Bathroom Remodel: New Tub!

Once the plumbing was finished and tested, I began work on the subfloor. Not too much to say about that - after adding a 2x4 along the length of each floor joist, I put in three sheets of 3/4" tongue-and-groove plywood, glued and screwed. No big issues there (sorry, no pics either!). Next I lengthened the small partition wall (easy first framing experience!) at the head of the tub to accommodate our larger tub. Ours is 4" wider, and 4" taller than the previous one. It really is a nice, big tub.

The mess! unfortunately, this is the only picture I have of the beautiful new subfloor. The plywood has already been covered with 1/2" cement board which was glued (with thinset) and screwed to the plywood. You can see the lengthened partition wall, now covered with drywall.

The reason the tub comes first is because the floor and wall tile are installed overlapping it; there's a 1" lip around the edge of our tub which allows the wall cement board and tile to overlap and ensure no chance of leakage behind the tub.

We had bought the tub at Lowe's along with just about every other big item. Our car won't fit much, and so we tried to get every large item both to maximize the "10% off entire first purchase" coupon, and the truck rental required. It's an acrylic tub, so Heather and I were able to handle it easily.

New tub (with Hardibacker cement board in place too). That raw copper stub has been our source of bathing water for a week or two now. It comes out like a hose and if it's on full pressure, the stream hits halfway up the back of the tub.

The tub slid into place perfectly, much to my surprise. I really thought I'd get away with simply sliding it into place, screwing in the metal brackets, and calling it good. However, it required a combination of three different drains to get the right pieces. With a functional drain, we now had a functional bathtub, and so I opened the box to our shower head and installed the new main valve and handle temporarily. Then, we took much-needed baths! No leaks in the plumbing or drain, BUT, we discovered the drain was slow!! Last thing you want on a brand new tub is a slow drain...

This was devastating news to me! I knew the floor had settled nearly an inch, and some more surveying showed that there was barely enough elevation change for the drain (1/4" drop per foot is required). Then I did some reading about setting a tub in CEMENT and got excited about that. Some tubs require this; ours didn't. This would help make the tub exactly level, add 1" of elevation to the drain, and make the acrylic tub feel and act like a cast-iron tub. Of course, it's a lot of work and I've never worked with cement or mortar before, but at $5 for an 80-lb bag, it was very little additional cost. I also spent $15 during the same trip and purchased a "drain auger" or "plumber's snake" and was relieved to discover that a few passes of that made the tub drain much more quickly.

When it came time to lay tile, I was so glad to have a perfectly level tub! I'm realizing over and over that it's crucial to get things right so that a seemingly small mistake doesn't lead to multiple costly and time-consuming compensatory measures down the road.

Trevor! Almost 5 months...