About Santa Clara Bathtub Refinishing

Who we are

Written by Daniel Pormier, owner and lead refinisher, Santa Clara Bathtub Refinishing.

Santa Clara Bathtub Refinishing was founded in 2013 by Daniel Pormier, who still quotes and sprays most jobs himself and brings more than fifteen years of hands-on refinishing experience to every fixture. It started with one spray gun, one work van, and a simple idea: most worn tubs in this city don't need to be torn out, they need to be refinished correctly. More than a decade later we've held to that. We're a local refinishing crew, not a franchise call center — the person who quotes your fixture is usually the same person who masks it, sprays it, and comes back if something isn't right. Reglazing is the only thing we do, which is why we do it all day, every working day, Monday through Saturday.

Over those years the work has added up: more than 1,860 fixtures refinished across Santa Clara since 2013, averaging around 143 a year, with a 4.9 rating across 289 reviews behind them. The mix tells the city's story — roughly 1,004 bathtubs, 298 shower stalls and pans, 223 sinks, 205 countertops and cultured-marble vanities, and 130 tile surrounds. We didn't get there by chasing the lowest price. We got there by showing up when we said we would, containing overspray so your bathroom doesn't smell like a body shop for a week, and writing the warranty down instead of saying it out loud and forgetting it — which is part of why our warranty-callback rate has stayed under 1.7% across every one of those jobs.

Meet Daniel Pormier, lead refinisher

I came up in this trade the slow way. Before I ever sprayed a tub in Santa Clara I spent years on a refinishing crew learning what a coating actually does once it's on the wall of a real bathroom — not in a brochure, in a 1947 bungalow off Benton Street with a cast-iron tub that three owners had scrubbed half to death. That's where I learned the lesson the whole shop runs on now: the topcoat is never the problem. The bond underneath it is.

Fifteen-plus years in — and better than 1,860 Santa Clara fixtures behind me since I started this shop in 2013 — my hands-on specialty is the heavy, original stuff most outfits would rather replace — porcelain-over-cast-iron alcove tubs, clawfoot and roll-rim antiques, and the porcelain-over-steel tubs that fill the mid-century streets here. Cast iron and steel make up close to half the tubs I spray; the other big share is the gelcoat fiberglass and acrylic in the condos. I like those jobs because the body of the fixture is usually perfect; it's only the enamel that's worn, and bringing a 300-pound tub back to a factory-smooth white in an afternoon is a better outcome for the homeowner and for what ends up in a landfill. The other half of my week is fiberglass and gelcoat — the molded shower stalls and soft-floor tub units in the Rivermark and Lawrence Station condos — where the repair before the coating is what separates a finish that lasts from one that crazes in a year.

I trained on spray-applied two-part coatings the way you have to: under someone who'd already made the mistakes, then by making a few of my own early on and stripping them back. I run an HVLP gun because atomized, thin coats flow out to a hard gloss that a brush or roller can never match, and I treat the prep — the etch, the scuff-sand, the bonding primer — as the actual job. The spray is just the last twenty minutes.

Here's the part I tell every customer up front: I'd rather lose the sale than coat a fixture that's going to fail. If your tub has a crack through the shell or the rust has eaten a hole at the drain, refinishing is the wrong call and I'll say so on the first visit. Most of the time, though, the fixture is sound and just needs a new surface done correctly — and that's the work I've built this shop on. — Daniel Pormier

What we refinish

Reglazing — also called refinishing or resurfacing — restores a fixture's surface with a fresh bonded coating instead of replacing the fixture. That's different from dropping in a liner or ripping the whole thing out. We refinish the full spread of bathroom and kitchen surfaces: porcelain and cast-iron bathtubs, fiberglass and acrylic tubs and shower pans, vanity and kitchen sinks, countertops, and wall and floor tile. We also handle the antique stuff — old clawfoot and pedestal tubs that are worth saving rather than scrapping. If it's enamel, gelcoat, acrylic or cultured marble and it's gone dull, rough, chipped or yellow, it's in our lane.

Our standards

The finish only lasts if the prep is real. Every job runs the same sequence: mask and ventilate, deep-clean off soap film and body oils, repair chips, cracks and rust spots, then etch porcelain or scuff-sand fiberglass so the surface will actually grab. After that comes a bonding primer, several coats of acrylic-urethane topcoat sprayed in a controlled pattern, a 24–48 hour cure, and fresh silicone re-caulk before we hand it back. We don't skip the etch to save twenty minutes, because a skipped etch is exactly why DIY and bargain jobs peel. You can read the whole sequence, step by step with photos, on our process page.

We're careful about the small things that wreck a finish: containment so mist doesn't drift onto mirrors and fixtures, the right viscosity so the topcoat doesn't go on like orange peel, and proper cure time before anyone runs water. Those are the details that separate a coat that lasts 10–15 years from one that crazes in eighteen months.

Licensed, insured and warrantied in writing

We are fully licensed and insured. That matters most on the day something goes sideways — a renter trips over a hose, a fixture gets nicked in a tight hallway — because the coverage is real, not a line on a flyer. Every reglaze we spray carries a 5-year written warranty. Written, so you're not relying on anyone's memory. If the finish fails from a workmanship or adhesion problem inside that window, we come back and make it right. Property managers and HOA boards ask for proof of insurance constantly; we hand it over without a fuss.

The Santa Clara homes we work on

Santa Clara is two housing stories sitting next to each other, and we know both. In the Old Quad and the streets around Santa Clara University you'll find postwar and older homes with original porcelain-over-cast-iron tubs — heavy, well-built fixtures that take an acid etch beautifully and look factory-fresh once they're sprayed. There's no reason to haul a 300-pound cast-iron tub out of a 1940s bathroom when the enamel can be brought back in an afternoon.

Then there's the other half of the city. Rivermark, Santa Clara Square, Lawrence Station and the condo and apartment clusters around them went up from the 1980s through the 2000s, and they run on fiberglass tubs, gelcoat shower surrounds, and cultured-marble vanity tops. Cultured marble is that cast resin-and-marble-dust material that yellows and etches where the soap and toothpaste sit. Fiberglass crazes and dulls. Both refinish well when they're scuff-sanded and primed correctly — and both are the bread and butter of turnover work for the relocation renters and HOA properties spread through Forest Park, Killarney Farms, Westwood Oaks, Northside, Bowers and Pruneridge. We've reglazed in all of them.

Reglaze versus replace

Here's the honest math. A standard bathtub reglaze runs $729–$890 and is usually done in a single day. A full tear-out — demo, haul-away, a new tub, new surround, a plumber, a tile setter, and the days your bathroom is out of service — runs into the thousands and ties up the room for the better part of a week. Refinishing saves roughly 50–75% versus replacement and a properly done coating lasts 10–15 years. For a single tired tub that's a clear win. For a property manager turning ten units between tenants, it's the difference between a one-day fix and a remodel you can't schedule around.

We'll tell you straight when a fixture is too far gone to refinish — a tub with structural cracks through the shell, or cultured marble that's delaminating — because putting a finish over a failing substrate just wastes your money and our reputation. Most of the time, though, the fixture is fine. It just needs a new surface.

Talk to a real Santa Clara crew

If you've got a tub, shower, sink, countertop or tile surface that's seen better days, send a couple of photos and we'll give you a firm price and a date. The quote is free, there's no deposit, and the warranty is the same for one tub or a whole building.

Prefer to read first? Check the pricing page, browse the before & after gallery, or see exactly where we work on the areas served page.