25 Step Guide to Designing and Buying a Bathroom
A Professional Designers Guide
Step 16. Shower Enclosures ,Wetrooms and Trays Guide
Shower enclosure choice is one of the most difficult areas to get right if it is not researched properly. It is easy to choose an option that fits but does not perform well or look interesting. I can spend hours looking through brochures and surfing the net to find that quintissential shape, size or style. I then have to find a shower tray that is compatable, or it is back to the drawing board.
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Shower door types
Hinged and pivot doors
Hinged doors are always the best option if there is space to open them in your bathroom. The hinge construction on better quality doors will always perform better than any other option. I particularly like the frameless options for cleaning and maintenance.
Folding doors
This has been a popular choice for many years and will remain so. Folding a door in half does provide good access and is sometimes the only option in small bathrooms. Build quality can be flimsy and clatter in the lower price brackets. The door can easily wear out with heavy use and limescale damage.
Corner entry doors
This option can help to provide access when there is limited access from the sides because of basins and toilets. It is a more roomy option than angled enclosures for the size.
Inglide doors
Aquata provide an inglide door option where the whole door folds inwards against the inside side panel. It is quite a tricky mechanism and I would only use it if other options n the range do not fit.
Sliding doors
Not one of my favourite options in the lower price brackets. Ths is a good design solution but has a bad reputation for mechanism failure and runner problems. These items are often plastic on cheaper doors and do fail quickly. Top end doors do have good runners but the design failings of this system do get in the way. Matki do some good solutions for this and other problems by designing a tray and enclosure system without a bottom rail.
Tray options
I have a shower tray specification sheet so just click link to read. I have provided links for design and style options further down to view more design based decisions where the tray option is open to choice.
Just trays . Aqualux trays . Showerlux trays . Aqata trays. Daryl trays . Alistair Mackintosh trays . Durat trays . Villeroy-Boch trays
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Shower enclosure types
This is the neatest and often the best option for small bathrooms if door positions can be adjusted. I have regularly moved bathroom doors to accomodate large trays and wall to wall shower doors. With quadrant and standard tray options it can often lead to dead corners or unusable floor space. if this cannot be walked on the filling the extra space with a bigger shower enclosure is the best option. For the larger bathroom it is possible to get particularly wide door options with fixed front panels. This in frameless form is a good alternative to walk in type enclosures.
Pretty straight forward and available in many styles and glass finishes. Door types are available in all options described above.
This option is well used and a popular favourite when refurbishing. It can be the wrong choice when it leaves unusable corners when a wall to wall solution would be better. I will be providing plans to show these situations and good design solutions to get round them. Curved shower enclosures can provide extra space and make access and use of the bathroom safer.
I have used some interesting large versions of this style recently to solve design problems. Matki do a stunning large curved shower in sliding door form with stainless highlights called the classica.
Angled enclosures again can be a good solution to providing better access, but provide less internal space compared to quadrant shower enclosure options. If you are quite large then I would use an extra 100mm compared to quadrants ie go to 900mm from 800mm etc. It has been overtaken by curved enclosures and has been restyled by Aquata and other manufacturers with slightly curved edges to breath life into this design.
This section covers unusual shaped enclosures where some thought has gone into finding an unusual but practical solution to a problem.
It is possible to have the glass of most of the enclosures in this guide coated with an easy clean surface which prevents staining and coating with soap and water limescale deposits. I have provided a link to Showerlux to explain more.
This section covers special bespoke options where there are sloping ceilings or obsticals like columns and nibs. Some shower companies provide a bespoke service to provide the right shape for most situations.
There are some interesting full enclosure options where you have more space to play with. It is not necessarily the best option if placed in space because of the hard corners and bulkiness in large depth form ie 900mm upwards. I prefer to use curved options. Aquata do a good radius corner oblong solution again. This style is available with lid on and with back panel so that tiles etc are not required. This solution looks like plastic overload but can be a quick refit solution for student flats and low maintenance situations. At the top end ther are some spectacular do everything options with better materials.
This style includes bow fronted aswell as full-round and other curved solutions. Large radius solutions do take up a lot of room and look stunning if totally in space as full-round options. This option often requires integrated shower valves and heads. The curved design characteristicsof this design do flow well with curved bathroom suites.
I always try to squeeze in a walk- in enclosure when possible because of the advantages of no moving parts, and the easy clean and maintenance advantages. This option is good for wall to wall solutions and can be economical without the extra side panel. Glass corners are tricky if not protected by post details, so be careful for the old and infirm user. This solution is popular for the pensioner bath replacement market but can be dangerous for the reasons mentioned.
This is the most popular design option but is difficult to fit in small bathrooms even in smaller sizes, providing less shower room than good enclosure options. The problem is that the shower has to provide a standing area aswell as shower area and one compromises the size of the other. Even so I like this option and have used it often. in wall to wall form it is a good sized shower area compared to the straight option.
This is one of my favourite designs at the moment for the larger bathroom with a minimalist look and simple minimalist lines, but requires careful supervision with children around!
This section is for the unusual and interesting wherever it originates. It is a sad fact that many nice design solutions are from abroad and are not well represented in England so be careful to check delivery and maintenance on the exotic and beautiful.
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Wetroom options
This section is for wetrooms where there is just a sheet of glass or ' L ' shaped glass section. The glass part is fixed to the floor or ceiling or with top bracket supports.
Shower glass panels are available in similar styles to walk in shower options with various curved styles. The limitations are more than straight panels because of the fact that they are a set size. It can be a problem finding the right option for your bathroom because of these limitations.
Aquata wetrooms . Matki wetrooms . Novellini wetrooms
If you want a complete wetroom design without glass then I have provided links to view this design option.
Wetroom floor solutions
Wetroom floors are available in preformed profiles for timber floor installation. The size options are good and will solve most installation problems. It is necessary to remove existing floorboards and remove part of the joists to install the profile to provide a slope for water run off. This profile then requires waterproofing and then tiling.
this is a recent addition to reduce the work required to form a flush look shower base or wetroom look without the maintenance of tiles and grouting. There is also a clean fresh crisp look to pure white bases.
Sometimes it is necessary to provide a custom solution to your wetroom floor and there are products available to waterproof and prepare the floor for tiling.
Existing concrete floors require profiling to allow for water removal. You can leave it flat but the floor will be wet continually and dangerous. A waste trap willl need to be recessed into the floor and waste pipe connected to a drain. It is essential to retain the integraty of the damp proof membrane when digging holes or profiling the floor. It is easier to add a screed coat and profile this to suit.
Other bathroom shower related equipment
Steam room facilities in shower enclosures are a more specialist option but do provide a healthy option for cleaning the pores and invigorating the body. This option tends to be provided in full enclosures but can be bought as components for custom solutions.
Saunas are becoming more popular because of the compact options available so are worth a mention if you have space and an interest to take things further.
These are covered in the shower section on step 17 of my guide, but I have provided some to view as integrated panels and body jet options.
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