We have a rental property that the apron tub has rusted right by the drain. We had to remove a very nice cultured marble surround due to mold in the sheet rock. Problem is the tubs we’re finding are 14 1/4 inch high rather than 15 inches like the current tub. We want to reinstall the surround but it will cause the fixture holes to be off with a shorter tub. Has anyone dealt with this? Has anyone had good or bad experiences with refinishing a tub?
I have had to have a tub refinished a couple of times as a property manager. I have not personally done it, I hired it out. It was done very well both times. I have not had to deal with the holes being off, just with the refinishing part.
I think that if you the hire out the refinishing part, then the professionals that you hire should be able to either get or tell you where to get a surround that fits.
Refinishing is so much easier than removing and replacing. Depending on what you have and what you replace with, tubs can be super heavy. (When we remodeled, two strapping men struggled with ours, in order to lay new pipes.) Refinishing was inexpensive and done in 2 days. I think we paid about $250, at the time. To keep a nice marble surround, refinishing makes more sense to me. No searching, no line-up issues, no need for a new surround.
Another option is a complete overlay, a two piece (fiberglass?) unit that both fits over the existing tub and runs up the walls to make the surround. But you may find this is expensive if they don’t stock your tub size or shape. My neighbor did this and it’s decent.
We have refinished antique tubs on site. The first time we used a less toxic process but it started peeling off after less than 2 years. So we refinished again with the usual process. Make sure you can leave the windows open for a day or two afterwards!
I had an antique claw foot tub refinished in place. It was a very low use tub, but still looked great 20 years later.