Our house was built with a cheap acrylic tub/shower unit 20 years ago. It started getting difficult to clean just five years later. At around 15 years, it developed a small hole in the sidewall. (We think it was from bathing the dog and her sharp nails.) We had one kid in college and another who was very ill at the time = no money. We patched the leak and I kept getting more and more creative with the cleaning products just to make it look decent. Finally, kiddo #1 is healthy and kiddo#2 is graduated. We're about to embark on the long needed bathroom remodel. Unfortunately, we are still on a budget. The only thing I didn't want to budge on was NO ACRYLIC TUB. But our bath, the only full one in the house, is up the stairs and around a tight corner into a small 8x5 room, with the tub at the back. Our bath guy says, sure, he can put a cast iron tub in there but he'd probably have to remove, then rebuild, a wall to do so. There would go the budget. My alternative is to use an acrylic unit because they have a little "give" and he could get it into the room without demolishing anything. "I don't want acrylic!" I say, but he tells me there are nicer ones than that piece of junk I have in there now. How much nicer? Really nice. Of course you still have to build a floor up around the bottom of it and put in some insulation if you want it to feel like cast iron though. "And how much is that going to cost?" I ask. And the answer is -- too much. "There is another option," he says. Then he pulls out this gorgeous hunk of solid surface material and tells me he can put in a walk in shower made out of that stuff, with a premium showerhead and control for the same price as doing an "okay" job of installing a mid-range acrylic unit. Did I tell you I only have one full bath? No other tub in the house? I'm going with the walk in shower anyway. THAT'S HOW MUCH I HATE ACRYLIC. BTW, according to shower guy, the lifespan of an acrylic tub is 20 years. Hope this helps.

We installed a cast iron tub as part of our reno (2nd floor in a 40+ yr old bi-level/hi-ranch). It is very heavy, but we had the floor joists/supports checked out (by plumber?) and we were good to go. If you are thinking you might prefer a cast iron tub, it might be worth it to find out if your floor joists can support one, before deciding against it. I can't speak to Americast, though a contractor friend had suggested it, and has installed plenty of them. I liked what I'd read about cast iron (with regards to heat retention, and the strength of the enameled coating over cast iron). DH and I also liked the feel (the solidity) of the cast iron tub we looked at in the store (Toto 1525), and we were already very impressed with the Kohler cast iron shower pan we'd had installed in our guest bathroom. We did take a look at some of the Americast and porcelain-on-steel tubs at HD, but preferred the cast iron. FYI, supposedly Toto is not selling, or going to sell residential cast iron tubs anymore, but there are other manuf out there (e.g. Kohler) who do if you decide to go that route after all.

it says it has a 14" step-over, so I think it would be about same as what I currently have, just new. That's not really the important part. It's the depth to overflow that tells you how deep the water is. The archer, for instance, allows a deeper-than-usual soak by use of a special slotted overflow. So we are not considering mobility issues as a factor in this decision. I wasn't sure from your response if that was directed to what I said about clearances, but just to be sure you understand: deeper tubs like the archer and the underscore are almost always 32 in wide, not 30. Code dictates a minimum clearance for standing room in front of a toilet, so if your 5x8 is set up with the tub across from the sink and toilet you may not have enough room to use a 32 in wide tub. It was nothing to do with accessibility, just what code allows you to do now. You need to make sure about that before you choose a new tub. If you have all three in a line (toilet, sink, tub on the same wall) it's not so much of an issue. There are side clearance rules, too, but the toughest one to work around is the front clearance, since even with a round toilet you may not have acceptable space. It also often messes up the door opening in that layout, so you may need to move the doorway, too. If your bath is set up like the one on the left, you need to double check all the numbers. The plan on the right is a bit easier to work around by switching to a narrower sink. ETA One of my bathrooms, which is pretty large, is divided so that the tub/toilet are in what is essentially a 5x8 with a storage closet instead of a vanity and I could not go to a wider tub without totally redoing everything: move door, move toilet (the most expensive thing to do in a bath remodel), etc.

I bought an AMERICH WRIGHT base level acrylic tub for $1,000 from a bath and kitchen store in 2017 and it is a piece of plastic. After two years It was stained, difficult to clean and never feels entirely clean, the caulk around the tub has needed replacement several times, and the Americh label partly wore off almost immediately. I never use any abrasive cleaning products (all organic). When I contacted the manufacturer they pointed out that I the care instructions said I was supposed to WAX my tub with high-quality carnauba paste type wax. Wax my tub? They also referred me to a very expensive tub cosmetic repair company. Unfortunately I removed an old enamel tub instead of refinishing it. Number 1 worst decision in my remodel after seeking lots of advice. I dream of ripping this one out and replacing it with an enamel tub. Taking a bath in an acrylic tub feels cheap even though it wasn't..