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desertdenizen201

Fix for leaking frameless, curbless shower

DesertDenizen201
11 years ago

Our contractor suggested a curbless, frameless shower with bypass glass shower doors, 81" high x 60" wide. The shower is 39" deep, with a central drain. Of course, this is not working on many levels:

  1. The shower is not wide enough to contain the splash zone. The water travels down the side edge of the glass door, hits the shallow curb, and at least 50% of it flows outside the doors into the bathroom.
  2. The only support for the bypass doors is the overhead frame and a small 2"x2" plastic support for both doors in the middle of the shower door run.

    This plastic support really offers very little support to the bypass shower doors. They are extremely wobbly and difficult to slide. I really don't know how we would clean them, even with one person holding the door while another person cleaned.

    Before I discuss this with our contractor, I would sure appreciate any ideas I can get from Houzz. One possible fix is to make the sliding shower doors semi-frameless, installing a narrow frame on the walls and curb. Of course, we would then lose the advantage of the very low curb for handicapped access, which we don't need now, but is the main reason we decided on a curbless shower in the first place.

    The second approach would be to change to a hinged door design. We have room for this, and would just have to give up some towel bars on the wall where the door would outswing. This would involve removing the shower door rail, which would leave the screw hole through the tile, painted-on water proofing, and Kerdi cement wall. Could we just patch this hole or should the damaged tile be removed and waterproofing fixed? Also, we have not installed support wood for just any shower door installation. Should this involve removing more tile and Kerdi to get support back into the wall? I sure don't want to tear up or compromise our brand new shower.

    So, what's the best fix, including any and all suggestions other than above.

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