Black Hawk Walk-In Showers
A walk-in shower is the fixture you use every single day, and whether it still looks right in twenty five years gets decided before a single tile goes on the wall. Black Hills Premier Interiors has been the walk-in shower experts of the Black Hills for half a century, and Black Hawk sits a short run up the interstate from our shop. Curbless and low-curb entries, bonded waterproofing, linear drains, slip-resistant floors, laid out around the bathroom you actually have.
WALK-IN SHOWERS IN BLACK HAWK
What Black Hawk Homeowners Ask a Walk-In Shower to Do
Black Hawk is a commuter town in the best sense of the word. People work in Rapid City, run the I-90 and Highway 79 corridor home, and pick this side of the county line for the lot size and the quiet. The housing splits two ways: ranches and split-levels put up between the seventies and the nineties along the older streets, and newer subdivisions climbing the hogback. Different houses, same sentence on almost every walkthrough: we are not moving.
That sentence changes how we lay out a shower. If you plan to be in the house another twenty five years, it has to work for the person you will be at the end of that stretch, not only the one signing today. So we set the entry height with that in mind and block the walls for grab bars whether or not anybody needs one yet.
Bruce Miller has spent fifty years in this trade, and most of what he knows about walk-in showers came from taking apart the ones that failed. Water standing in a low corner that never dries. Grout that stayed dark for a year before the ceiling below finally told on it. Every one traces back to a decision made before the tile went on, which is where we spend our attention.
BLACK HAWK SHOWER BUILDS
Three Ways to Build a Walk-In Shower in a Black Hawk Home
Low-Curb Acrylic or Solid-Surface
The panels bond straight to the substrate, so there is no floor grout to seal and little for hard water scale to grab. The curb is an inch or two, low enough to step over without thinking, and the framing under the bathroom stays untouched. Build time runs 5 to 7 days. Good fit for a hall bath or a basement bath.
Curbless Tile on a Linear Drain
Zero threshold, floor falling in one clean plane to a stainless drain along the wall, and a walker rolls straight in with no lip to fight. It asks more of the house, because the shower floor has to sit down inside the framing. Schluter Kerdi waterproofing, mortar-bed pre-pan, large-format porcelain. Build time runs 10 to 14 days.
Custom Primary-Bath Walk-In
In the newer hogback builds the shower is the room. We have set built-in benches, lit niches, rain heads paired with a hand-held on a slide bar, and frameless glass tall enough to make the tile the whole story. Build time runs 14 to 18 days.
ENTRY, FRAMING, AND BLOCKING
Curbless or Low-Curb Is a Floor Framing Question First
Everybody asks for curbless and almost nobody asks what it costs the floor, so that is what we look at first. A curbless shower floor has to sit lower than the bathroom floor around it, which on a joisted floor means dropping and sistering the joists inside the shower footprint, or building the rest of the bathroom floor up to meet it. In a Black Hawk ranch over a crawlspace there is usually room to do that properly. Over finished space in a split-level, the math changes, and we would rather open the floor and look than promise you something the framing will not give.
A low-curb build leaves the framing alone. You get an inch or two to step over, the same waterproofing, the same tile, and a shorter schedule. Plenty of people who came in set on curbless choose the low curb once they see what each one asks of the house, and neither answer is wrong as long as it gets made with the floor open.
A few things go into every shower we build out here, whether or not anyone has asked for them yet:
- Solid blocking behind the board at the entry and along the long wall
- Blocking beside the bench, where a person actually pushes off
- Slip-resistant floor tile rated for wet areas
- A bench sized and placed to reach the valve while seated
- Lever handles in place of round knobs
- Niches set at the height the person using them can reach
- Pressure-balance or thermostatic valves so a flushed toilet cannot scald
- A hand-held wand on a slide bar alongside the fixed head
- Light aimed into the shower instead of shadowing it
- Clear floor at the entry wide enough for a walker to turn
BEHIND THE TILE
The Waterproofing Is One Bonded System, Start to Finish
The old way to waterproof a shower was a rubber liner buried in a mortar bed with the drain on top of it, and it worked right up until it did not. We build the whole assembly as one bonded system instead. Sloped mortar bed first, then a membrane bonded down over it, up every wall and across the entry, with seams and inside corners banded and the drain flange bonded to the membrane itself so water has no seam to slip through. Then we flood the pan and leave it overnight before a single tile goes down. If it is going to fail, it fails on our watch with an empty room around it.
Drain choice is a layout decision, not a style one. A center drain makes the floor pitch in from four directions, so tile breaks into smaller pieces to follow four planes and you end up with mosaic or small format underfoot and a lot more grout to keep clean. A linear drain along one wall lets the floor fall in a single plane, which is what allows large-format porcelain to sit flat on a shower floor and what makes a true curbless entry stay dry on the bathroom side. Where that drain runs, at the entry wall or the far wall, sets where the pitch starts and how the whole tile layout falls.
Glass is the last call and in a small older Black Hawk bathroom it matters more than it looks. A swinging door needs floor to swing into, which a five by eight bath cannot spare, so we often run one fixed panel or go fully doorless with a longer wet zone and the head aimed away from the opening. A doorless shower gives up some warmth, so for a north-facing bath in January we plan heat in the floor. The water out here is hard, so we spec factory-coated glass and brushed fixture finishes that carry mineral spotting better than polished chrome. A squeegee on a hook is still the cheapest maintenance in the house. On the floor, matte porcelain or a smaller tile with more grout lines gives your feet something to hold, tested barefoot and wet before it is ordered.
MORE FOR BLACK HAWK
Other Black Hawk Bathroom Work
Black Hawk Bathroom Remodeling
Full bathroom remodels for Black Hawk ranches, split-levels, and hogback subdivision homes.
Black Hawk Tub-to-Shower Conversions
Trading a tub nobody uses for a shower you will, start to finish in one to two weeks.
Black Hawk Full Home Remodels
Whole-home work for owners who plan on staying in the house for the long haul.
Planning the kitchen next? See Black Hawk kitchen remodeling, or look through finished showers in our project gallery.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Black Hawk Walk-In Shower Questions
How long does a walk-in shower take to build?
A low-curb acrylic or solid-surface shower is 5 to 7 days on site. A curbless tile shower on a linear drain is 10 to 14 days. A custom primary bath with frameless glass and accent tile runs 14 to 18 days. We do not start demolition until the material is in hand and the crew can run straight through to the end.
What does a Black Hawk walk-in shower cost?
Price tracks four things: the entry type, the tile, the glass, and whatever the floor turns up once it is open. Bruce walks the bathroom with a tape and a level, then writes a line-itemed quote against the house you actually own instead of a catalog average. The consultation and the quote are free, and nothing is owed either way.
Can a walk-in shower work in a small Black Hawk bathroom?
Usually, yes. A 36 by 36 shower fits where most tub-shower combos sat, and a 30 by 60 works in the footprint a 60 inch tub occupied. In a five by eight bath the layout matters more than the square footage, so a fixed glass panel or a doorless opening keeps the room feeling open where a swinging door would close it in.
Do I have to go curbless?
No. Curbless is the best entry there is when the framing allows it, and a one to two inch curb is a fine shower that plenty of homeowners are happier with once they hear what dropping the floor involves. We look at the framing first, then talk it through. Either way you get the same bonded waterproofing and the same tile work.
What does the hard water out here do to a new shower?
It leaves scale on glass and fixtures, and on untreated glass that scale can etch in permanently. We spec glass with a protective coating applied at the factory, lean toward brushed finishes that hide spotting, and keep grout lines down where the design allows. A squeegee kept in the shower does more good than anything you can buy in a bottle.
Should I put grab bars in now or later?
Put the blocking in now. Solid backing behind the board at the entry, along the long wall, and beside the bench costs very little while the walls are open, and it means a bar can go up anywhere on those walls later without cutting tile. Whether an actual bar goes in today is entirely your call.
Ready to Plan Your Black Hawk Walk-In Shower?
Call Bruce Miller for a free in-home consultation and a written quote with no obligation attached. We are the walk-in shower experts of the Black Hills, and Black Hawk is right up the road.