Charlie: My bathtub has chips and scratches. Robert in Cypress, kids. He has a scratchy, rusty bathtub. He’s trying to decide whether it’s best repair by resurfacing it, Tom, or just replace it. He’s worried, because it has tiles all around it. What would you say to him?
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Tom: His bathtub, if you don’t want to pull the tile out, then you better just refinish it. That’s it, because the tile goes in last. The tub goes in first, and it’s all tile too.
Charlie: Yeah, there’s no way … they can’t even take out some of the tile, right? You’d want-
Tom: Sometimes people try to cut a layer of tile or two out and then-
Charlie: Put a trim thing in?
Tom: Yeah, put something in, but it’s not a good detail. It’s so funny when we build a home, and I used to get so mad at my guys, we put the tub in first during the rough-in. Then everybody uses it as a place to store their lunches, and their trash, and everything else.
Charlie: Oh no.
Tom: I used to make these fancy plywood covers to cover the tubs just so the guys got the idea, but then they would start walking on the top of the plywood. It was not a good solution for that at all-
Charlie: So…
Tom: … but it goes in first.
Charlie: You’d resurface.
Tom: If you don’t want to mess with the tile and stuff, that’s your only option, or just don’t look down.
Charlie: Right. Now he says that there’s also some sort of vinyl overlay or something you can put in there.
Tom: They’re going to do not only the tub, but they’ll do the walls and everything else.
Charlie: They can if they want.
Tom: You see it advertised all the time now. It’s up to you. If you want to do that, you can.
Charlie: I think the resurfacing thing … and actually, that holds up real well when you do that resurfacing of-
Tom: If you get it done right, and you take care of it right, you’re looking at about a decade.
Charlie: All right.