Tub-to-shower conversion, Fort Lauderdale.

In those houses the tub is cast iron, the walls are plaster or block, and the drain is the original line. The tub doesn't leave on its edge; it's cut into pieces in the alcove and carried out. Then the plumber scopes the drain line before I build anything on it, because a cast-iron line that's failing is better found on day one than under a flood-tested pan.

• Sailboat Bend, Himmarshee and the Stranahan House district: a Certificate of Appropriateness is for exterior changes. A conversion inside the house doesn't need one.
• Rio Vista and Colee Hammock houses from the 1920s: plaster comes down, cement board goes up, and the wall gets the blocking it never had.
• A low 2-inch curb is standard; on an old slab, curbless means a linear drain.
• The valve gets replaced. In a house this age it's a two-handle set with no scald protection, and it wouldn't survive the demo anyway.

The Regency Tower on Galt Ocean Drive puts it plainly: nobody, owner or contractor, may enter a wall, ceiling or floor for any purpose without written permission and the superintendent's supervision, with workers on site 8:30 to 5 on weekdays only and no noise before 9. Coral Ridge Towers wants license and insurance certificates naming the association at the guard desk, no Sunday work, and contractors hauling their own debris. I send the plan and the drawings to the manager before day one and build the schedule to the building's hours.

• Service elevator and loading dock reserved in advance, with mats and wall protectors on tub-out and tile days.
• The water riser shut-off is scheduled with the building and posted for the units below.

Fort Lauderdale makes two kinds of water: lime-softened at Fiveash and nanofiltered at Peele-Dixie, and the city itself noted the two differ in color when a 2024 wellfield incident took Peele-Dixie offline. Fiveash water is the harder of the two and spots frameless glass faster; a squeegee handles it. The 2025 report also puts the city's lead 90th percentile at 4.85 parts per billion, with one of 55 sample sites over the action level, and the city has finished a lead service line inventory. A pre-1986 house is worth a look in that inventory before the plumber ties a new valve into old supply lines.