Ripping out the bath for a walk-in shower is one of the most common bathroom renovation decisions we help clients with — and one of the easiest to get wrong if you’re only thinking about your own daily routine. Before you commit, it’s worth knowing what each option actually needs in terms of space, and what removing a bath altogether could mean if you sell up in a few years. Here’s what the numbers say.
Space Requirements: Bath vs Walk-In Shower
A standard UK bath measures 1700mm long, which is why most “bath to shower” conversions use a 1700mm x 700mm shower tray — it drops straight into the existing footprint without any structural work to the floor or waste pipe run. This is the most common size we fit when a client wants a walk-in shower without moving plumbing.
Walk-in showers can go much smaller than that if space is genuinely tight. A minimum comfortable footprint is around 900mm x 900mm, though anything below 1200mm x 800mm starts to feel cramped in daily use — you’ll be wiping water off the floor outside the enclosure more often than you’d like. For a family bathroom where more than one person uses the space, 1200mm x 900mm or 1400mm x 800/900mm gives noticeably more elbow room.
There’s no legal minimum bathroom size in UK building regulations, but RIBA guidance and Building Regulations Part M and Part G are generally used as the benchmark: around 1.8m² for a functional WC and roughly 3.5m² for a full bathroom with a bath, shower, WC and basin. A typical UK main bathroom comes in around 2.4m x 1.8m (4.3m²) — tight enough that swapping a bath for a larger walk-in shower is often the only way to make the room feel less cramped, not more.
Does Removing the Bath Affect Resale Value?
This is the part most people don’t think about until they’re already partway through the renovation. According to the 2026 Great British Bath Report — a survey of 250 UK estate agents and property valuers alongside 2,000 consumers, commissioned by bathroom retailer Drench — nearly half of estate agents expect a home with no bath at all to lose 3-4% of its value. On the current average UK house price, that works out at roughly £11,000.
The same research found that 45% of UK buyers consider the absence of a bath a dealbreaker rather than something they’d simply negotiate around, and separate reporting on the same study found that 29% of property professionals said a bath-free home could put off between a fifth and two-fifths of prospective buyers. On the flip side, 83% of property professionals agreed that adding a bathroom recoups its cost, and around a quarter believe it can add more value than it cost to install.
None of this means you shouldn’t remove a bath — plenty of homes only have room for one bathroom, and a well-planned walk-in shower can make a small space genuinely more usable day to day. But if you have more than one bathroom in the property, our advice is almost always the same: keep at least one bath somewhere in the house, even if every other bathroom goes shower-only.
When a Walk-In Shower Makes Sense
A walk-in shower is usually the right call in an en-suite, a small second bathroom, or any household where nobody regularly baths — young professionals, older children, or homes without babies or toddlers in the picture. It’s also the more practical option for accessibility, since a level-access shower removes the step-over that a bath enclosure requires.
If it’s your only bathroom, or the household includes young children, it’s worth thinking twice. Bathing a toddler in a walk-in shower is far harder than in a bath, and — as the resale figures above show — a house with no bath at all narrows your pool of buyers when you come to sell.
FAQs
Can I fit a walk-in shower and keep the bath in the same room?
Yes, if the bathroom is large enough — generally from around 4.5m² upwards, depending on layout. It’s more common in larger family bathrooms than en-suites, and it’s worth having a designer look at the specific room before assuming it will or won’t fit.
Do I need to move the drainage to fit a walk-in shower?
Not if you’re replacing a bath with a shower tray of a similar footprint (1700mm x 700mm is the most common like-for-like swap). Moving the drain further away, or converting to a fully tiled wet room, involves more groundwork and cost.
Will a walk-in shower make a small bathroom feel bigger?
Often, yes — removing the visual bulk of a bath enclosure and using a glass screen instead tends to make a small room feel more open, even when the floor area hasn’t changed.
Should I always keep at least one bath in the house?
If you have more than one bathroom, it’s generally worth keeping a bath in at least one of them. Estate agent research suggests a bath-free home can lose value and put off a meaningful share of buyers, even if a walk-in shower suits your own day-to-day needs better.
Not sure whether your bathroom has the space for a walk-in shower, or whether it’s worth keeping the bath? Come and talk it through with our design team — we’ll measure the room and show you what’s actually possible before you decide. Book a free consultation here.