How to Retile a Shower: Full Tear-Out to New Tile

Retiling a shower is really two projects wearing one name: demolishing a wet, heavy, possibly moldy assembly down to the studs, and then building a brand-new waterproof shower in the hole. I’ve done this job more times than I can count, and the honest news is that a careful DIYer can absolutely pull it off — but the order of operations is unforgiving, and the middle steps (waterproofing, pan slope) matter far more than the tile-setting everyone worries about. Here’s how to retile a shower the way I sequence it professionally: full tear-out, substrate, waterproofing, pan, tile, grout, and seal, with a realistic timeline and budget for each stage.

Should You Be Retiling at All?

Quick triage before you swing a hammer. Retile when: tile is cracked, dated, or delaminating; grout has failed beyond repair; the wall flexes when pressed; or you’re seeing persistent mold/musty smells that survive cleaning — that last one almost always means moisture behind the tile, and a cosmetic fix would just wallpaper over rot. If your complaint is purely stained grout or a dated color on structurally sound tile, cheaper paths exist (regrouting, colorant). And plan on tearing out to the studs. “Retiling over the old backer” saves a day and costs you the chance to inspect and rebuild the one layer that determines whether the new shower lasts. When the tile comes off, the backer comes with it.

Budget and Timeline at a Glance

Before the step-by-step, here’s what learning how to retile a shower costs in money and days:

Hiring it out, the same scope typically runs $4,500–$12,000 depending on region and tile. The spread tells you where DIY value lives: this project is mostly labor.

Phase 1: Demolition (Day 1)

Kill the water at the shower valve or the house main. Protect the drain opening with tape and a rag — dropped tile chunks love drains — and lay ram board or cardboard on the bathroom floor and the exit path. Score the caulk lines, pop the trim and fixtures, then work a flat bar behind the tile at an edge or an opened seam. Old mud-set walls come off in heavy sheets; backer-set walls come off tile-and-board together, which is faster — cut the board into panels with a recip saw (watch for pipes and wires; check stud bays before any blind cut) and pry the panels off the studs. Pull every nail and screw. Bag as you go; a standard tub surround makes 20–40 contractor bags or one very sad pickup load, 400–800 pounds. Wear an N95, glasses, and gloves — old thinset dust and possible mold aren’t optional hazards. If the house predates the mid-1980s and you suspect asbestos in mastic or old sheet goods, get a $50–$100 lab test before disturbing it.

Phase 2: Inspect and Reset the Bones (Day 2 Morning)

This is the payoff for full demo. Probe the studs and base plate with a screwdriver — soft, dark wood gets sistered or replaced. Check the drain and supply lines while they’re accessible; this is the cheapest moment you’ll ever have to replace a corroded valve or add a handheld rough-in, and I upgrade the valve on nearly every retile ($100–$300 for a quality pressure-balanced unit). Verify studs are plumb and in plane within about 1/8 inch over 8 feet — shimming or planing now is easy, and flat walls are the secret ingredient of flat tile. Add blocking for grab bars, niches, and bench framing. Fix any of this before one sheet of board goes up.

Phase 3: Substrate and Waterproofing (Days 2–4)

Choose your system now, because it dictates the board: cement backer (Durock, Hardiebacker — $12–$18 a sheet) with a liquid membrane like RedGard rolled over it in two verified coats; drywall or backer with a bonded sheet membrane (Schluter Kerdi); or waterproof foam board (Wedi, Kerdi-Board, GoBoard) where the panel itself is the membrane and only seams and screws need sealing. All three work when the manual is followed; the foam systems are the most DIY-forgiving and what I’d point a first-timer toward.

For the pan: a presloped foam tray with integrated drain ($300–$700) has replaced the hand-floated mortar bed on most of my jobs — correct 1/4-inch-per-foot slope, no mud skills required. Waterproof minimum 3 inches above the showerhead (I go to the ceiling), integrate the niche and bench into the membrane, seal every fastener and seam per the system, and then do the non-negotiable: flood test. Plug the drain, fill the pan to just below the curb, mark it, wait 24 hours. Finding a leak today costs a day; finding it next year costs the bathroom.

Phase 4: Setting Tile (Days 4–6)

Layout before mortar, always. Find the centerline of the back wall, dry-plan so cuts land even at both corners and nothing slivers at the ceiling, and screw a dead-level ledger board one tile-height above the pan — tubs and pans are never level enough to stack from. Start walls on the ledger, back wall first, then sides; fill in the bottom course later with cuts.

• Use polymer-modified thinset ($15–$30 a bag) unless your membrane system specifies unmodified (Kerdi does).
• Comb with the trowel size the tile size demands — 1/4×3/8 notch for 12x24s — and back-butter large format. Aim for 95% coverage in wet areas; pull a tile occasionally and check.
• Leveling clips ($20–$40 a kit) on anything 12 inches or larger control lippage; a 33% offset (not 50%) on large-format tile avoids warpage humps.
• Cut with a wet saw (rentable, $40–$60 a day); drill valve and pipe holes with diamond hole saws.
• Floor mosaic goes on last or first by preference — I tile the pan after the walls so wall cuts can shelter above the floor tile line with a caulked joint.
• Let everything cure 24 hours before grouting.

Phase 5: Grout, Caulk, Seal (Day 7)

Grout with a quality cement grout ($20–$45) or epoxy ($60–$150) — epoxy earns its premium in showers by never needing sealing and never feeding mold. Pack joints with a rubber float on the diagonal, sponge with clean water in light passes, and buff the haze the same day. Every plane change — corners, wall-to-pan, around the valve trim — gets 100% silicone caulk, not grout; grout in moving joints cracks by Christmas. If you used cement grout, seal it after 48–72 hours with a penetrating sealer ($20–$30). Then give the whole assembly its cure: 72 hours minimum before the first shower, and I prefer a full week for the pan grout.

Where First-Timers Go Wrong

If you remember nothing else about how to retile a shower, remember these — the same five mistakes account for most of the failed DIY retiles I’ve rebuilt: skipping the flood test; grouting the corners instead of caulking; tiling over out-of-plumb studs and fighting lippage for three days; using mastic (“premixed thinset” tubs) in a shower — it re-emulsifies in sustained wet, use real powdered thinset; and rushing cure times because the family needs the bathroom. Build the schedule around the cures, not the other way around — book the week, arrange the backup shower, and let the chemistry finish.

Final advice from the field: spend your money on the invisible layers and your patience on layout. Nobody at the housewarming will know whether your membrane is Kerdi or RedGard, but the shower’s 25-year lifespan is decided entirely back there — while the thing they will notice, centered cuts and straight lines, costs nothing but an unhurried hour with a level before the first tile goes on. Demo hard, waterproof like a paranoid, flood test always, and the tile part — the part everyone fears — turns out to be the easy week.