Never did it.
Are you sure about putting in a tub, vs a walk-in shower ?
Usually removal of something is not all that difficult, as it can be destructive, however those things are expensive, so care removing it could mean it's worth $500 for sale used.
Oops. I should have mentioned that.
Most of the houses we've seen have a walk-in shower in the master and the walk-in tub in the "main" bath. That's why we would replace with a regular tub.
I wonder if Habitat would want one of those? I wouldn't even know where to begin trying to sell it (no Facebook, etc) and would have no way to help transport it.
It's sad, too, as one listing we saw mentioned the tub as a selling feature "owners spent $10,000 on an upgraded walk-in tub!" only to have that tidbit removed from the listing after a month. I'm guessing that tub is why the house hasn't sold yet (now in the 4th month of being listed), as other homes in the same style & price have long since come and gone.
Or, doesn't the house have a tub (walk-in) PLUS a separate shower? As long as I had a walk-in shower, it wouldn't bother me to not use the walk-in tub.
Just a wild guess, but I would think that taking out a tub and putting in a different one would run between $2K and maybe up to $5K depending how much repair work has to be done. For example, a tile surround is not going to line up to the new tub. So, unless you can match the tile or get creative, you'd be removing the old tile and rebuilding the entire surround.
Normally, I would agree with you on ignoring the walk-in tub, but these are, to us, hideous and even if it was hiding behind a shower curtain, we would know it was there and we're weird enough that that would bother us. And then, there is resale to consider if we leave it in. (a previous thread had most everyone agreeing that these affect resale)
Our plans would be removal of the walk-in, install a regular tub, and a tear out/rebuild of the entire tile/surround area for the exact reason you mentioned.
I like your off-the-cuff estimate as I was pulling about $10k out of the air.
We've not undertaken anything like this so have no idea on where to even begin guessing. Annnd, since we are just looking, we can't contact contractors for estimates.
I guess the best I could do is to price a tub & roughly estimate tile materials? That would give us a starting point, at least. I wonder if the plumbing needs to be redone, as well? Man, that would mean drywall, too, unless that all needs to be done anyway when re-tiling.