Bath-to-shower conversion: swapping the tub for a walk-in shower

The simplest conversion uses a shower tray in the footprint of the old bath, with a glass screen or enclosure. A low-profile tray sits only slightly above the floor and is easy to step into. Because it sits on the floor, the waste has to run underneath it to the old bath waste position, and that usually works without lifting the floor.

A level access or wet-room style shower removes the step entirely. The floor itself slopes to a drain, which means building up or lowering the floor, and waterproofing the whole wet area, not just the walls. It is more work and needs more care, but it is the better choice where someone uses a shower seat or may use a wheelchair later.

If this is the only bath in the house, think about who else uses it. Bathing small children in a shower is harder, and some households later regret losing the only bath.

The shower you can have depends on your hot water system. A combi boiler or unvented cylinder gives mains-pressure hot water, which suits a mixer shower if the flow is good enough. A gravity system with a cold water tank in the loft may give weak pressure; the options are then a shower pump, or an electric shower that heats cold mains water itself.

An electric shower usually needs its own new circuit from the consumer unit, which is notifiable work under Part P in England. A pump drawing a high flow from the mains may need to be notified to your water company. Ask the fitter to measure pressure and flow before recommending a shower, and to state the model in the quote.

Whatever the supply, a thermostatic valve that holds a steady temperature when someone else runs a tap is the sensible choice, especially for older people and children.

Grout and tiles are not waterproof. Behind a shower they need a waterproof backer board or a tanking membrane on the walls, with sealed joints and corners, and around a wet room floor the membrane has to run continuously across the floor and up the walls. Silicone on its own is a maintenance seal, not a waterproof layer.

Plasterboard that was fine behind a bath is often not suitable in a shower zone. Ask what the walls will be lined with, how the joint between tray and wall is detailed, and whether the membrane system comes with a manufacturer's warranty that depends on being installed to its instructions.

Moving from a bath to a shower moves the special location too. In England, the zone around a shower tray reaches 0.6 metres from its edge; where there is no tray, as in a wet room, it reaches 1.2 metres from the centre of a wall- or ceiling-mounted shower head, up to a height of 2.25 metres or the shower head if higher. Existing lights, switches or a shaver socket that were outside the zone by the bath may be inside it by the new shower. Any change to circuits in that space is notifiable.

Where the change is needed because of a disability, a Disabled Facilities Grant from the council in England, Wales or Northern Ireland can pay for a level access shower, subject to the council's assessment and approval before work starts. VAT Notice 701/7 allows adapting a bathroom to suit the condition of a disabled person in their home to be zero-rated. For people aged 60 or over, a built-in shower seat or a shower containing one can be charged at the reduced rate of VAT when it is supplied and installed.

Tell us the size of the bath area, what kind of shower you want, how your hot water is supplied if you know, and whether a grant is involved. After you confirm your phone number and email address, bathroom fitters near you see the request without your details. The first fitter to buy it receives it, and it then leaves the list for good. We email you who it is, with address and phone number, before your details are passed on. It costs you nothing, no fitter is obliged to take it, and it is withdrawn after 21 days if unsold. Offrano checks registration as a business, not the quality of work.