Longview, WA

Quotes for a bathroom remodel in Longview, WA from contractors who look underneath first

A great many houses in this town were built with exactly one bathroom, and a good few still have it. That single fact shapes almost every bathroom project here: how the work is phased, whether it is worth adding a second, and what the crew finds when the floor finally comes up. One request puts you in front of a few registered contractors who will crawl under the house before they quote.

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What should a Longview bathroom remodel cost?

Leave every fixture where it stands and a full refit of a hall bathroom typically sits in the low-to-mid teens of thousands. Strip it out, tile a proper shower and shift the layout and you are into the twenties and thirties. Rot found at the toilet flange adds more, and Washington taxes the labour too.

When it is the only bathroom in the house

Say so in the first conversation, because it changes the entire plan of attack rather than being a detail to mention later. A contractor who has done this on these streets will sequence the work so the toilet goes back into service most evenings, will order every fixture and the tile before touching anything, and will not open the floor on a Friday. Some households take a portable toilet in the garage for the tiled weeks and consider it money well spent. What you want to avoid is a crew that starts, discovers a supply line problem, and leaves you with a hole in the floor while a part is ordered.

What is actually under a bathroom floor here

The usual finds, in rough order of frequency, are a sub-floor gone spongy in a ring around the toilet, a joist end that has spent years absorbing seepage from a failed shower pan, galvanised supply pipe narrowed to a fraction of its bore, and cast-iron waste that looks fine until it is disturbed. None of these are anybody's fault and all of them change the number. This is precisely why a bid written after somebody has been under the house with a torch is worth more than a bid written standing in the doorway, and why holding back a contingency of ten to fifteen per cent turns a shock into a routine change order.

The waterproofing is the job; the tile is decoration

What keeps a tiled shower serviceable for twenty years is invisible once it is finished: a correctly sloped bed or a properly bonded pre-formed pan, a continuous membrane carried up the walls, the corners and the pipe penetrations sealed as a system rather than improvised, and the drain assembly matched to the method. The cheap version of this job glues a liner over an old surround, looks acceptable for two summers, and then conceals the leak instead of ending it. Ask which waterproofing system is being used, by name, and have it written into the bid. A contractor who has an answer ready is telling you how they work.

Moving damp air out of a river-valley house

Between the rain and the river this is not a dry place, and a bathroom is the room that concentrates that. An undersized fan, or one that dumps into the loft space rather than through the roof or the wall, is why paint lifts at the ceiling line and dark spots appear in the corners within a couple of years of a remodel. Size the fan to the room, run insulated duct all the way outside, and put it on a humidity sensor or a run-on timer so it works when nobody remembers to switch it on. It is a small figure on the bid and it decides whether the room still looks new later.

Adding a second bathroom to a one-bathroom house

This is the highest-value change available to a lot of houses in Longview, and it is more often possible than owners assume. The candidates are a large landing, an oversized cupboard beside an existing wet wall, a corner of an attached utility room, or a section of a back porch already under roof. What decides feasibility is not floor area but drainage: how far the new waste run has to travel to reach the existing stack, whether it can fall correctly through the crawlspace, and how it will be vented. Get someone under the house to answer that before you spend money on a layout, because a scheme that cannot drain is not a scheme.

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Good to know locally

Damp ground under the low-lying streets

Properties on the flatter ground toward the Columbia and the Cowlitz sit over crawlspaces that run wetter than most of the region, and some fall within mapped flood hazard areas. That matters for a bathroom because the space beneath is where the new drainage, the venting and any insulation have to live. Standing water, missing vapour barrier or rusted ductwork under there is part of the job whether or not the bid mentions it, so ask what the contractor saw when they went down.

When a bathroom needs a permit, and from whom

Swap a vanity and retile in place and generally no permit is involved. Move a drain, open a wall, add a circuit or create a new bathroom entirely and one is required, from the City of Longview inside the boundary or from Cowlitz County outside it, with the electrical side filed separately through Washington L&I. Fault protection at the sockets and a properly ducted fan are ordinary inspection items, and both are things older bathrooms in this town commonly lack.

Registration first, releases last

Washington requires contractor registration with L&I, held with a bond and liability insurance, for construction work done for payment, and there is no informal exemption that covers a bathroom. The lookup is free and takes about a minute. At the other end of the job, remember that a tile supplier or a plumbing sub who has gone unpaid may lien your house even though you paid your contractor, so collect signed releases as instalments go out and keep the final payment until the set is complete.

How long the room is out, and what usually blows the budget

Job	Realistically out of use	What overruns it
Fixtures and finishes, nothing moved	Around two weeks	A soft sub-floor nobody could see until demolition
Tub taken out, walk-in shower fitted	Three to four weeks	Relocating the drain through old floor framing
Full strip with layout changes	Four to six weeks	Galvanised supply and cast-iron waste that must go
Second bathroom added in existing space	Five to eight weeks	Drain runs, venting and the crawlspace access
Step-free conversion for staying put	Three to five weeks	Lowering the floor to lose the curb
Primary suite built to a design	Six weeks and upwards	Long lead times on tile, glass and stone

What bathrooms cost around Longview

Refitting a hall bathroom in place, with a new vanity, toilet, flooring, lighting and a factory shower unit, most often comes out somewhere between $10,000 and $19,000. Take the room back to studs, tile a shower properly and shift a fixture or two and $21,000 to $40,000 is the usual territory. A primary bathroom built to a design, with custom tile, a freestanding tub and warmed floors, passes $50,000 without difficulty. Creating a second bathroom where none existed generally starts higher than a refit of similar size, because the drainage and venting are new work. Sub-floor or joist repair uncovered at demolition typically adds a four-figure sum, and Washington sales tax is charged on the labour as well as the materials, so confirm whether the total you have been quoted already carries it.

Areas we serve

Old West SideSt. HelensHighlandsOlympicMint ValleyDowntown Longview…and more

Frequently asked questions

Can a second bathroom go into my house?

More often than owners expect, and the limiting factor is drainage rather than space. A waste run needs somewhere to fall to and a way to be vented, so the answer comes from the crawlspace rather than from a floor plan. Ask a contractor to look underneath and price the drainage before you commission any drawings.

Is a tiled shower worth it over a factory unit?

Tile looks better and lasts for decades provided the membrane behind it was done properly. A good acrylic or solid-surface unit is quicker, cheaper and genuinely easier to keep clean, and there is no shame in it. The choice matters far less than the standard of the installation and the state of what it is being fitted onto.

What about the old galvanised or cast-iron pipework?

If the walls and floor are open anyway, replacing what you can reach is usually the cheapest it will ever be. Narrowed galvanised supply is why the shower drops when someone runs a tap, and disturbed cast-iron waste occasionally fails outright. Ask for it to be priced as a named option rather than discovered halfway through.

Do I need a permit for a tub-to-shower conversion?

Normally yes, because the drain moves and the plumbing changes, and the inspection that follows is on your side. Unpermitted bathroom work has a habit of being spotted during a sale, at which point it costs considerably more to resolve than the permit would have.

How do I tell a thorough bid from a cheap one?

Read the scope, not the total. A sound bid names the waterproofing system, states the tile allowance, says who supplies the fixtures, includes the permit and describes in writing what happens if rot is found. Cheap bids are usually cheap because those lines are absent, and the money reappears later as change orders.

Does the price include Washington sales tax?

Ask each bidder directly, because it is frequently the entire difference between two quotes that otherwise read alike. Washington applies retail sales tax to construction labour as well as goods, unlike Oregon, and on a bathroom that is a noticeable sum. Get the answer written on the document.

Am I charged anything for using this?

No, not at any stage. Setting out the project is free, the quotes that come back are free, and hiring one of the contractors costs you nothing extra either. The only bill you will see is the one from the builder you choose, and you are welcome to compare quotes and decide against the whole thing.

How many contractors should I expect to hear from?

Two to four, picked because they do bathrooms of this size in your part of Cowlitz County. Only those few are given your name and number, and your request is never passed on, sold, or circulated more widely than that.

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