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CGI Bathroom Remodeling: The San Francisco Owner’s Guide
Elmstead Remodeling San Francisco stocks and installs CGI-compatible bathroom remodeling components across the city, with complete bathroom remodels typically running $10,620 – $33,040 depending on fixtures, waterproofing, and finish selections. We carry OEM and quality aftermarket parts for the most common CGI tub, shower, and surround systems found in San Francisco homes, and our written price comes before any work starts. Most owners discover a problem the same way: a hairline crack in the tub surround, a drain that no longer holds water, or caulk that keeps pulling away from the CGI acrylic no matter how many times it’s re-applied.
CGI is an independent manufacturer, and Elmstead Remodeling San Francisco is an independent contractor, not a CGI affiliate. We work on CGI products because so many San Francisco homes have them, and because knowing a product line well means we can give you an honest answer about whether a part needs replacing or the whole surround does.
Which CGI Models This Applies To
CGI’s bathroom products break into two broad families in the homes we see across San Francisco: acrylic tub and shower surrounds and the shower pans and bases that sit beneath them. The model number on most CGI surrounds is on a small tag near the top of the back wall, behind the escutcheon plate, or stamped into the lower corner of the shower base under the drain cover. If the tag has faded, we take measurements of the drain geometry and the base’s slope before ordering, because CGI changed the drain shoe design between their earlier series and the current production, and a new drain assembly that looks identical often does not seat on an older pan. That measurement step has saved more than one San Francisco homeowner from buying a drain kit twice.
For OEM versus aftermarket: CGI’s own acrylic panels hold their gloss longer than most aftermarket sheets, and if the panel is still under CGI’s manufacturer warranty, we always recommend the OEM replacement. When the warranty has expired and the panel is an older color that CGI no longer runs, a quality aftermarket panel from a manufacturer like KraftMaid or Cambria-adjacent fabricators can match well, though we tell every customer the same thing: acrylic yellows slightly with age, so a new sheet next to old sheets may show a color shift at the seam for the first year until it settles.
Styles & brands we work with
Signs Your CGI Bathroom Remodeling Is Failing
- Caulk pulling away from the acrylic repeatedly. CGI surrounds flex more than tile, and if the flange behind the panel was never properly fastened to the studs, every shower cycle works the seal loose. Re-caulking buys days, not months. The fix is re-securing the panel, not more silicone.
- Soft spots in the floor outside the shower base. This usually means the silicone between the CGI pan and the drain body has failed, and water is traveling under the pan into the subfloor. By the time the vinyl outside the shower feels soft, the water has been at the wood for a while.
- A shower base that squeaks or pops when you stand on it. CGI bases sit on a mortar bed or foam pad. When that bed settles in San Francisco’s older piers-and-beam homes, the pan flexes, and the pop is the foam pad delaminating. Left alone, the flex eventually cracks the drain joint.
- Rust-colored drip marks under the tub spout or shower arm. That’s not from the CGI acrylic; it’s from the supply line behind the wall leaking at the threaded connection. The surround is fine, but the wall cavity isn’t. You want that opened and dried before the surround’s backer board rots out.
- A cracked corner radius on the surround. CGI’s older radius corners were thinner than the current tooling, and over years of thermal cycling, the corner can develop a stress crack that runs diagonally. A crack in the radius can’t be reliably patched; the panel needs replacing.
See the difference
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After
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AfterReplacement Cost & What’s Included
A CGI-specific bathroom remodel in San Francisco runs $10,620 – $33,040 installed. At the lower end, that’s a tub-to-shower CGI conversion with a new pan, walls, faucet trim, and drain. At the upper end, it’s a full bathroom gut with a CGI surround, new waterproofing, a reinforced floor, new vanity, and finish plumbing.
- Walk-in shower with CGI surround: $5,310 – $14,160
- Tub-to-CGI-shower conversion: $4,130 – $11,800
- CGI shower base replacement with pan and drain: $2,360 – $5,900 (as part of a broader remodel)
- Full bathroom remodel with CGI surround: $10,620 – $33,040
The range depends mostly on what’s behind the walls. A bathroom where the studs are sound and the subfloor is dry needs less framing work. A bathroom where the drains have been leaking for a year needs more. Either way, you get the written price before the first tool touches the floor. The work carries our 365-Day Done Right Promise: if it’s not done right after the job is complete, we make it right.
DIY or Call Us?
You can check three things safely: the caulk line around the base, the drain cover for hair and debris, and whether the surround flexes when you press gently against the back wall. If the surround has visible give, that’s a water seal problem waiting to fail, and it needs the wall opened. What shouldn’t be DIY is anything involving the drain assembly beneath a CGI base. The base is heavy, the drain shoe is a specific twist-tightened fitting, and a cracked acrylic pan from an over-tightened drain collar is a $900 mistake. Graham Stein has spent three decades working around showers and tubs across California, and he’ll tell you plainly: the cost of getting the old base out without cracking it is usually less than the cost of replacing the one that cracked during the attempt. Call (831) 480-4497 and we’ll look at what you’ve got before you touch anything.
FAQs
A CGI acrylic surround installed correctly over a proper backer board typically lasts 20 to 30 years in San Francisco’s coastal climate. The failure we see first in this city is almost never the acrylic itself; it’s the drain gasket and the caulk line failing and taking the subfloor with them. Keep those two joints dry and the surround will outlast several fixtures.
If your CGI shower base is showing its age, call (831) 480-4497 for an exact quote. Estimates are free.
A surface scratch can be buffed with an acrylic polishing kit, but a crack through the panel cannot be reliably repaired. Acrylic flexes under heat and load, and any bonded repair will eventually re-open at the seam where the crack began. We save repairs for scratches and small chips; cracks get a replacement panel.
Call (831) 480-4497 and we’ll tell you which one you have before you spend money on a repair kit.
A CGI shower base swap in San Francisco usually takes two to three days once demolition starts: day one removes the old base and sets the new one on a fresh mortar bed, day two installs the drain and allows the silicone to cure, and day three re-installs the surround panels and trim. We schedule quiet hours around nap and school time if there are kids in the house.
For a project schedule that fits your family’s week, call (831) 480-4497. We’ll write out the timeline with the quote.
We stock the most common CGI drain shoes, gaskets, and trim kits on the truck, the parts that fail most often in San Francisco homes. Full surround panels in specific sizes and colors are usually a two-to-five-day order. If you have a discontinued color, we’ll tell you that up front and show you the current nearest match before we order anything.
Call (831) 480-4497 with the model number from your CGI tag, and we’ll check stock while you’re on the phone.
Written by Graham Stein, Owner, Elmstead Remodeling San Francisco at Elmstead Remodeling San Francisco, serving San Francisco and nearby areas.
