Free written scope consultation - allowances, timeline, and change-order rules on paper before a single trade is scheduled
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AfterFast, Reliable Bathroom Remodeling Across South Miami
We’ve been pulling bathroom permits in the 33143 ZIP long enough to know that South Miami plays by its own rules. A full bathroom remodel here runs $10,620 to $33,040, and a tub-to-shower conversion typically lands between $4,130 and $11,800. The wild card is rarely the tile or the vanity. It’s the city’s tree ordinance, the municipal permit queue, and the condition of the original 1960s cast-iron under the slab. If you’re planning a bathroom remodel in South Miami, call (877) 610-1318 and Tom Barrett will tell you straight what your job involves before anyone swings a hammer.
Why Barrett & Sons Construction Is South Miami’s Preferred Bathroom Remodeling Company
We’re not a franchise dispatching strangers to your door. Tom Barrett started this company in 1998, and his sons run the crews. When we work in South Miami, Tom himself is usually the one walking the job with the city inspector, because he wants to hear what the inspector has to say. The permit inspector works for you, not for me, that’s why I like him. That’s not a slogan. That’s how we keep our final inspections clean on every bathroom we touch.
South Miami customers call us for the same reason they call a neighbor: they want someone who will be at the hardware store on Saturday and stand behind the work on Monday. Every bath remodel we do includes a written scope, written allowances, and written change orders before anything changes. No surprise invoices. The 90-Day Done Right Promise goes on every contract in plain English. If something isn’t right, one call brings Tom back.
Our crews know the difference between working in South Miami and working a mile away in unincorporated Miami-Dade. We’ve navigated the city’s building department, its arborist requirements, and its inspection scheduling enough to quote you an honest timeline instead of an optimistic one. That local knowledge saves you weeks and thousands of dollars.
Our Bathroom Remodeling Services in South Miami
Full Bathroom Remodeling
A full gut remodel in South Miami means opening walls in a 1950s or 1960s CBS ranch and finding what the original builder left behind. Often that’s cast-iron drain lines that have been quietly failing under the slab for decades. We demo, re-plumb, re-wire what the code requires, waterproof to Schluter standards, and rebuild with fixtures you can look up by name. A full bathroom remodel here runs $10,620 to $33,040 depending on square footage, materials, and whether the city requires a tree disposition permit for any exterior work.
Walk-In Showers & Shower Remodeling
South Miami’s humidity punishes showers that weren’t waterproofed correctly. We specify cement board, a full membrane system, and proper slope every time, because a walk-in shower that leaks into a CBS wall will grow mold behind the tile within two rainy seasons. Walk-in shower installation in this market runs $5,310 to $14,160. We do curbless designs that work with the existing slab, and we deal with the drain rough-in so it actually slopes and vents under South Miami’s municipal code, not just Miami-Dade’s.
Tub-to-Shower Conversion
Converting a tub to a walk-in shower is the most common bathroom change we do in South Miami, especially for homeowners staying in their homes as they get older. The conversion usually runs $4,130 to $11,800. The cost moves based on whether we’re keeping the existing drain location or moving it, and whether the old tub surround hid rotted framing that now has to come out. In older South Miami CBS homes, the area around the tub flange is frequently the first place slab moisture shows up.
Vanities, Tile & Fixtures
We install premium-brand vanities, tile, and fixtures, and we’ll give you written allowances for each line item before we start. That means you know exactly what the vanity allowance buys before you pick it out. No allowance on paper is a surprise waiting for a date. In South Miami we see a lot of homeowners choosing solid-surface or stone vanity tops specifically because they hold up better than laminate in humid bathrooms.
What happens when you call
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A real person answersNo phone trees - you reach a local pro.
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You get an upfront price rangeHonest numbers before anyone is dispatched.
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A background-checked tech heads outLicensed & insured, dispatched right away.
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You approve before work beginsNothing starts until you say go.
Trusted Brands We Service in South Miami
We’re not married to mystery brands off a van. When we install windows and doors in a South Miami bathroom remodel, we specify names you can look up: Simonton, Ply Gem, and PGT. For a bathroom that gets South Miami’s humidity and the occasional salt drift from Biscayne Bay, we lean toward PGT’s impact-rated frames or Simonton’s coastal-rated lines, because cheap aluminum pitting within a few years is a failure we’d rather prevent than replace. We order directly from local distributors, so turnaround for South Miami jobs doesn’t get stuck in an out-of-state warehouse queue. Our Bathroom Remodeling team installs these brands on jobs across the city.
Common Bathroom Remodeling Problems We See in South Miami Homes
- Rotted subfloor around the toilet flange. Decades of slab condensation and humidity wick moisture up through the original 1960s subfloor. By the time you see a soft spot under the toilet, the repair usually means replacing a section of framing before tile goes down.
- Corroded cast-iron drain pipes under the slab. These 60-year-old lines are often paper-thin by the time we open the floor. The good news is you find out before the new tile is set. The bad news is the repair adds a change order, which we’ll put in writing before any new work starts.
- Efflorescence and mold on exterior walls. Older CBS homes without a moisture barrier behind the wall tile wick groundwater into the wall cavity. Two rainy seasons later, you have white mineral deposits and mold on the painted surface. We install proper moisture barriers every time.
- Corroded shower drains and valve trim. Inland-grade brass or zinc hardware pits within three years in South Miami. We specify marine-grade or premium stainless trim for anything that touches water. The cheap spec costs more within a decade.
Pricing for Bathroom Remodeling in South Miami, FL
Here are the price ranges we see for Bathroom Remodeling in South Miami, with South Miami’s municipal fees and typical existing-home conditions baked in:
| Service | Typical South Miami Range |
|---|---|
| Full Bathroom Remodel | $10,620 - $33,040 |
| Small Bathroom Remodel | $5,900 - $14,160 |
| Walk-In Shower Installation | $5,310 - $14,160 |
| Tub-to-Shower Conversion | $4,130 - $11,800 |
What moves these numbers in South Miami isn’t just square footage. It’s whether the city requires a tree disposition permit, whether the original cast-iron drain lines need to come out, and whether we’re waterproofing against slab moisture and salt air. We’ll give you a free estimate with all of it spelled out. Call (877) 610-1318.
We Also Serve Cities Near South Miami
Our crews serve the neighborhoods around South Miami regularly, including Glenvar Heights, Coconut Grove, Coral Gables, and Kendall. If you’re just outside the 33143 line, we’ll still come take a look, and we’ll tell you exactly which jurisdiction’s rules apply to your job.
Serving South Miami, FL - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the South Miami area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage - if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
FAQs - Bathroom Remodeling in South Miami
Yes, South Miami requires a permit for a tub-to-shower conversion whenever the work involves changing the drain configuration, altering the waterproofing envelope, or modifying any wall or floor assembly. The city’s building department treats it as a plumbing and building code matter. We pull the permit and schedule the inspection. Call (877) 610-1318 if you want to know whether your specific job triggers the tree ordinance. Estimates are free.
If your bathroom remodel expands the home’s footprint or requires trenching within the protected root zone of a mature tree, South Miami’s ordinance can require a certified arborist survey, a tree disposition permit, and mitigation planting before the foundation work begins. We’ve had jobs where a gumbo limbo 15 feet from the wall forced us to reroute a shower drain rough-in, adding about three to six weeks. A contractor who doesn’t know the ordinance will quote you a timeline that doesn’t include the arborist. Call (877) 610-1318 to get an estimate that accounts for it.
We install a full membrane system with cement board and a proper slope, and we use Schluter waterproofing products on every walk-in shower we build in South Miami. The high water table and flat topography here mean slab moisture is a constant. A shower without a full waterproofing envelope will fail behind the tile within two rainy seasons. We’ll show you the membrane before it’s covered. Call (877) 610-1318 for a free estimate on your walk-in shower.
A typical South Miami bathroom remodel runs $10,620 to $33,040, and a small bathroom remodel usually lands between $5,900 and $14,160. When a tree disposition permit and arborist survey are required, plan on $1,500 to $4,000 in additional soft costs and three to six more weeks on the schedule. A cheap quote that omits those line items is exactly the kind of phone-price-to-door-price game we won’t play. Call (877) 610-1318 and we’ll give you a written line-item estimate that includes the permit fees.
Yes, if the inspector or our plumber finds corroded cast-iron drain lines that weren’t in the original scope, we’ll write a change order covering the replacement work before we proceed. That’s the rule, no exceptions. The change order tells you exactly what’s being replaced, what it costs, and why. It protects you from a surprise invoice at the end. Call (877) 610-1318 to talk through what we typically find in South Miami’s 1950s and 1960s homes.
South Miami’s Tree Ordinance Is the Cost Nobody Quotes
South Miami has its own building department and its own permit queue, entirely separate from Miami-Dade County. That alone throws off any contractor who only knows the county system. But the bigger variable is the tree ordinance. A mature live oak or gumbo limbo on your lot can force a certified arborist survey, a tree disposition permit, and mitigation planting before a foundation form goes up. That’s 3 to 6 weeks and several thousand dollars that a contractor working a mile away in unincorporated Miami-Dade never has to think about. If your bathroom remodel touches an exterior wall or expands the footprint, and there’s a protected tree within the root zone, the city can stop the work until the arborist plan is approved.
We remodeled a 1963 CBS ranch on SW 62nd Avenue where the original bathroom subfloor had rotted around the toilet flange from decades of slab condensation. A mature gumbo limbo sat 15 feet from the exterior wall. We couldn’t trench the new shower drain where the homeowner wanted it without entering the protected root zone. After the tree disposition permit and arborist survey, we re-routed the rough-in. The bathroom got a curbless walk-in shower with Schluter waterproofing, Kohler fixtures, and a frameless glass enclosure. Final inspection signed off on the drain slope and venting under South Miami’s municipal code. That job took longer than a county job would have. It also passed first try, because we planned for the ordinance instead of hoping the inspector wouldn’t notice.
The cheap spec on a bathroom remodel in South Miami doesn’t just fail earlier. It fails in ways that cost more to fix than the difference in cost between the cheap spec and the right spec. Inland-grade brass shower drains and valve trim pit within three years here. Skipping the moisture barrier behind wall tile in an older CBS home means efflorescence and mold by the second rainy season. Salt air is occasional, not constant, but it’s enough. We specify marine-grade or premium stainless trim, full waterproofing membranes, and fixtures that are built for this climate. You pay a little more up front. You don’t pay again in a decade.
Written by Tom Barrett, Owner at Barrett & Sons Construction, serving South Miami since 1998.