builder

An interactive calculator that asks five questions and returns a live installed price range for your own bathroom, with no form standing in front of the number. It is a planning estimate rather than a quote, and it says so.

Which should I pick

The six wall systems, compared

Acrylic, fiberglass, printed aluminum composite, solid surface and stone composite side by side, on the three things that actually separate them: whether the pattern runs through the material or is printed on it, whether the pan has a step, and whether a glass door is already in the price.

Twelve wall materials, read from the manufacturers' own documents

The long version of the question above, sourced rather than summarized: what each material is made of, how thick it is, how the seams close, where the waterproofing sits, and what the warranty actually covers. Four of the twelve publish no thickness at all, and that is reported rather than filled in.

Panels or tile

The honest trade, written by a company that builds both. Panels win on cleaning and on time; tile wins on looks and on fitting an unusual room. The part worth thinking about is that they fail differently — a panel fails visibly at a joint, a tiled shower fails invisibly behind the tile.

What a one-day shower actually is

A real product with a narrow choice set, not a marketing trick: stocked sizes, the existing drain and valve, and a few-piece surround. What buys the day, when it is the right purchase, when it is not, and why we publish one to two days instead.

Walk-in tub or walk-in shower

Two opposite answers to the same problem, written by a company that builds only one of them. What a walk-in tub is, the waiting and the hot water and the door seal the brochure leaves out, who it genuinely suits, and why the shower is the more common answer for a household that intends to stay put.

Refinish, reline, replace or convert

The four futures of a tired bathtub are four different products rather than four grades of one. What refinishing and a liner fix and hide, when a tub should be replaced instead, when it should become a shower, and the two questions that tell you which of the four any quote actually is.

Shower doors and glass

Sliding, pivot, frameless, semi-frameless, or a curtain, and the three things that decide between them: the floor outside the shower, who goes through the opening, and whether the wall system already comes with a door. Why made-to-fit glass arrives after the walls, which way a door should swing, and how to keep it clear.

Scope, price, permits and the guarantee

What is included in a conversion

What a conversion price covers, which two of the six wall systems include their glass door in the starting price, what is an added option, and what a hidden condition is. Most disagreements about a remodel are disagreements about scope rather than about price.

How the guaranteed price works

There are three numbers in a bathroom project and only one of them binds anybody. Which is which, the photograph condition the guaranteed price holds under, the only two things that can move it afterward, and what Ohio law says about deposits.

Do you need a permit?

When a Central Ohio bathroom project needs a permit and why no website can answer that for your address. Central Ohio is not one jurisdiction, a mailing address is not a jurisdiction, and the four things to get in writing from any contractor.

What the lifetime leak-free guarantee covers

Three promises with three different terms: lifetime on the waterproofing assembly we build, five years on workmanship, five years on finish and adjustment. What each covers, what is excluded, how a claim is handled, what the makers warrant instead of us, and what transfers when the home is sold.

How to compare bathroom remodel bids

Two honest bids for the same bathroom can differ by a large amount because they describe different work. How to put them on the same scope line by line, what installed price, allowance and hidden condition mean on a bid, what to ask about the waterproofing you cannot see, and why the lowest bid is only the smallest one until it has been compared.

The work we do

Tub-to-shower conversion

Removing an existing bathtub and building a walk-in shower in the same footprint: what comes out, what goes in, what is decided when, and what changes the price. One to two days on site.

Walk-in and curbless showers

Six groutless wall systems and the difference between a low step and no step at all, including which of the two your floor structure will actually allow and why that answer differs between a slab and an upper floor.

Accessible and aging-in-place bathrooms

No-step showers, grab bars anchored into framing rather than hung on drywall, and a fold-down seat set at a height chosen for the person who will use it. What accessibility means in a private home, where the ADA does not apply.

Full bathroom remodel

A complete gut and rebuild: in-house design, a line-item budget, custom tile, glass and cabinetry. Three to five days on site once the work begins, and a longer ordering runway before it does.

The five-by-eight bathroom

The small hall bathroom most Central Ohio houses have, and the room that converts most predictably: the same alcove, the same drain, a door that slides or a curtain, the toilet that does not move, and the decisions spent on the step, the storage and the fan. What a room this size cannot do.

Tile, and the tier above the six packages

Custom tile showers

The tier above all six packaged systems, and more of it is priced than the word custom suggests: a hand-built waterproofed pan in any shape, a tile floor laid level with no step, subway or large-format walls, a decorative accent band, and a tiled niche — all selectable in the Estimate Builder rather than hidden behind a consultation.

Wet rooms

A bathroom where the whole room is waterproofed and the shower is part of the floor, with nothing to step over anywhere. The most accessible arrangement there is and the most involved to build, because the floor structure rather than the floor area decides whether it is straightforward. The one thing here genuinely quoted per project.

Columbus, specifically

What a tub-to-shower conversion really costs in Columbus

The cost figures a Columbus homeowner finds online, quoted as their publishers state them with the date each was checked, why the same publisher can put a tub-to-shower conversion and a walk-in shower in the same city three times apart, the eight things a total installed price includes, and what this company publishes. The one page in this library that carries dollar figures, every one of them attributed.

What Columbus permit records show

Sixteen years of City of Columbus residential plumbing permits, computed from the public record: how many a year, the March peak and the December trough, how long a permitted job stays open, which ZIP codes lead, how fragmented the filers are, and the three things the record cannot say about bathrooms.

The shower systems most common in Columbus homes

What is in Columbus bathrooms decade by decade, from cast iron and tile on plaster to the corner soaking tub, and the five categories of shower system that replace them in the order they are actually sold here. Which claims are observed and which are inferred, stated plainly, because nobody counts installations.

Columbus water, hardness and your shower

How hard Central Ohio water is in the utilities’ own published figures: Columbus about seven grains per gallon, Westerville seven and a half, Del-Co seven to eight, all softened at the plant. Which suburbs are on which water, what moderately hard water does to glass and walls, and why a new shower does not need a softener.

The Central Ohio house, era by era

Central Ohio House Styles, Era by Era

What was built when across Columbus and the seven counties, era by era, in the words of the National Register nominations, the National Park Service's national suburb periods and the state preservation office's survey of the recent past, with the Census median year built for the counties, the city and six towns. It carries no prices, no advice about any one house, and nothing about resale.

Who Shaped Central Ohio Houses, Era by Era

The named actors behind Central Ohio houses, era by era: immigrant tradesmen and quarriers, architects and land developers, the federal housing programs of the 1940s, a builders' association, an annexing mayor, companies with filings of their own, and a state that wrote no code for houses until 2006. Each carries a date and its source. It does not claim to say who built most Central Ohio houses, because nobody publishes that count.

How Central Ohio Houses Were Built, Era by Era

A walk up a Central Ohio house era by era: foundations and the basement, the frame and what a code lets anyone cut in it, siding, plaster and gypsum board, the wall behind bathroom tile in 1955 and under Ohio's rule today, roofs, windows, insulation and heat, and what was made nearby. Every date carries the geography its source covers. It does not claim that any material has ever been measured in Central Ohio itself.

Windows and Glass in a Central Ohio House

The window as a component of the house, era by era: the wooden sash and its parts, the steel window from 1890 to 1950, insulating glass, glass block, low-emissivity coatings, frame materials and the storm window, each dated by the document that dates it and labeled with the geography that document covers. Then the sections a window meets in Ohio today, in the code's own numbering. It claims no share of Central Ohio houses, because nothing measures one.

Ohio building history, hazards and the rules

Ohio Fires, Floods and the Rules That Followed

Nine dated Ohio incidents from 1908 to 1978, each set out as the record sets it out: the date, the place, the count exactly as the marker or the agency gives it, the finding where one exists, and the rule that came next. It also lists the sections of the Residential Code of Ohio a house meets today. It does not claim that any of those sections came from an Ohio incident, because no source read says so.

What Goes Wrong in a Central Ohio House

The ground, water, air and weather a Central Ohio house meets, cause by cause, in the agencies' own category names: the glacial till the federal survey mapped, its severe rating for dwellings with basements, karst in the Scioto and Olentangy gorges, the federal radon zone, the code's termite designation, and what the Ohio hazard plan counts. It makes no health statement and says nothing about any one house.

What Ohio Made for Houses, Plant by Plant

The Ohio industries behind an ordinary house, material by material: clay and brick, paving block, sewer pipe, roofing tile, wall and floor tile, window glass, gypsum wallboard, fiberglass, fixtures, stone, lime, cement and lumber. Each plant carries its town, its county and its dates from a state survey, a marker, a nomination, a catalog record or the company's own account. It does not claim that any of it went into any particular Columbus house.

Telling a Central Ohio House's Era and Style

A field guide keyed to the Ohio Historic Inventory's own two lists, style and building type, with the state's date ranges for the foursquare, bungalow, Cape Cod, ranch and split-level, the National Park Service's element-by-element method, and the Franklin County Auditor's style codes counted by decade built. It carries no prices, says nothing about resale, and makes no claim about any one house.

Which Building Code a Central Ohio House Met

Which building rules were in force where and when, each from its own record: Columbus's 1905 code and the ordinances that changed it in 1986, 1998, 1999 and 2006; the state's steps in 1911, 1955, 1979 and 2006; the county building department for the Franklin County townships; four suburbs that adopt the state code as it stands; and the Board of Building Standards' certification list and jurisdiction map. It never says which code any one house was built under.

What Wiring a Central Ohio House Has by Era

Knob-and-tube to arc-fault protection, dated by the National Electrical Code's own editions and by Ohio's adoption record: the methods, the grounding steps, service sizes, the federal agencies' own words on aluminum branch wiring and on one manufacturer's breakers, and the 1940 Census count of Ohio, Franklin County and Columbus dwelling units with electric lighting. It does not say what any one house has, whether a house is safe, or what to do about it.

Central Ohio Floods, Dams and Floodwalls

The crest record for the Scioto, the Olentangy, Alum Creek and Big Walnut Creek as the National Weather Service and the Geological Survey keep it; the city's three drinking water dams and the federal flood-control lakes with the acts that authorized them; the Franklinton floodwall, Ohio's dam classes, the flood map dates community by community, and the two plumbing code sections a bathroom below the sewer meets. It rates no dam's condition and tells no reader what to do.

Heating a Central Ohio House by Era

Coal, manufactured gas, natural gas and electricity at the Central Ohio house, era by era: the Census Bureau's heating fuel series for Ohio from 1940 to 2000, the Franklin County and Columbus counts decade by decade, the city's own gas and smoke records, and the sections of the Residential Code of Ohio a furnace, a flue and a chimney meet. It does not say what any one house has, or whether anything in it is safe.

How Columbus Came to Inspect Its Houses

Five City of Columbus offices, each dated by the record that made it: building permits from the City Civil Engineer in 1890, an inspector of buildings in 1892, plumbing inspection by 1895, wiring given to the building office by ordinance in 1923, and a smoke division that lapsed and returned. It carries no fee or salary figure, and it does not say which code any one house was built under.

The Hocking Valley Coal Towns That Heated Columbus

The coal field that heated Columbus, set out the way the record sets it out: Athens, Hocking and Perry Counties in southeastern Ohio and the Middle Kittanning seam, the canal and the railroad north to the city, each company town dated by its own marker, nomination or state report, the strike of 1884 and the mine fire, and the state's production series from 1840 to 2022. It claims nothing about any one house, and it carries no prices.

Ohio water, sewers and plumbing

Where Columbus water comes from

Columbus draws its drinking water from the Scioto River, Big Walnut Creek and a field of wells, holds it in four reservoirs, and treats it at three plants that do not all run the same process. This page gives the sources, the plant years, the 1904 typhoid outbreak and the 1908 plant that followed, who is on Columbus water and who is not, and the fourth plant now being built. It carries no price, no typhoid death count and no count of contract communities.

Columbus sewers, then and now

Waste water from a Columbus house runs to one of two plants on the Scioto River south of downtown. This page carries the city's, Ohio EPA's and US EPA's own figures: the 2024 sewer mileage by type, the combined sewers downtown and the 19 overflow points, the plants' dates and design flows, the consent orders and the deep tunnels, and what Blueprint Columbus does at a house. It draws no boundary the city has not published.

Sewer laterals and house drains in Central Ohio

The pipe from the house to the public sewer: what the City of Columbus says a lateral is, who maintains it, and why four Ohio systems draw the boundary in four different places. The page follows the materials era by era, how roots and cameras find trouble, why an old foundation drain and a heavy rain arrive together, and the plumbing code rules a shower drain meets. It carries no prices and names no plumbing company.

Supply pipes in Central Ohio houses, by era

What the supply pipe behind a Central Ohio bathroom wall is likely to be, by the decade the house was built: galvanized, copper, CPVC, polybutylene or PEX, each with the era its own source gives. It carries what the Ohio Plumbing Code still accepts, what the City of Columbus publishes about lead service lines and solder, and the code's rules on burial depth, hot water length and the shower valve. It states no cost and no figure for any particular house.

Ohio's plumbing code and the state license

Which code actually governs the plumbing in an Ohio house, and it is not the residential code. This page gives the shower sections by number, the size and valve and wall rules a bathroom has to meet, what the state contractor license covers and the residential line its own chapter draws, the written contract Ohio requires, and which office does plumbing plan review and inspection in Columbus and four counties around it. It states no requirement for any one address.

Wells and septic systems, and the bathroom

For the Central Ohio house on a well and a septic system: which county health district permits and inspects each, the state rules for sewage and for private water systems and when they took effect, the design flow of one hundred twenty gallons a day per bedroom and what a remodel changes, softener brine and the things that may never drain in, the ten-foot and fifty-foot setbacks, well testing, and what the published measurements say about well water here. It prints no count of households, because none is published.

Hot water for a Central Ohio shower

What decides whether a shower runs out of hot water here: the Department of Energy's method for sizing a tank and a tankless heater, the air and ground temperature figures that stand in for a Columbus inlet temperature nobody publishes, the federal efficiency standards as they stood in September 2026, and what Ohio's plumbing and energy codes ask of a water heater, its relief line and a recirculation loop. It gives no tap water temperature, because no source does.

Water and sewer providers, town by town

A table of who supplies the water and who takes the sewage in twenty-five Central Ohio places, in each utility's own words, with the source of the water where the utility gives one. It shows which suburbs buy from Columbus, which towns treat their own, and where a mailing address and a municipality part company. It names no plant a town's own page does not name, and it leaves the unanswered cells blank on purpose.

What the Columbus water quality report says

The annual Consumer Confidence Report, explained: the federal rule that requires it, how to read a results table that reports three treatment plants separately, what the 2025 Columbus report found for fluoride, nitrate, chlorine by-products, sodium, lead and copper, and why the document carries no PFAS measurement even though the city publishes PFAS results elsewhere. It gives no health advice and quotes every health sentence whole.

The Ohio bathroom, then and now

How and when Ohio homes got indoor plumbing

The Census Bureau's record of the Ohio bathroom, from 1940, when a quarter of the state's dwelling units had the toilet outdoors, to 1990. It covers the Columbus privy vaults of 1890, the typhoid figures the Census Bureau published for 1908 and 1909, the sanitary privies federal work-relief crews built, the Cleveland bath houses, and why today's survey figure is not comparable with the old one. It makes no claim about any single house.

Bathrooms per house in Ohio, by decade

The last government count of bathrooms in Ohio homes was the 1980 census, which put two homes in three in the city of Columbus at exactly one complete bathroom. This page gives those figures for the city, Franklin County, Delaware County and the state, the Census Bureau's definitions of what it counted, and the separate new-house series since 1973. It makes no claim about Ohio bathroom counts today, because no survey publishes one.

Toilets in an Ohio bathroom remodel

The toilet is the fixture that usually stays put in a remodel, and this page says why. It sets out the clearances section 405.3.1 of the Ohio Plumbing Code requires, the three-inch drain, the flange the code anchors but sets no height for, the vent exception a water closet gets, and the federal flush limit with the WaterSense label under it. It names every document and makes no claim about any particular house.

Lead Paint and Asbestos in a Pre-1978 Bathroom

The two dates people quote about older bathrooms, checked at the rules themselves: 1978 is a definition in the federal lead rules, and no agency publishes an asbestos cutoff year at all. The page covers EPA's renovation rule and who administers it in Ohio, the separate Ohio asbestos program and its notification threshold, and how old Central Ohio housing is by Census table. It claims nothing about any particular house.

Bathroom Electrical in an Ohio House

Which electrical code an Ohio house is wired to, on which edition, and what it asks of a bathroom: ground-fault protection, the 20-ampere circuit, the outlet by the basin, the keep-out zone around a tub, the light over the shower, paddle fans, switches and a heated floor. Then the residential code's fan rule, the state contractor credential and its residential exclusion, and the office that inspects in Columbus and four counties. It states no requirement for any one address.

What Is Under a Bathroom Floor, by Era

What the subfloor under a Central Ohio bathroom is likely to be by the decade the house was built, from the federal rehabilitation guide and the product standards themselves, plus the mortar bed under an old tile floor, what the Residential Code of Ohio asks of a floor, and what the tile trade asks of one instead. It names no era for any particular house and carries no price.

The Central Ohio Bathroom, Era by Era

What was in a bathroom decade by decade: the enameled tub, the sanitary white tile, Ohio's tile industry, the built-in five-foot tub, colored fixtures, the postwar three-fixture bathroom, the Lustron bathroom made in Columbus, plastic and the vanity, and what recent surveys find people choosing. It carries the Franklin County Auditor's own bathroom counts by decade built. It does not claim to know what is in any particular house, and no publisher documents the 1990s corner tub plan.

Central Ohio places, then and now

German Village, the privy and the sewer

German Village's brick houses were built with a well and a waste vault in one small yard. This page follows the record from there: the South End sewer that had drained those wells by June 1870, city water in the pipes in March 1871, sewer work photographed under these streets in 1902 and 1929, what the 1950 census counted in the two tracts covering the district, and what the German Village Commission's rules cover now.

The King-Lincoln District and Poindexter Village

The bathroom and sanitation history of the Near East Side of Columbus, told only in what named documents say: the Blackberry Patch in the Ohio History Connection's words, Poindexter Village of 1940 and the counts that disagree about it, the Census Bureau's Columbus city figures for 1940 and its tract figures for 1950. It claims nothing about the plumbing inside Poindexter Village, because no document opened says.

Franklinton, the flood and the sewers

Columbus's original settlement, told through its water and its drains: the wells and vaults that came first, the separate storm and sanitary sewers designed for the west side in 1897, the levee failure of March 1913 and the week the neighborhood went without water, the floodwall and what a federal study credits it with, and what the Census Bureau counted in four census tracts in 1950. It measures nothing about any house standing there today.

Bexley, Upper Arlington, Grandview Heights and Marble Cliff

Four municipalities on the older side of Columbus, and the documented difference between them. Only Upper Arlington was platted with its utilities promised in writing; the Ohio State Board of Health recorded Marble Cliff, Grandview Heights and Bexley going years without a public water supply or sewers. The page then follows what the 1940 and 1950 censuses counted in their bathrooms and how old that housing is now. It makes no claim about any particular house.

Westerville water, sewers and bathrooms

Westerville voted for a water works and for sanitary sewers on the same day in August 1901, and the Ohio State Board of Health inspected both for the next dozen years. This page follows that record through the Sanborn fire insurance maps, the change of source from wells to Alum Creek in the middle of the 1920s, and the 1950 census count of the town's dwelling units. It makes no claim about any particular house.

Worthington: wells, water works and sewers

How a town settled in 1803 got piped water and sewers, told from the Ohio State Board of Health's 1912 report on the proposed village supply, a Sanborn fire insurance map of 1922, Worthington Libraries' records and the census. It covers the conditions the state attached, the sewers laid about 1920, the move to Columbus water by 1926 and what the 1950 census counted. It carries no prices and says nothing about any particular house except the historical society's museum.

Gahanna water, sewers and bathrooms

Gahanna began as a mill town on Big Walnut Creek in 1849, and the Ohio State Board of Health's annual reports show the village with no water works and no sewers from 1892 to 1913. This page follows that record to today's purchased Columbus water and sewage treatment, prints what the 1950 census counted in the township tracts around the village in the table's own words, and leaves three utility dates blank because no document gives them.

Flytown, Goodale Park and the Short North

What named documents say about the ground west and north of Goodale Park: the marker that dates Flytown to 1865 and its annexation to 1880 for water, light and power, what the 1950 census counted in the tracts drawn over it, the city's own blight survey and clearance figures, the expressway, and the districts kept beside it. No prices, nothing about any particular house, and no ranking of one tract against another.

Clintonville and Old North Columbus

What named documents say about the ground between the Olentangy and the railroad: the township of 1811, the village of North Columbus taken into Columbus in 1871, a state approval of 1913 recording private wells and a tank in each house, the annexations that walked the city limit north, what the 1950 census counted in six tracts, and the sewer work going on there now in the city's own words. No prices, and nothing about any particular house.

The Hilltop's water, sewers and bathrooms

The high ground west of Franklinton, told through the documents: Camp Chase and its cemetery, the state institution that ran its own water works and sewers from 1871 to 1905 in its own reports' words, the Ohio State Board of Health following that sewage down Dry Run in 1904, and what the Census Bureau counted in the six Hilltop census tracts in 1950. No annexation date is offered, because none was found.

Linden: villages, storm sewers and the mains

What named documents say about the ground north of downtown Columbus: the two villages of Linden Heights and East Linden, the storm sewers the state approved twice on condition that no household waste be connected to them, the four incorporation years in print, the annexation that came with the promise of city utilities, what the Census Bureau counted in the Linden tracts in 1950, and how the city describes the neighborhood now. No prices, and nothing about any particular house.

The South Side, Steelton and Buckeye Steel

The Columbus South Side south of German Village, told through the documents that describe it: the city's own annexation line down Parsons Avenue, the steel works at the center of Steelton and the day it first poured, the Hungarian neighborhood two publishers bound differently, a settlement house with two founding years in print, the relief sewers laid under these streets in 1948 to 1950, and what the Census Bureau counted in six tracts in 1950. It measures nothing about any house standing there today.

Dublin, Ohio: water, sewers and bathrooms

What named documents say about Dublin: the village that told the Ohio State Board of Health in 1898 that shallow rock was why it had no sewers, the 1890 typhoid investigation the board printed, what the census did and did not count before 1970, the growth of the 1970s, the two records that will not agree on when Columbus water arrived, and the homes inside the city still on a well and a septic system. No prices, and nothing about any particular house.

Delaware, Ohio: the spring, the water works, the sewers

What named documents say about Delaware, Ohio: the sulfur spring given to the town in the 1820s, the bathing houses built beside it, the hotel over it that became Ohio Wesleyan's first building, the fire insurance map that called the town's water indifferent, the water works of 1889, the thirteen years of taps without sewers, the flood of 1913 and what the 1940 and 1950 censuses counted in its houses. No prices, and nothing about any particular house.

Delaware, Licking and Fairfield Houses by the Numbers

The three counties beside Franklin, counted: housing units at every census since 1940, when the houses were built on both the census and the survey, plumbing on two different universes, the last county bathroom count anybody took, heating fuel, tenure, bedrooms, permits and each county auditor's own parcel record. Every figure names its table, its year and its universe. It claims nothing about any one house, and carries no prices or values.

Where we work

Westerville

Our home town and where the shop is. Two quite different kinds of bathroom here: the small single hall bath in the older housing around Uptown, and the unused corner soaking tub in the newer housing north and east of town.

Dublin

Mostly built between the early 1980s and the late 2000s, which put a large corner garden tub in almost every primary bathroom in town. What replaces it, and what an upstairs bathroom over wood framing changes about a curbless entry.

Powell

Larger primary bathrooms than the metropolitan average, so there is usually room for a genuinely large shower rather than merely an adequate one. Also the town where a mailing address is most often not the jurisdiction the house sits in.

New Albany

The newest housing we work in regularly, and the source of a common misconception: that a house built in the late 1990s is too new to need anything. That bathroom is approaching thirty years old.

Upper Arlington

The oldest stock we work in: small bathrooms, plaster on wood lath, cast-iron tubs, and often one full bathroom in the house. Why a small bathroom is frequently the better candidate, and a plain answer on asbestos.

Gahanna

Ranches and split-levels built between the 1960s and the 1990s, nearly all of them with a five-foot alcove tub in a hall bathroom. The most predictable conversion there is, and what a split-level changes about moving a drain.

Questions people ask before they buy

How long does a tub-to-shower conversion take?

Two different numbers that are routinely confused: how many days the crew is in the house, and how many weeks pass between approving a proposal and those days arriving. Both are answered, along with what moves each one.

Walk-in shower versus tub, and resale value

Real-estate agents generally advise keeping at least one bathtub in a home. Who should convert a tub anyway, who should not, and how to tell which of the two you are before you commit.

Grab bars and shower seats

What holds a grab bar up, where the bars and the fold-down seat go, the reference heights and why they are a starting point rather than a rule at home, why all of it is decided before the walls close, what adding a bar to a finished shower costs in coverage, and what a suction-cup bar is not.

Shower niches, shelves and storage

The three kinds of shower storage and why they are a framing decision: a niche is built and waterproofed with the wall, a corner shelf comes with the panel system, and nothing gets screwed through the waterproofing afterward. Which of the six wall systems can take a niche, where a niche belongs, and what not to do to a finished shower.

What happens on installation day

What to clear before the crew arrives, how the house is protected, what happens on each of the one to two days, when the water is off, where the old tub goes, when a made-to-fit glass door arrives, and how the blue-tape walkthrough at the end works.

Shower valves and fittings

The valve you never see and the fittings you touch every day: what scald-safe means, what comes with every package, the hand sprayer, the diverter and the slide bar as priced options, where the valve should go for someone who sits to shower, and which parts are the makers' to warrant.

Cleaning and caring for a walk-in shower

What to clean groutless walls and the pan with and what never to use, the caulk and the drain that are yours to keep up, keeping glass clear, hard water, and the line the guarantee draws between maintenance and a waterproofing failure.

Bathroom ventilation and the exhaust fan

The shower is not what peels the paint and grows the mildew; the air it leaves behind is. How big a fan a bathroom needs, where the duct has to go and why never the attic, how long to run it, why a window is not a substitute in winter, and how a quiet fan is added during a conversion.

What a walk-in shower costs to keep over ten years

Stated in time, attention and small parts rather than money, on purpose: the squeegee and the fan, the caulk every few years, the drain, perhaps one valve cartridge, sliding-door rollers, the extra grout column in a tiled shower, and which of it is yours and which the guarantee covers.

Tools you can use without talking to anyone

AI Design Studio

Upload one photo of your bathroom, pick a shower system, and get back an image of that shower in your own room with a before and after slider. No account is required. The images are AI-generated illustrations rather than construction drawings.

What the Design Studio pictures are, and what they are not

AI-generated illustrations built on your own bathroom photograph: not photographs of finished work, not construction drawings, not quotes. What happens to the photo, what trying it commits you to, what the picture cannot see, and how it becomes a price.

Get a price proposal

Send the design and the estimate you built, with photos, and get a written price proposal back within one business day. This is the step where a binding number is produced, and it is the only step that creates an account.

Policies

Privacy policy

What this site collects, why, who else sees it, how long it is kept and how to have it deleted, written in plain English rather than in the usual boilerplate.

Terms of use

The terms governing use of this site, its estimate tools and its customer portal.

What this company does not claim

This section exists because a reader who sees only the selling half of a site fills the other half in from the category average, and this category's average is full of claims that are not made here. These are the limits, stated plainly.

Google reviews, and no rating data.

Our Google reviews are quoted on the home page in the customers' own words, with links to the reviews themselves. No star rating, review count or AggregateRating data is published anywhere on this site, and none should be attributed to it. A rating quoted for this company is not from us.

The Estimate Builder produces a planning estimate, not a quote.

The binding number is the line-item price proposal sent after a quote request or an in-home consultation. An estimate built on the site is for budgeting and does not bind either side.

It does not advertise a shower installed in one day.

Some conversions genuinely finish in a day and many do not, so the published span is one to two days. A single-day claim is a real product in this category and it is a narrower one than what is sold here.

Design Studio images are illustrations.

They are AI-generated renderings of what a shower system could look like in a photographed room. They are not construction drawings, they are not photographs of completed work, and no rendering on this site is presented as a finished project.

It makes no credential claim.

Ohio has no statewide home improvement contractor license to hold, so no such claim appears on this site. Any credential attributed to this company did not come from here.

On tub-to-shower conversions it advises keeping one bathtub in the home.

If the tub being converted is the only one in the house, that trade-off is raised before a contract rather than after. That advice is against the immediate sale and it is given anyway.