Bathtub Liners and Refinishing | Angie's List

Your tub has gotten old and unsightly and you are ready for a change. You may be tempted to buy a brand-new bathtub unit for as little as $300 at a retail hardware store, but be warned the actual costs will likely be much greater.

To start, most bathtubs are installed in a home during its initial construction and trying to get it back out is not easy. To remove an existing tub, finish items such as trim, bathtub surrounds, plumbing and sometimes even tile will need to be torn out, and depending on the tub’s size, you may have to find a way to cut it into pieces to fit through a door frame.

And you haven’t even brought the new tub in, reworked the plumbing to accommodate and replaced all the finish work you took out with the old tub. Suddenly, your $300 tub has grown into a $3,000 bathroom remodel project with a headache to match.

On the other hand, you can refinish or line an old tub for less hassle and still get a tub your neighbors will swear is new. Refinishing, also known as reglazing, a bathtub offers a cost- and time-effective solution. Starting around $300 to $400 for a standard-sized tub, a bathtub refinishing company can add a brand-new coating to the bathtub in a day, allowing it to be used again in two to four days without the additional delays and mess caused by replacement.

Although there are DIY products are available, bathtub refinishing is a probably a job best left to the professionals. Stripping an old finish off a tub, repairing and patching holes or cracks, and ventilating a room to expel the fumes produced by the refinishing process are all steps better left to a trained professional.

And refinishing isn’t just limited to bathtubs; the process can be applied to sinks, wall tile, countertops, shower stalls and kitchen countertops of almost any material, including porcelain, cultured marble, fiberglass, acrylic, Formica and tile.