Walk-in tub with a shower: the combination and its compromises

Nearly fifteen thousand searches a month look for a walk-in tub that also functions as a shower. The combination exists, and it works, with three specific compromises that are worth knowing before rather than after.

1. You shower sitting down, or standing in a tub

A walk-in tub is deep and its floor is the bottom of a tub, not a shower floor, and the door dictates the sequence of using it. Showering in one means either sitting on the moulded seat with a handheld unit, which works well, or standing inside a deep tub, which is the manoeuvre the tub was bought to avoid.

If the person using the bathroom prefers to shower standing, this is the wrong fixture and a curbless shower is the right one.

2. Containing the water is harder than it looks

A shower needs a surround and a door or curtain that keeps water inside. On a walk-in tub the top of the wall is high and the door hardware sits in the middle of it, which makes a conventional glass enclosure awkward. Most installations use a curtain on a rod, and that is a functional answer rather than an elegant one.

Where the surround meets the tub deck is also the place these installations leak years later. It is worth asking how that joint is made.

3. The valve has to do two things

Filling a tub and running a shower want different flows, and a combination unit needs a diverter and, in most jurisdictions, anti-scald protection appropriate to both. This is plumbing rather than a fixture choice, and it is the part that gets skipped by an installer who treats the unit as a drop-in replacement.

The alternative worth considering

A curbless shower with a fold-down seat does most of what a combination unit does, in the same footprint, with no door to wait behind and no depth to climb into. What it does not do is let you soak. If soaking is genuinely wanted, the combination unit earns its place. If it is not, it is a compromise bought for nothing.

The two are compared line by line on tub versus shower, and what the conversion involves structurally is on shower conversion. What taking the tub out looks like on site is in the tub to shower conversion article.

Questions that separate a good quote from a bad one

• Will the shower be used sitting or standing, and does the fixture suit that?
• How is the surround joined to the tub deck, and in what material?
• What diverter and anti-scald protection are specified?
• What is the fill rate and the drain rate of this specific unit?
• Is the existing water heater adequate for the volume?