Walk in showers add class and value to homes. They provide great convenience and safety, particularly if your household includes someone who has trouble stepping up and over a tub edge. You need to do some comparative shopping of the different brands, which can take a lot of time and effort. Here is some good news–the comparative shopping has been done for you. Here are the results. The basic Kohler Memoirs walk-in shower, the neo angle design that includes glass doors, has the standard dimensions 72 x 27 and 3/4 inches, runs $700. That does not include the bottom tray, walls and fixtures if you want new ones. Compare to a Dreamline Corner View walk-in shower that will cost you $650 without the bottom tray plus panels for the sides. The total price for the complete shower is actually more than $1,000.
If you buy the individual parts to make up a shower, including bottom trays, doors and side panels it will still cost between $1,000 and $1,500. You have not yet even added in the cost of the new fixtures to fit the new shower.
Next compare these to the Oceana Jetted Shower Cabin. It has all the latest technology and comes as a complete ready-to-use-unit. The cabin sits on a reinforced, fiberglass floor tray that has leveling legs so the unit will not budge. The unit includes six body jets, thermostatic valve control, hand shower, a small place to sit, a mirror and convenient storage for bathing needs. The doors are tempered glass and the back wall is acrylic. The cabin is one unit that you simply hook up and use immediately for a price of $1,900–depending on the retailer and any available sales prices. You don’t have to shop for accessories or pay extra for extra features–it all comes in one easy to install system.
You have seen that it costs between $1,500 and $2,000 for a fiberglass modular walk-in shower unit, that is reinforced and complete, or you can buy the pieces separately to make one for the same price.
Consider next the expense for custom walk-in showers. Doors can range from $200 to $700. Add in the price of the floors and the walls. You must then decide if your shower should be stone, tile or modular panels. You need one or two panels, a shower head, spigots, and other shower fixtures. When you do the math, the bottom line is that a modular unit and a custom unit cost pretty much the same. You are not going to get the cost below $1,000 and unless you can do your own plumbing, the value of a professional plumber to ensure drainage and fixtures work properly and safely, and other accents or tile work you add can take the price even higher.
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