Conversions · Walk-In Showers · Baths · Cowlitz County
Shower & Tub Longview WA — Conversions, Walk-In Showers and Bathtub Replacement
Almost every enquiry opens the same way. The bath never gets used and the space is wasted — or the shower has started leaking and nobody knows how far it has gone.
A tub to shower conversion Longview WA homeowners ask for is not simply lifting a bath out. The waste moves, the valve must be replaced to meet Washington code, and the waterproofing starts again at the substrate. Built properly it is the best-value change you can make to a bathroom. Built as a cover-up, it reaches the ceiling below inside two winters.
- 9 Shower & Bath Types
- Conversions to walk-in tubs
- Pan Water-Tested
- Before a single tile goes on
- Permits Filed
- City or county, whichever applies
- Licensed & Insured
- Registered in Washington State
Convert It, Replace It, or Keep the Bath?
There are three honest answers, and a company that sells only one of them will find you that one.
Convert, when the bath is dead weight. If nobody has bathed in three years, the tub is a 60-inch shelf you step over every morning. Walk-in shower installation Longview WA in that same footprint usually feels like a bigger room without a wall moving, and it is the shower remodel Longview WA households most often settle on.
Replace like for like, when the layout works. If only the unit has failed, nothing needs redesigning. A straight bathtub replacement Longview WA bathrooms need is quicker, less disruptive, and leaves the drain where it is — as does an acrylic shower system Longview WA households often pick for a second bathroom.
Keep the bath, when it is the only one. Most shower companies will not say this. With one bathroom, small children, or any thought of selling soon, removing the last bathtub narrows your buyer pool for a convenience you may not value that highly. Better said at the quote than discovered at the valuation.
Four questions we ask before quoting
- 1Is this the only bath in the house? It moves the recommendation more than any design preference.
- 2Who uses it, and how steady are they? A high step is a daily obstacle before it is a safety issue.
- 3Is there a room underneath? It decides what a waterproofing failure would cost you.
- 4How old is the mixing valve? Anything pre-dating pressure-balance gets replaced regardless.
Nine Ways a Shower or Bath Gets Put Right
Each is a stand-alone job. A full shower remodel Longview WA homeowners want is welcome, but you do not have to be planning a whole bathroom to ask about one enclosure.
Tub to Shower Conversion
The bath comes out, the waste is relocated to the centre of the new base, the valve is replaced and the wet area waterproofed before tiling. A tub to shower conversion Longview WA bathrooms suit best is one where the tub already sits in an alcove.
Walk-In Showers
A low threshold, a true fall to the drain, a screen rather than a curtain. Walk-in shower installation Longview WA projects live or die on the floor build-up, because the fall is formed in the base rather than apologised for in the tiling.
Shower Replacement
Same position, same drain, new everything. A shower replacement Longview WA household needs is the least disruptive job here — and the one where corners get cut, because old waterproofing is invisible under a new surround.
Bathtub Replacement
Steel, acrylic or cast iron, swapped into the existing opening. A bathtub replacement Longview WA home needs is mostly about what is underneath: the old tub has usually sat on a wet batten for years.
Walk-In Tubs
A door-sealed bath you step into rather than over. Walk-in tub installation Longview WA work is as much electrical as plumbing: a tub with a pump is a hydromassage bathtub, needing its own branch circuit, a readily accessible GFCI and an access panel to the motor. Walk-in tub installation Longview WA quotes that mention no electrician have not priced the whole job.
Curbless Showers
No step at all, the fall formed into the floor itself. Curbless shower installation Longview WA projects need the joists opened or the floor raised, so this is the one item here far cheaper decided early than late.
Glass Doors and Screens
Framed, semi-frameless or frameless, templated after tiling rather than before. A custom glass shower door Longview WA opening needs is cut to the finished reveal, and shower door installation Longview WA work must be safety glazed.
Acrylic Shower Systems
Not every shower should be tiled. An acrylic shower system Longview WA families choose has no grout to fail and suits a rental or second bathroom well. It will not look like stone, and we will not pretend otherwise.
Tub and Shower Combinations
A bath with a proper shower over it and a hinged screen instead of a curtain. Where a bathtub installation Longview WA family needs must serve children and adults, this keeps the bath without surrendering the daily shower.
Will It Fit? The Rule That Decides a Tub to Shower Conversion
Washington does not use the plumbing chapters of the residential code. It adopts the Uniform Plumbing Code with state amendments as WAC chapter 51-56, and the 2021 edition has applied since 15 March 2024. That code puts a number on your shower.
What the code actually requires
- A finished interior of at least 900 square inches.
- Big enough to encompass a 30-inch circle.
- Measured at the top of the threshold, tangent to its centreline.
- Held to 70 inches above the drain, with nothing projecting in but the valves, head, soap dishes, shelves and grab rails.
- Exception: a receptor at least 30 inches wide by 60 inches long.
Read that exception again, because it is the whole answer. A standard American alcove bathtub is 30 inches by 60 inches. The footprint your bath occupies is the footprint the code names in its own exception — which is why walk-in shower installation Longview WA quotes so rarely come back saying it cannot be done.
It also shows where a conversion gets difficult. A corner or garden tub is wide but shallow, so it can fail the 30-inch circle while its area looks generous. A short 54-inch tub drops under 900 square inches once the walls are built out. And a tub beneath a sloping ceiling, soffit or boxed-in soil pipe can fail the 70-inch rule with a perfectly good floor area.
You can check your own in two minutes with a tape, and we would rather you did — it settles most of what a tub to shower conversion Cowlitz County enquiry needs before anyone visits.
Measure these four before you call anyone
- Length and width of the bath opening, wall to wall.
- Ceiling height over the tub, and over its far end.
- Anything boxed in at either end — pipes, a soffit, a window reveal.
- What is directly below: a room, a crawl space, or a slab.
A Shower Gets Inspected Before It Can Be Tiled
This sets the calendar, and cheap quotes leave it out. A tub to shower conversion Longview WA homeowners book is not one inspector visit at the end — it is a sequence of hold points, and the wall stays open until each passes.
1. Groundwork plumbing
A bath waste and a shower drain are not in the same place, so a conversion nearly always means moving the drain — inspected with the floor open. A shower installation Longview WA job that skips this stage is one where nobody intends to open the floor at all.
2. The pan water test
The drain is plugged and the pan filled to the rough threshold — at least two inches deep, with a temporary dam if there is no threshold yet — and held no less than 15 minutes with no sign of leakage. Nothing is tiled until it passes. It is the best single test of whether a shower was built or merely assembled.
3. Tub and Shower Tile
Some jurisdictions name this stage outright. The City of Kalama publishes thirteen required inspections and “Tub and Shower Tile” is one, sitting between Groundwork Plumbing and Plumbing Fixtures. A walk-in shower Kalama WA homeowners are having built is literally held at the tiling stage.
4. Plumbing fixtures
The last stage, everything connected and running. By then the work that mattered is behind tile — the argument for caring who did stages one and two, not who picked the tap.
The valve is not a like-for-like swap
Shower and tub-shower valves must be balanced-pressure, thermostatic or a combination, with a stop limiting the maximum setting to 120°F. An in-line thermostatic valve does not satisfy it, so a shower replacement Longview WA bathroom receives usually means a new valve in the wall even when the old one works.
The glass has to be safety glazed
Glazing facing a bath or shower whose bottom edge sits less than 60 inches above the standing surface is a hazardous location, and must be tempered or laminated. That covers the enclosure, the screen and any window in the wet zone — the window being the one people forget.
Six Jurisdictions, Six Different Answers
Moving a drain and changing a valve is plumbing work, so a tub to shower conversion Cowlitz County homeowners commission is permit work almost everywhere here. What changes is the counter, the portal, and the calendar time it costs.
City of Longview
The trigger is “all new plumbing, replaced or relocated fixtures” — a relocated shower drain is both. The good news: plumbing is a “One Stop” permit type, eligible for online issuance, the fastest paperwork in the county. Counter Monday to Thursday, 7:00am to 6:00pm.
City of Kelso
Kelso’s exempt list includes “finish work — painting, flooring, cabinets, counter tops”, so the tiling half of a shower remodel Kelso WA job can be exempt while the plumbing is not. Pricing a walk-in tub? Kelso issues no electrical permits and runs no electrical inspections — that circuit goes to Washington State L&I.
Unincorporated Cowlitz County
An extra gate nobody expects: since 1 May 2021 the County wants an Environmental Health letter confirming approved water and sewer before it issues the permit. Its counter is in Kelso, Monday to Thursday. This catches Longview Heights and the West Side Highway corridor, where the mailing address says Longview.
Castle Rock
A city of 2.09 square miles inside a ZIP of 136. Inside the limits it is the City on Cloudpermit; a few hundred yards out it is the County on Accela, with the Environmental Health letter attached. Most 98611 addresses are outside the city — detail on the Castle Rock page.
Kalama
The tightest calendar of the six. Inspections run Tuesdays and Thursdays only — and the City’s pages give the notice period as 24 hours in one place and 48 in another, so we book on the longer figure. With a named Tub and Shower Tile hold point mid-job, a Kalama shower is sequenced backwards from those two weekdays.
West Longview
City rules, with two local additions. Inside a mapped floodplain the City requires a floodplain development permit and a notice recorded on the title. And the tap water is hard enough to change what we specify for glass and valves — the story is on the West Longview page.
Exemption wording differs by jurisdiction and the County declines to publish a closed list, so treat these as published triggers rather than a ruling on your address — we confirm yours in writing first. Full detail on each area page: Longview Heights, Kelso, West Side Highway, West Longview, Castle Rock and Kalama.
What We Take Out Depends on When Your Street Was Built
The six areas we cover were built decades apart, and what sits behind the panel follows housing age more reliably than anything else. It changes the first day of the job and how much of the quote is contingency.
Pre-1950 stock — the 1920s city core, and the 36% of Castle Rock housing built before 1950 — hides cast-iron tubs set on mortar, no waterproof membrane anywhere, and a drain that has to be cut out rather than unscrewed. A shower remodel Kelso WA address needs in that era is a bigger first day than the photographs suggest.
The 1960s and 1970s bring steel alcove tubs and original valves with no pressure balance. From the 1980s on — Kalama’s building peak, West Longview’s median build year of 1993 — it is one-piece fibreglass flexing at the base and acrylic surrounds weeping at the flange. Those come out easily, which is why an acrylic shower system Longview WA replacement is often quickest in the houses that had one first time round.
Then there is the water. Since the City switched to Mint Farm groundwater in 2013, Longview’s supply has run roughly 69 to 91 mg/L hardness against about 27 mg/L before — the biggest single influence on how a custom glass shower door Longview WA installation looks after three years.
Housing age across the six areas
- Castle Rock
- 36% pre-1950
- Kelso
- median 1963
- Longview Heights
- mostly 1970–99
- West Side Highway
- mixed, rural
- Kalama
- 1980s peak
- West Longview
- median 1993
Each figure is sourced on that area’s own page. If a pan has already failed rather than simply dated, that is a bathroom repair job and is priced there.
Three Questions That Rule Out Most Bad Showers
A shower hides its own workmanship. Within a week everything that decides whether it lasts is behind tile, so the checking has to happen first.
Check the registration yourself
Washington State L&I publishes a free “Verify a Contractor” lookup showing registration, bond and insurance. Ask for the number and run it.
Ask who water-tests the pan
The sharpest question here. Ask when the pan gets filled, for how long, and whether you may see it holding water. Anyone who intends to do it answers in one sentence.
Ask to see the plumbing certificate
Washington law says nobody may engage in the trade of plumbing without a journey level, specialty, residential service or trainee certificate and photo identification in their possession.
We are licensed, insured and registered in Washington State, we file the permits for our own work, and the scope goes in writing before anything starts. More on who we are, or see our bathroom repair work.
Tell Us the Room, Not Just the Product
Most shower remodel Longview WA quotes price a product. The money is in the room — drain position, what is under the floor, whether the walls are straight enough for a frameless screen. A tub to shower conversion Cowlitz County address needs is quoted after a visit, never from a brochure. The visit is free, and if the honest answer is that your bath should stay, that is what you will be told.
Worth mentioning on the form
- The bath opening measured wall to wall, if you have a tape handy.
- Whether it is your only bathroom, which changes how we stage it.
- What is directly below — a room, a crawl space or a slab.
- Whether anyone using it struggles with the step over the tub.
Tell us about your shower or bath
Fields marked with an asterisk are the ones we cannot do without.
We use what you send here only to answer your enquiry. We do not sell, share or broker your details to any other contractor or lead service.
Shower and Bath Questions We Are Asked Most
Will a walk-in shower fit where my bath is now?
Usually yes. Washington requires a shower compartment of at least 900 square inches that can encompass a 30-inch circle, held to 70 inches above the drain — but it also excepts a receptor at least 30 inches by 60 inches, the exact size of a standard alcove bathtub. So the space your bath occupies is the space the code names. Curbless shower installation Longview WA and conversions get tight with a corner tub, a short 54-inch tub, or a soffit overhead, because the dimension must hold all the way up.
Do I need a permit to replace a shower or a bath?
Almost always, because the plumbing triggers it. Inside the City of Longview the published trigger covers “all new plumbing, replaced or relocated fixtures”, and a relocated shower drain is both — though plumbing there is a “One Stop” type that can be issued online. In unincorporated Cowlitz County you also need an Environmental Health letter confirming water and sewer first, and in Kelso the tiling can be exempt as finish work while the plumbing is not.
How long does a tub to shower conversion take?
The building work is short; the inspections set the calendar. A tub to shower conversion Longview WA bathrooms need is held at two points — the groundwork plumbing with the floor open, and again once the pan is water-tested, before tiling. Kalama inspects only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with a named Tub and Shower Tile hold point, so the sequence is planned backwards from those two weekdays.
Walk-in tub or curbless shower — which is the better choice?
They solve different problems. A walk-in tub lets someone bathe sitting down, but you have to be in it while it fills and drains, and walk-in tub installation Longview WA work needs its own electrical circuit with a GFCI and an access panel to the pump. A curbless shower removes the step entirely, but curbless shower installation Longview WA means opening the floor structure to form the fall, so it is far cheaper decided early. If the difficulty is getting over the rim, the curbless shower usually wins.
Why does my glass shower door look cloudy after a couple of years?
It is the water, not the glass. Since Longview switched to Mint Farm groundwater in 2013 the supply has run roughly 69 to 91 mg/L hardness against about 27 mg/L from the old treated river water, and the minerals etch into the surface over time. Once that has happened it cannot really be cleaned off. A custom glass shower door Longview WA installation is worth specifying with a factory-applied protective coating, and a squeegee does more than any cleaning product.
Can you keep my bath and just replace the shower over it?
Yes, and it is often the sensible answer in a one-bathroom house. The surround and valve are replaced, a hinged screen goes on in place of the curtain, and the bath stays — a cheaper route than a full bathtub replacement Longview WA households sometimes assume they need. The valve is the part people do not expect: it must be balanced-pressure, thermostatic or a combination, limited to 120°F, so an old one goes even if it works. If a pan has already failed and is leaking, that is a shower pan replacement Longview WA repair job instead.
Find Out What Fits Before You Fall in Love With a Picture
One visit, one measured answer, one written itemised scope — no deposit, no obligation. Whether it turns out to be a conversion, the shower replacement Longview WA bathrooms more often need, or leaving a good bath alone, you get the reasoning with the number.