Raise Height of Bathtub?

Question: Raise Height of Bathtub?

A Canadian reader writes: "I used to live in a house where there was 2 bathtubs. 2 Big bathtubs with aerojet and waterjet. We had install the bathtubs ourselves and was enjoying life without care. AFTER, we moved here, I realized that the bathtub was not deep enough for me to soak in…I was wondering if I couldn't just put a deeper liner for the bath, maybe fixing the outer drain to be higher...What about a temporary wall the bath has 3 ceramic wall...I just need to block the drain and find a solution to get more water into the tub without flooding the whole house."

Name Withheld

Answer: Yes, I can sympathize with your situation. At one point, I moved from a house with a giant tub to a condo with the ordinary tub/shower combination. The tub is about big enough for my child, but it doesn't help me out very much.

The real problem with improvising a tub to accommodate more water, as you suggest, has less to do with potential leakage than with the poor structural support. When you fill a tub, water has a lot of weight pressing in all directions. A tub has enough support to contain this pressure. But if you were to use the walls for this support, they would not be strong enough. While the walls would not come crashing down, you would place undue stress on the walls.

If you want to go the tile route, you might be able to have a carpenter construct some bracing and then a tiler lay tile over that.

Or, remove the existing tub and replace with a larger-volume tub.

In either case, you also need to consider whether you need additional bracing under the tub to support the additional weight.

It's just not something I could advise.

Since you say your housing situation is temporary, it sounds almost like a rental and that construction of the magnitude I mention above might not even be possible.