It is the great bathroom renovation question, and everyone from designers to real estate agents has an opinion. We are going to give you the plumber’s version, which is a little different, because while most advice focuses on lifestyle and looks, we spend our days with the parts of the decision that live under the floor. Water use, drainage, future maintenance and the practical realities of Perth homes all belong in this choice, so here is the full picture from the people who install and repair both.
The water question
Water efficiency matters in Perth more than almost anywhere, and the honest answer is that it depends on behaviour. A standard bath uses a substantial fixed volume every time, while a shower’s usage is simply flow rate multiplied by minutes. With a modern efficient shower head, a reasonably brisk shower comfortably beats a full bath, but a long indulgent shower can drink more water than the bath ever would. If your household showers efficiently, the shower wins the water argument. If it is home to marathon shower enthusiasts, the gap narrows to nothing. Either way, choosing efficient tapware and shower heads moves the numbers more than the bath versus shower decision itself.
The drainage difference nobody mentions
Here is the perspective you will not get from a showroom. Showers are harder on drains than baths. A shower waste receives a steady stream of hair, soap and skin oils concentrated through a small outlet every single day, and shower drains are comfortably the most blocked fixture we attend in Perth bathrooms. Baths drain a larger volume less often through a similar waste, flushing more effectively as they go. Neither should scare you, a mesh strainer and an occasional hot flush keep either healthy, but if you are choosing a shower, choose an accessible, cleanable waste design and thank yourself for years.
Space, access and who lives in the house
In a compact Perth bathroom, a shower recovers floor space a bath consumes, and in an ensuite the shower is almost always the right call. Access runs the other way with age and mobility, stepping over a bath becomes genuinely hazardous for older residents, while a level entry shower is the most accessible bathing option there is, and increasingly what buyers planning to age in place look for. Young families flip it again, because bathing small children in a shower is nobody’s idea of fun, and the bath earns its floor space nightly for a decade. The right answer tracks the household, not the trend.
The resale reality
The property advice we hear consistently from agents, and which matches what our renovation clients report, is that a home should keep at least one bath somewhere for family market appeal. Removing the only bath narrows your future buyer pool, particularly in family suburbs. In a multi bathroom home, the flexible play is a bath in the main bathroom and quality showers elsewhere. In a one bathroom home, a shower over the bath remains the compromise that keeps every option open, and modern screens have made that arrangement far more pleasant than the flapping curtain era.
The plumbing work behind each choice
Whichever way you lean, understand what the change involves beneath the tiles. Swapping a bath for a shower, or the reverse, usually means relocating the waste and modifying floor drainage, and a shower conversion demands meticulous waterproofing and correct falls to the waste, the two details that separate a great bathroom from a future leak claim. Moving fixtures across the room adds pipe runs and cost. In WA, all of this is licensed work, and bathroom waterproofing failures are among the most expensive renovation defects there are, so this is not the trade to economise on. If the existing drainage is old, a camera inspection before the renovation starts is cheap certainty, because discovering a damaged pipe after the new floor is tiled is the worst possible sequence.
Our verdict
If we had to reduce it to a rule, keep a bath in the house if family resale matters, make every shower efficient and accessible, and spend your real attention on the parts that outlast fashion, quality tapware, correct falls, sound waterproofing and drainage you can maintain. Get those right and either choice serves you for decades. And whether your renovation needs new drainage runs, a pre reno camera inspection or just an honest opinion on what the old pipes can support, Drains Plus is happy to help you build it right the first time.
A word on the freestanding bath trend while we are here, because it is the request we see most in current renovations. Freestanding baths look magnificent and drain through the floor, which means their waste position is fixed and unforgiving, and moving one later is a substantial job. If you are committing to a freestanding tub, settle its exact position early, confirm the floor structure can take a full bath’s considerable weight, and have the drainage set out before any other trade touches the room. Beautiful outcomes in bathrooms are mostly the result of unglamorous sequencing.
