Choosing a Freestanding Tub

Cast iron, filled, with a person in it, puts close to a thousand pounds onto four small feet, which is why master bathroom remodeling lakewood ca osmhi checks the joist direction before anyone chooses a shape, and why a Lakewood bathroom on a long span sometimes gets a sistered joist before the tub is ordered.

Weight and What Is Under It

Acrylic units weigh under a hundred pounds empty and spread their load through a base ring. Cast iron and solid surface concentrate everything onto feet the size of a fist. On a ground floor slab none of this matters. On a second floor with a long joist span it matters a great deal, and it is a question for the framing stage.

Clear Floor Around It

Allow at least four inches behind for cleaning, six on the sides, and a genuine standing area where you get in and out with wet feet. A sixty seven inch tub therefore wants a footprint closer to seven feet of wall. A tub crammed against the wall loses the whole reason for choosing a freestanding one.

Shapes Suit Different People

A slipper shape with one raised end supports the back and suits soaking. A double ended oval suits two people and wastes water on one. A flat bottomed shape is easier to stand in and easier for anybody getting in with poor balance. Sit in one in a showroom, with shoes off, before deciding on any of it.

The Waste Is the Detail Nobody Checks

The drain position on a freestanding tub is fixed by the model, and it usually needs a waste that comes vertically through the floor within a small tolerance. Get the rough in dimension from the actual model, not from a category, and set it at the plumbing stage. Moving it later means opening the floor.

Cleaning and Reality

The floor under a freestanding tub has to be reachable with something. A model on feet is easy, a plinth model is not, and a tub set two inches from a wall is a permanent dust trap. This is worth the same weight in the decision as the shape, since it is the part encountered every week.