The best bathtub upgrades

What we judged these on, in order

A bathtub is the one fixture in a bathroom that people rarely replace and often dislike using. Every upgrade below was picked against the same five questions, in this order:

1. Does it change the bath you actually take? Reaching the water, standing up safely, keeping the floor dry, ending warm. Decoration is not an upgrade.
2. Does the maker publish the number that matters? A load rating for a bar, a cup count for a mat, a hose length for a handheld, a gauge for a liner. Where nobody publishes, the pick says so.
3. Does it fit the tub that is already there? Nothing here needs tiling, a new tub or a plumber’s van. The most invasive job on this page is four anchors for a grab bar.
4. Does it come off? Every pick carries our install rating, and the skip below is a skip precisely because it does not.
5. Will it still be good in a year? A published warranty, stainless or rubber rather than a coating, and no consumable parts. Nothing on this page needs cartridges.

The order to do them in

You do not need seven things. This is the order we would work through them, safety first where safety and cost coincide:

1. A non-slip mat in the tub. The least expensive item here and the one that prevents the worst outcome.
2. A liner, if water escapes when you shower over the tub. About the same money.
3. A handheld head. The upgrade you notice every single day.
4. A grab bar at the step-in point, if anyone in the house is unsteady — and before they are, not after.
5. A diverter spout, if the shower above the tub has gone weak.
6. A floor mat and a towel warmer, once the practical things are done.

The safety numbers, in one place

Three published figures do more for a bathtub than any product claim. MedlinePlus, from the NIH National Library of Medicine, is the source for all three:

• “Put non-slip suction mats or rubber silicone decals in the bottom of your tub to prevent falls” — the in-tub mat.
• “Do not use towel racks as grab bars. They can’t support your weight.” Moen publishes 500 lb for the 8716; no towel bar maker publishes any load rating at all. That comparison is here.
• “Set the temperature on your water heater to no more than 120°F (49°C) to prevent burns.” It is free, and it matters more in a tub than a shower because a bath is filled once and sat in.

MedlinePlus also specifies that grab bars “should be secured vertically or horizontally to the wall, not diagonally”, which is the detail most home installations get wrong.

Why the diverter matters more in a tub

In a shower stall, the water has one place to go. Over a tub it has two, and a worn diverter sends half of it to the wrong one — you stand under a weak shower while the spout dribbles at your ankles. It is the single most common complaint about a shower-over-tub, and it is a $40 part rather than a plumbing job.

Delta publishes the constraint that decides which spout you can buy: the supply must be “a minimum of 1/2″ (13 mm) copper or iron pipe in a straight drop 8″ (203 mm) minimum and 18″ (457 mm) maximum long”, and slip-on and threaded spouts do not interchange. The tub spouts are ranked here.

Two measurements to take first

Both of the cheap picks here are sized products, and both are sold in more than one size:

• The flat floor of your tub, end to end. Published mat lengths differ by seven inches: Vive’s is 28 x 16 in., Gorilla Grip’s is 35 x 16 in., and Moen’s adhesive mat is 34 x 16 in. Measure the flat part only — suction cups do not hold on the curve where the floor turns up into the wall of the tub.
• Rod height to the top of the tub wall. A standard liner is 72 x 72 in., which is what iDesign publishes. If your rod sits higher than usual, a 72 in. liner stops short and water runs down the outside of the tub instead of into it.

Neither is an expensive mistake, but both are returns, and both are avoidable with a tape measure.

What we left out, and why

Walk-in tubs and tub-to-shower conversions are real answers to a difficult bath, and they are remodels: plumbing, tile, sometimes permits. This page is for the tub you have.

Tub refinishing kits are left out because the coating changes what else you can fit: Gorilla Grip, for one, publishes that its mat is “not for use on newly refinished tubs, shower pans, or similar surfaces”.

Bath trays, pillows and caddies are left out for the reason we leave most accessories out: the makers publish nothing to rank them on — no load rating, no materials, no dimensions in many cases.

A heated floor belongs to a different project. It goes under new tile, and it is covered on its own page: heated bathroom floors.

Prices, roughly

The liner and the tub mat are the least expensive things here, and they are also the two we would buy first. The handheld head, the grab bar and the diverter spout sit in a middle bracket that has barely moved in years. The stone floor mat and the towel warmer bucket are the larger purchases, and they are comfort rather than function. Live prices appear beside each pick, pulled from Amazon rather than typed in by us.

If you rent

Five of the seven rate Safe on our install rating: the handheld, the tub mat, the liner, the floor mat and the towel warmer all arrive and leave with you, and the head threads back off the arm on move-out day. The diverter spout rates Ask first — it is the landlord’s plumbing, and a failed diverter is usually their repair to make. The grab bar rates Owner-only, and it is the one worth asking for. How to ask is covered here.