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Vent: watched a plumber in Cleveland tear out a perfectly good tub surround and now I can't decide what to tell my customers
So I was on a job in Cleveland back in March, doing a tear off on the roof, and the homeowner had a plumber in at the same time working on a bathroom upstairs. I poked my head in during lunch and this guy was ripping out a fiberglass tub surround that looked maybe 6 or 7 years old. Not cracked, not moldy, just dated. Homeowner wanted tile. Plumber told me he does this 3 or 4 times a week now, people yanking stuff that's still perfectly fine. That got me thinking about my own bathroom jobs. Half the folks I talk to want to save the tub and just refresh around it, the other half want the whole thing gutted down to studs. The gut job costs $9k more on average and takes 3 extra weeks. But the patch job sometimes looks worse when it's done, you get that frankenstein look with new tile next to old stuff. I keep going back and forth on which advice to give people. Do you push the full gut because it's the better long term move, or do you respect the budget and patch what you can?
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stellat4625d ago
Three or four times a week? That is insane. I get ripping out a surround that is cracked or growing something behind it, but a 6 year old one that is still solid just because it looks a little dated? That is throwing away money for no reason, and the funny part is the new tile job might not even last as long as the thing they tore out. Fiberglass holds up fine if it was put in right, so yanking it for looks alone is wild to me.
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