Bathroom remodeling in Austin runs into limestone hard water, small older baths, and supply lines on exterior walls that a freeze will find. Scale etches glass and seizes valves long before the tile looks dated. Pier-and-beam bungalows hide joists that may not welcome a moved drain. Slab baths in newer houses lock the flange in concrete. A remodel that ignores the freeze path and the mineral in the water will look finished for one season.
Waterproofing still rules the wet wall. Ask how the pan is built, where the membrane turns up at the curb and the niche, and whether the valve can be serviced without destroying the tile. Exhaust has to reach the outdoors. A fan dumped into a low, hot attic feeds the moisture you were trying to leave behind. If a ceiling stain appeared on the thaw, fix the attic pipe before you close a new ceiling over it.
Layout has to respect the structure you have. Tight joists under a bungalow floor make a curbless shower a framing question, not a magazine picture. On a slab, sliding the shower means opening concrete, and the person on the call should say that plainly. Hard-water valves and a scaled shower head belong in the scope. So does access to a line that runs inside an outside wall, because the next hard freeze will look for it.
Use the project to separate the finishes from movement and from mineral. If tile cracked because the framing or a clay pocket shifted, a new skin will crack too. Ask what is being stiffened underneath. A water heater in an unconditioned closet near the bath can freeze or simply fail from scale. Say if that closet is part of the room you are opening. Do not bury the shutoff where nobody can reach it on a cold morning.
Describe the bath, the floor type, and the problem: scale, a leak, a freeze-prone wall, or a layout that the joists will not allow. Mention a thaw stain if one sits overhead. Ask who handles the membrane, the fan, and the valve. Call the number on this page.