Tub Cover-up Firm Sees L.A. as Fertile Area
Jay Shachter is in the cover-up business in a big way--and he wants to get a whole lot bigger.
He’s president of L.A. Bathtub Liners, a Huntington Beach-based firm he founded in 1983 with David Mickel, currently the company’s vice president for sales and marketing. Shachter, a Chicago native who has lived in Michigan and Florida--and has installed bathtub liners in almost every state--wants to install high-impact acrylic liners over the millions of worn-out bathtubs in the Southland.
“The housing stock of the greater Los Angeles area is just the right age for a firm that specializes in refurbishing bathtubs and our method is the best and most economical one,” he says, without any false modesty.
At a Westchester house, Shachter and his installer, younger brother Jack, showed how quick and painless the installation is. Rather than spending upwards of $2,000 ripping out old porcelain tubs that have been scoured clean once too often, or spending several hundred dollars refinishing the existing tub, a homeowner--or apartment owner, or motel owner--can have a new-looking tub in less than two hours for an average cost of about $500 for a typical 5-foot-long tub.
“Our best customers are those who have tried the refinishing route, and found that the coating lasts only a few months,” Jay Shachter said. “We have hundreds of molds available from a factory in Arizona that has tracked down tubs from everywhere, so the chances are excellent that we can match virtually any style of tub in Southern California, giving every customer an exact fit.”
A few years ago, most of his firm’s business was installing liners over tubs in hotels and motels; in an effort to reduce the company’s dependence on one type of customer and in response to a slump in hospitality industry work, Shachter expanded into residential installations. Residential work now accounts for 80% of the company’s activity.
Why, if a 5-foot tub can be purchased for $100 to $200, is it so expensive to just replace the worn tub with a fresh new one?
“It’s difficult to remove the old tub without damaging the tiles around it,” Shachter said. “Plumbers don’t come cheap and old pipes can be easily damaged if a tub is removed.”
After measurements are transferred from the bathroom to the liner, the installer uses a portable jigsaw to trim it to fit. The old tub is cleaned with acetone and a rubber-based solid adhesive is applied around the perimeter of the tub and the drain and faucet areas.
“This is the secret of our success--what we call our gasket system,” Shachter said. “If we didn’t do this, water would seep in between the old tub and the liner.”
The liner is hoisted into place, pressed down to make it stick to the cement and the hardware is replaced. Caulking is applied and the job is done. The tub can be used after a few hours.
