Tub to Walk-In Shower Conversion Cost in Orland Park, IL [2026 Real Pricing]

If I had to name the single most requested bathroom project in Orland Park over the past five years, this is it. Not a full gut. Not a double vanity. Just: "Can you get rid of this tub and give me a shower I can walk into?" Sometimes it's a knee. Sometimes it's a parent moving in. Sometimes it's a 1988 almond tub that has been ugly since 1995. Whatever the reason, the question that follows is always the same, so let me answer it the way I would at your kitchen table: with real numbers and the receipts to back them up.

Why nobody can quote a conversion without seeing the bathroom

A tub-to-shower conversion sounds like one job. It's really three or four jobs stacked on top of each other, and the price depends on which ones your bathroom needs. Pulling a tub exposes the drain, the supply lines, the subfloor, and the framing, and in a 35-year-old Orland Park split-level, at least one of those is going to have an opinion. A contractor who quotes you a flat number over the phone is either guessing or planning to add it back later as a change order.

That said, after 30 years of these, the pattern is predictable enough that I can tell you exactly what drives the cost.

The five things that decide your conversion cost

1. Acrylic or tile

This is the biggest fork in the road. An acrylic or solid-surface walk-in is a factory pan plus wall panels. No grout, installs in a few days, comes in fixed sizes, and looks like what it is. A tiled walk-in is built on site: a sloped pan, a waterproofing membrane, tile on every surface, a niche, a bench if you want one, any size or shape. Tile costs roughly $5,000 to $8,000 more than acrylic for the same footprint and is the right answer in a primary bathroom. Acrylic is a perfectly good answer in a hall bath, a basement bath, or a rental.

2. Waterproofing and the drain

The tub you're removing was its own waterproof container. A shower isn't. Every square inch of the floor and the lower walls now has to be sealed against water, and the floor has to slope to a drain. We use Schluter Kerdi on standard showers and Wedi on larger or steam showers, and both add real material cost ($600 to $1,400) and real labor. If you want a linear drain along one wall instead of a center drain, add $800 to $1,800 for the drain and the extra floor work. If you want curbless, the subfloor has to be recessed or the surrounding floor built up so the shower can slope with no lip, which is another $4,000 to $8,000. Curbless is beautiful and it's the gold standard for aging in place, but it's a floor project, not a shower project.

3. Glass

The tub apron used to hide the end of the wet zone. Now glass does. A framed or semi-framed sliding door runs $900 to $1,800 installed. A frameless fixed panel, the clean single sheet you see in every magazine, runs $1,800 to $3,500. A frameless panel plus a swinging door, or a full frameless enclosure on a corner shower, runs $3,000 to $5,500. Glass is measured after tile is finished and takes 10 to 14 days to fabricate, which is the main reason a tiled conversion has a gap between "tile done" and "shower usable."

4. Plumbing changes

If the new shower head goes exactly where the old tub spout was and the drain stays put, plumbing is a valve swap and a drain adapter: $800 to $1,500. But most people want the valve moved out of the spray so they can turn the water on without getting wet, a handheld on a slide bar, sometimes a second head or a rain head, and a drain relocated toward the center or the far wall. Each of those adds $400 to $1,500, and moving the drain in a home on a slab (rare in Orland Park, but they exist) can add $2,000 to $4,000 on its own. Illinois law requires this work to be done by a licensed Illinois plumber, and the Village of Orland Park inspects it.

5. What's behind the wall

This is the one no contractor can price from the doorway. Orland Park's housing stock is mostly 1970s to 1990s, and when the tub comes out we regularly find soft subfloor from 30 years of slow leaks, galvanized supply lines that are half-closed with scale, a cast-iron drain that needs a transition fitting, and no blocking in the walls for grab bars or a glass channel. None of these are disasters. All of them cost money. I'll list the typical numbers in the hidden-costs section below.

"A tub-to-shower conversion is three or four jobs stacked on top of each other. The price depends on which ones your bathroom needs."

Three tiers of tub-to-shower conversion in Orland Park

Here is how the projects actually sort out. Every number is 2026 pricing, installed, in Orland Park and the neighboring south suburbs.

One note on the top tier. A lot of Orland Park primary bathrooms from the late 80s and 90s have the oversized corner jacuzzi on a tiled platform next to a cramped stall shower. The best version of this project removes both, puts a large walk-in shower where the platform was, and drops a freestanding tub in the freed-up space. That's a $22,000 to $38,000 project, and it's the one that makes a 1992 bathroom look like it was finished last month. It's covered in more detail on our bathroom remodeling page.

Where the money actually goes

Here's the budget allocation on a typical mid-tier tiled conversion in Orland Park, about $18,000 all in. This is the same breakdown you'd see on an ADG proposal, with the receipts behind each line.

Labor and tile are more than half the project. That's normal and it's where you should want the money to go, because the waterproofing and the tile work are the two things that decide whether this shower is still dry in 2046. The glass line surprises people. A single sheet of 3/8" tempered frameless glass, measured, cut, and hung, costs as much as the fixtures.

What's specific to Orland Park

The houses. Orland Park grew fast from the mid-1970s through the 1990s, so the typical conversion is in a split-level, a raised ranch, or a two-story colonial with a 5-foot alcove tub in the hall bath and, in the newer homes, a corner jacuzzi in the primary. Those decades mean copper or galvanized supply, cast-iron or early PVC drains, and particleboard or plywood subfloor that has been getting damp at the tub edge for 30 years. Plan for at least one surprise.

The permit. The Village of Orland Park Building Division at Village Hall on Ravinia Avenue issues the permit, not Cook County (the county only covers unincorporated pockets of Orland Township). A conversion that moves the drain or the valve, or adds a circuit for a heated floor or steam generator, needs plumbing and electrical permits. Expect $150 to $400 in fees and 1 to 2 weeks of plan review. Orland Park inspectors look closely at shower waterproofing, GFCI protection, and exhaust fan sizing, so the fan often gets upgraded as part of the job. Our Cook County permit guide covers the village-versus-county question in detail.

The market. Orland Park has a large population of homeowners who bought in the 80s and 90s and intend to stay. Aging in place is the number one reason we get called about a conversion, and it changes the design: curbless or low-threshold entry, real grab-bar blocking, a bench, a handheld, an anti-scald valve, and slip-resistant floor tile. Those features add $2,500 to $6,000 to a standard tiled conversion. Compare that to a walk-in tub, which typically costs $15,000 to $25,000 installed and takes 15 minutes to fill and drain while you sit in it.

The neighbors. Pricing in Tinley Park, Palos Heights, Oak Forest, Oak Lawn, Homer Glen, and Mokena is within a few percent of Orland Park. Oak Lawn's older 1950s and 60s stock runs a little higher on the behind-the-wall items. Naperville and the west suburbs run 10 to 15 percent higher; those numbers are in our Naperville bathroom guide.

The hidden costs, priced

These are the things we find after the tub comes out. I'd rather you know the numbers now than hear them on day two.

• Subfloor rot under the tub: $400 to $1,500 to cut out and replace. Very common where a tub spout dripped for a decade.
• Galvanized supply lines: $800 to $2,500 to replace back to the main with PEX or copper. If the water pressure at the tub was weak, this is why.
• Cast-iron drain transition: $600 to $1,800 to cut in a modern fitting and set the new drain.
• No blocking for grab bars or glass: $200 to $500 to add solid backing while the wall is open. Cheap now, impossible later.
• Undersized or missing exhaust fan: $350 to $900 for a properly sized, vented-to-exterior fan the village will want to see.
• Ungrounded or shared circuit: $300 to $900 for a dedicated GFCI circuit, required for a heated floor and a good idea regardless.

Hold a 10 percent contingency. On most jobs you'll spend part of it. On some you'll spend none.

How long it takes, start to finish

1. Walkthrough and proposal (week 0). I measure the bathroom, look at what's accessible from below (most Orland Park homes have a full basement, which makes drain work easier), and put together an itemized scope.
2. Permit and materials (weeks 1 to 2). Village of Orland Park plan review runs while tile, the valve, and the pan are ordered. Nobody is waiting on anybody.
3. Demo and rough-in (days 1 to 2). Tub out, subfloor checked, new drain and valve set, blocking installed. Rough plumbing inspection.
4. Pan, waterproofing, and tile (days 3 to 7). Pan built and sloped, membrane installed and flood-tested, tile set and grouted.
5. Glass measured (day 8), fabricated (10 to 14 days), installed. The shower is usable with a temporary curtain during the wait if you need it.
6. Final inspection and closeout. Fixtures trimmed out, fan tested, permit closed. You get the closed permit record for your files.

Acrylic conversions skip most of steps 4 and 5 and finish in 3 to 5 days. Custom curbless and steam showers add a week or two of floor work and ceiling sealing.

Red flags when you're comparing quotes

1. "One-day bath" liners. An acrylic shell glued over your existing tub is not a conversion. Water gets between the layers, and you've paid to hide a problem. If the quote is for a walk-in, the tub should be leaving the house.
2. No waterproofing line on the quote. If the proposal doesn't name a membrane system (Schluter Kerdi, Wedi, or an equivalent) and a flood test, the plan is to tile straight onto cement board and hope. That's a 5-to-8-year shower.
3. "No permit needed." Moving a drain or a valve in Orland Park needs one. A contractor who says otherwise either doesn't know or doesn't want an inspector looking at the rough-in.
4. Glass measured before tile. Glass is measured after tile is finished, always. Any quote that promises the glass "goes in the same week" is either using a stock framed door or setting up for gaps.
5. One-line pricing. "Shower conversion: $16,500." No tile line, no glass line, no plumbing line. You can't compare it to anything, which is the point.

Five ways to keep the number down without regretting it

Keep the drain where it is. If the layout allows, leaving the drain in the original tub location saves $800 to $2,000 and a day of work.

Choose a fixed panel instead of a door. A single frameless panel on a 60-inch shower keeps water in on most layouts and costs half of a panel-and-door set.

Use large-format porcelain. Fewer grout lines, faster install, easier to clean, and usually less expensive per square foot than small mosaics. Save the mosaic for the shower floor where you need the grout for grip.

Do the hall bath, keep the primary tub (or the other way around). Keeping one tub in the house protects resale and lets you put the whole budget into one great shower instead of two average ones.

Add the blocking and the dedicated circuit now, even if you don't add the features. $500 today makes grab bars and a heated floor a weekend job later instead of a wall-opening job.

Frequently Asked Questions