Remodeling contractor · Plano
Bathroom remodeling in Plano
Most Plano bathrooms are the right age to look dated and the wrong age to trust the pipes behind them. If your house went up between 1978 and 1995 there is a real chance the supply lines are polybutylene, and opening a wall is the cheapest opportunity you will ever get to deal with it.
- Polybutylene supply pipe was manufactured from 1978 until mid-1995
- Texas carriers commonly exclude, surcharge or decline policies over it
- Slab on grade, so moving a drain means cutting concrete
The right age to look dated, the wrong age to trust
Plano grew from a small town into a large suburb in roughly twenty years, and that concentration is unusual. It means the housing stock is remarkably consistent in age, and it means a single manufacturing window covers a large share of it. The bathrooms look like their decade, which is a matter of taste. What is behind them is a matter of insurance.
Built 1978 to 1995
Polybutylene supply pipe was manufactured from 1978 until the middle of 1995 and went into millions of American homes, with Sun Belt builders adopting it faster and more completely than the rest of the country. It is usually grey, sometimes blue or black, and it fails from the inside as it reacts with treated water and grows brittle, often at the fittings and often without warning.
The practical consequence is not just a leak. Texas insurers commonly exclude polybutylene-related claims, charge more, or decline to write the policy at all, and while a sudden failure is generally covered for the resulting water damage, the re-pipe itself is usually treated as maintenance and is not. A whole-house re-pipe runs roughly $4,000 to $10,000 as a standalone job. Done while a bathroom is already open, the marginal cost is a fraction of that. We check what you have on the first visit and put it in the proposal either way.
Built after 1995
West Plano's later phases and anything built after the mid-nineties use copper or PEX, and the supply question simply does not arise. Those bathrooms are younger, drier and more predictable, and the conversation is about layout and finish rather than about what is behind the wall.
What does not change is the slab. Plano is slab on grade throughout, so relocating a toilet or a shower drain means saw-cutting concrete, re-plumbing and re-pouring in every part of the city. The cheapest good bathroom here keeps the fixtures roughly where they are.
Nothing here is old. A good deal of it is exactly the wrong age.
Built from the late seventies through the nineties
What the build era costs you
Three things separate a Plano bathroom from the metro band, and the first one is specific to this city's build era.
Whether the supply lines are polybutylene
If the house dates from 1978 to 1995, we look. Finding it is not bad news while a wall is already open, because that is the cheapest this work will ever be, and it resolves a problem that affects insurability rather than just plumbing. It is a named line in your proposal, not a change order later.
How far the fixtures move
Everything in Plano is slab on grade. Moving a toilet or a shower drain means saw-cutting the floor, re-plumbing and re-pouring, and there is no cheaper version of that here. Keeping the layout and spending the budget on what you can see is genuinely the better value in this city.
What is behind a garden tub deck
The large corner or platform tub is close to universal in this era, and it is the single most common thing people remove. The deck usually hides more framing than expected, occasionally a structural element, and always the question of what the floor looks like underneath. We open a small area to look before quoting where we can.
Real numbers, published
What a bathroom costs in Plano.
The same published bands as the rest of the metro. What changes in Plano is what is behind the wall, and whether the house falls inside the polybutylene window is the single biggest swing in either direction.
The refresh
$12,000–$20,000
Everything stays where it is. New vanity, toilet, mirror, lighting, hardware and floor tile, with the existing tub or shower kept and re-grouted or re-glazed rather than rebuilt.
What moves the number: Tile choice and whether the existing shower pan is sound. If the pan or the surround has failed, this tier is not honestly available, and we will say so on the first visit, not after demolition.
The full remodel
$18,000–$34,000
Where most projects land
Down to the studs inside the existing footprint. New shower built from the substrate up with a bonded waterproofing membrane, hand-set tile, new cabinetry, new fixtures, and plumbing and electrical brought to current code.
What moves the number: Tile size and pattern, since large-format and herringbone both add days of labor. Then glass, whether the shower becomes curbless, and how far the drain has to travel if the layout changes at all.
Walls move
$34,000–$60,000+
The room changes shape. Taking space from a closet or an adjacent room, relocating the toilet or the shower, a wet room or a fully curbless entry, structural work, a full permit set and inspections.
What moves the number: Structural scope and drain relocation. Moving a toilet more than a few feet on a slab means cutting and re-pouring concrete, the single largest step change in bathroom pricing here.
Bands assume a DFW bathroom of roughly 35 to 90 square feet, plumbing walls staying put unless noted, and no concealed damage, the one thing no honest contractor can price before demolition. We carry it as an itemised allowance rather than padding the headline number, and unused allowance comes back to you.
Permits in Plano, and where heritage rules actually apply
For the overwhelming majority of Plano houses there is no historic review of any kind. The city has two locally designated heritage districts, Haggard Park and downtown, plus a set of individually designated heritage landmarks. Unless your address is one of those, remodeling here is an ordinary permitted job and the calendar is a permit calendar rather than a commission calendar.
That is worth saying plainly because it is the opposite of Fort Worth and Dallas, where the district question shapes the schedule. In Plano it usually does not, and anyone telling you otherwise about a 1985 house is adding a step that does not exist.
Permits themselves are ordinary and required for the real work. Altering plumbing, electrical or framing needs one. Replacing cabinetry, countertops and finishes inside the existing footprint generally does not. We pull whatever the work requires and the inspection dates go in your written schedule.
One Plano-specific note on re-piping. Replacing supply lines through a finished house is permitted work with inspections, and it is far cheaper to do while walls are already open for another reason than as its own project later. That sequencing decision is worth more than most finish choices.
Bathroom remodeling in Plano, answered
How do I know if my Plano house has polybutylene pipe?
Should I re-pipe the whole house during a bathroom remodel?
Do I need historic approval to remodel in Plano?
The parts that are the same everywhere
How a tiled shower is actually built, why grout is not waterproofing, what separates a renovation from an acrylic refit, and the full question and answer on cost across the metro all live on our bathroom remodeling page. This page covers only what is different about doing the work in Plano.
The permit rules, the review calendar and everything else that is true of the place regardless of which room you are doing are on the Plano page.
Also remodeling in Plano: kitchen remodeling in Plano, whole-home remodeling in Plano.
Get your fixed price.
Two quick steps. We already know it is a bathroom, and the last step is the only place we ask for your number.
Step 1 of 2
Project: Bathroom
The fear is not the price. It is being left mid-build.
These four commitments are in the contract rather than on a badge.
A fixed written price
The number we sign is the number you pay. It moves only through a written change order you approve before any work starts.
A named project manager with a cell number
One person owns your project from demolition to final walkthrough. You get their mobile number on day one, and they answer it.
A written update every Friday
Photos, what happened this week, what happens next, and whether we are on schedule, in your inbox before the weekend either way.
Broom-clean every evening
Floor protection down every morning, tools packed out and floors swept every night. You are living here while we work, and we work like it.