Bathroom remodeling in Alaska has to respect a house built for cold first. A fan that dumps shower air into the attic builds the next ice dam while you are still toweling off. An outside-wall bath can freeze a supply on a night the kitchen feels fine. Crawl access decides whether the drain can be seen or only guessed at. Start with water that is already moving.
Any opening through the shell wants the short building season and the long daylight, not a dark week and a hope. Adhesives and a fan duct are kinder when the house can spare the heat. A surround on an interior wall can happen later if the heat stays on. Say which job you have. Find where the fan ends before you choose tile.
Older baths are small, and the stack may run where a crawl is tight or a boiler already owns the floor. Moving a toilet means joists and a drain that may already be a compromise. A prefabricated base and a tiled shower fail in different places. If an ice dam has wet the same wall as the shower, sort the roof from the bath before the wall is closed.
Grab bars need blocking if this tub is the one people have to climb into. A curbless opening may mean cutting the floor, and that should be said at the start. Water heaters here run all winter and fail when a new shower asks too much. Mention a weak heater. If the house sits dark part of the winter, say so before new traps are set in an unheated spell.
Say the town, tub or shower, and whether the layout stays. Mention a fan into the attic, a window that ices, or a line in an outside wall. Say if water is on the ceiling below. You do not need a drawing. You need the room and whether the heat is on every night. Call the number on this page.