Curbless Showers: Pros, Cons and What They Take

The low-curb walk-in shower is the everyday version. The curbless shower goes one step further and takes the step away. It is the look in most design photos and the standard choice for wheelchair access. Here is what it takes. The broader job is on our walk-in shower page.

Why people choose curbless

• No trip edge. Nothing to step over, which matters with a walker, a shower chair or tired legs.
• Wheelchair access. A roll-in shower is curbless by definition.
• The room looks bigger. One floor runs from the door into the shower.
• It stays useful. A shower built for the next twenty years does not need redoing when needs change.

Plenty of local owners are thinking about exactly that. 34.7% of owner households in Winnebago County are headed by someone 65 or older, and 10.9% of all households moved into their home in 1989 or earlier.

Why it costs more

With a curb, the curb holds the water in. Without one, the floor has to do it. The shower floor has to sit a little lower than the bathroom floor, or the bathroom floor has to be built up, so water runs toward the drain and not out the door. That usually means one of these:

• recessing the shower area into the floor framing, which on a wood-framed floor can mean reworking joists;
• raising the rest of the bathroom floor to meet the shower;
• on a slab, breaking out concrete to set the drain lower.

A long linear drain along the back wall or at the entry helps, because it lets the floor slope one way instead of toward a center drain. Whichever way it is done, the Illinois Plumbing Code still wants a real pan underneath:

On a curbless design, the way the pan turns up has to be worked out in the floor, not in a curb. That is design and framing work, and it is a big part of the price.

What it costs

No cost guide prices curbless on its own line. The closest local figure is the Cost vs. Value report's universal design bath for Chicago, which is built around a curbless shower:

That whole-room universal design job cost $38,963 and recouped 61.1% at resale. A walk-in shower alone runs $6,000 to $12,000 (Angi, walk-in shower cost, national, updated October 30, 2026). A curbless build sits toward the high side of that because of the floor work. The full list is on the cost page.

The downsides

• Water control. A shower that is too small or badly sloped wets the bathroom floor. A glass panel and a good drain position fix most of it.
• Not every floor allows it. Joist direction, the size of the joists and what runs under the floor decide how easy it is.
• More work up front. A low-curb shower can often go in faster on an existing floor.

The rules that still apply

A curbless shower is still a shower in the eyes of the code. It needs the minimum floor size and an anti-scald valve:

Changing the drain location is plumbing work that needs a permit in Rockford, where a same-spot fixture swap is exempt but moving a drain is not. See bathroom remodel permits in Rockford. For a full accessible room, see our accessible bathroom page.