Projects › Upper West Side › 201 West 74th Street
Completed project · Upper West Side, New York, NY
A bathtub replaced by a walk-in shower, scoped on 13 March 2020 and started on 6 July, with the intervening months spent on the paperwork that let anyone back on site at all. The schedule was published week by week and deliberately stretched, because only so many people were allowed in the apartment at once.
Job record
- Location
- Upper West Side, New York, NY 10023
- Building
- 201 West 74th Street
- Scope
- Bathroom renovation, tub to shower, plus flooring, molding and closet doors
- Duration
- 8 to 10 weeks, scheduled as 11
- Started
- 6 July 2020
- Completed
- 2020
Turning a bathtub into a shower
A tub-to-shower conversion sounds like a swap and is not. The tub, its drain, all the wall and floor tile, the vanity and sink, the medicine cabinet, the toilet, the vanity light, the accessories and the room door all came out. What went back was built for a different fixture.
The drain is the part people underestimate. A tub fills and empties; a shower runs continuously into a much smaller footprint, so a new two-inch drain line was installed to accommodate the swap, along with a new shower drain at the existing rough-in location. A new lead pan and a shower threshold went in beneath it. Everything else stayed on the rough-ins it already had: the sink, the faucet and the toilet all went back where they were.
The plumbing went back to the risers
This is the item that separates a bathroom renovation from a bathroom refit. New hot and cold lines were run to the risers and new waste and vent lines were run to the risers, which is what a branch replacement means: not new pipe from the wall to the fixture, but new pipe from the fixture back to the building’s own stacks.
Two sets of shut-off valves went in, a master pair and a local pair, along with a new cold water line for the toilet’s local shut-off, and water hammer arrestors on both hot and cold. The proposal was inclusive of the LAA plumbing permit, so the filing was priced into the job rather than appearing later as an extra.
Waterproofing was specified as full height in the shower and eight inches up the walls elsewhere, in RedGard or similar, over the floor. Tile then runs full height through the shower and half height outside it, which is the same division: the wet zone is treated differently from the rest of the room, and the tile line is set where the waterproofing line is.
Eleven weeks, published in advance
The work schedule in this job file is a single page and it is the most useful document in it. It was written before the job started, given to the building, and it reads:
Week 1
Demolition.
Weeks 2 and 3
Rough plumbing and floor preparation.
Weeks 4 and 5
Floor and baseboard installation.
Week 6
Bathroom waterproofing and closing up the walls.
Week 7
Bathroom tile work.
Week 8
Bathroom cabinetry and finish installations.
Week 9
Closet door installation.
Week 10
Painting.
Week 11
Touch-ups.
The scope quoted eight to ten weeks. The schedule runs to eleven, and it says why in a note at the bottom: the timeline was extended because of COVID-19 precautions and limiting the number of workers on site per day. A job that would normally overlap trades could not, because fewer people could be in the apartment at one time, so the trades were run in sequence instead.
Notice where the waterproofing sits. Week 6, after the rough plumbing in weeks 2 and 3, and before the tile in week 7. That ordering is not a scheduling convenience; it is the only order that lets anyone inspect the waterproofing while it can still be seen.
Starting a renovation in the middle of 2020
The scope of work is dated 13 March 2020. New York City construction was substantially halted within weeks of it, and the job did not begin until 6 July, once residential construction had been permitted to restart. The intervening file is almost entirely paperwork: a safety plan under the state’s reopening framework, the City buildings department’s phase one restart checklist, a contractor indemnification agreement and COVID-19 waiver, an alteration rider covering the same ground, and a summary of return-to-work protocols issued to every contractor on the job.
The neighbour notification went out on the start date and is a model of the form. It names the apartment, says the work will last approximately eight to ten weeks, gives the hours as Monday to Friday between 9:00 am and 3:30 pm, states that noisy work will not begin before 9:00 am, confirms no work on Saturdays, Sundays or holidays, and gives a phone number for questions or complaints. One page, sent before the first hammer, and worth insisting on whoever is doing your work.
Materials and finishes
Shower
| Element | Specification |
|---|---|
| Conversion | Bathtub, tub drain and tub spout removed; walk-in shower built in the same alcove |
| Drain | New 2 in drain line to suit the change of fixture, on the existing rough-in |
| Pan | New lead pan and shower threshold |
| Shower body | New, with fixed head and handshower |
| Waterproofing | RedGard or similar, full height in the shower and 8 in up the walls elsewhere |
| Wall tile | Full height throughout the shower, half height outside it |
| Enclosure | Glass, with a recessed niche and shelf |
Plumbing
| Element | Specification |
|---|---|
| Branch replacement | New hot and cold lines and new waste and vent lines run to the risers |
| Shut-off valves | Two pairs, master and local |
| Toilet supply | New cold water line for the local toilet shut-off |
| Water hammer arrestors | Installed on hot and cold |
| Fixtures | Sink, faucet and toilet installed on the existing rough-ins |
| Permit | LAA plumbing permit included in the proposal |
Fittings and finishes
| Element | Specification |
|---|---|
| Vanity | New, built to cover the rough piping |
| Medicine cabinet | New, larger than the one it replaced |
| Vanity light | Relocated and centred over the larger cabinet |
| Outlets | GFCI outlet relocated to the plan; remaining outlets and switches replaced in position |
| Floor tile | New, grouted and sealed where required |
| Door | New entry door and handle in the existing frame |
| Accessories | Towel bars, robe hooks and toilet paper holder |
Elsewhere in the apartment
| Element | Specification |
|---|---|
| Wood flooring | Existing flooring removed throughout and replaced with engineered flooring, glued down |
| Acoustic layer | New 3 mm soundproof layer over the existing subfloor, beneath the new flooring |
| Subfloor | Patched and levelled where required |
| Base molding | New throughout, with cable runs concealed behind it |
| Closets | New bi-fold doors in both existing bi-fold frames |
| Painting | Preparation only: sanding, crack taping, plastering; no skim coating |
Sequence and hours are taken from the work schedule and neighbour notification held in the job file. Materials and dimensions are from the scope of work dated 13 March 2020.
The result
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Questions this project answers
What does it take to replace a bathtub with a walk-in shower?
More than swapping the fixture. On this job the tub, its drain, the wall and floor tile, the vanity, the medicine cabinet, the toilet, the light and the door all came out. A new two-inch drain line was installed specifically to accommodate the change, because a shower runs continuously into a small footprint where a tub fills and empties, and a new lead pan and threshold were built beneath it. The sink, faucet and toilet went back on their existing rough-ins, so the cost concentrated in the alcove rather than spreading across the room. If a contractor quotes a tub-to-shower conversion without mentioning the drain, ask about it.
How long does a bathroom renovation take, week by week?
This one was scheduled at eleven weeks and published in advance: demolition in week one; rough plumbing and floor preparation in weeks two and three; floor and baseboard in weeks four and five; waterproofing and closing up the walls in week six; tile in week seven; cabinetry and finishes in week eight; closet doors in week nine; painting in week ten; touch-ups in week eleven. The scope quoted eight to ten weeks, and the extra time was declared up front because fewer workers were permitted on site per day, so trades ran in sequence rather than overlapping. Ask for a schedule at this level of detail before you sign, because it is the document that tells you whether the sequence makes sense.
What is a branch replacement, and does my bathroom need one?
It means replacing the pipe from your fixtures all the way back to the building’s risers, rather than just the visible run from the wall. Here new hot and cold lines and new waste and vent lines were taken to the risers, with two pairs of shut-off valves, master and local, a new cold line to the toilet’s shut-off, and water hammer arrestors on both hot and cold. Many buildings require this on any bathroom alteration, and many older apartments need it regardless, because the branch is usually older than anything you can see. It is also the part most likely to be missing from a low quote.
Should bathroom tile run to the ceiling or stop partway up?
Split it where the water is, which is what this bathroom did. Waterproofing went on full height inside the shower and eight inches up the walls elsewhere, and the tile follows exactly the same line: full height through the shower, half height outside it. Setting the tile line to match the waterproofing line means the protected zone and the tiled zone are the same zone, which is easier to inspect and cheaper than tiling everything to the ceiling for appearance alone.
What should a neighbour notification say before renovation work starts?
The one sent here is a single page and covers everything it should: the apartment, the start date, the expected duration of eight to ten weeks, the working hours of Monday to Friday between 9:00 am and 3:30 pm, a statement that noisy work will not begin before 9:00 am, confirmation that no work will be done on Saturdays, Sundays or holidays, and a telephone number for questions or concerns. Sending one is not always required, and sending one anyway is the cheapest goodwill available in a building where you are about to run a jackhammer for a week.
