The Shower Door Company

Thu September 09, 2010 6:06 PM EDT

Frameless Shower Design Considerations and F.A.Q.

When you are in the initial stages of designing your frameless enclosure, it is important that you consider the issue of safety, along with potential problems that may arise. We have recieved phone calls from customers that say they have an "installation problem", when in reality, they had a design problem.

We encourage you to spend a few minutes and review the list of design considerations we have assembled. If you have any further questions please contact one of our design engineers. Our foremost concern is that your new frameless enclosure will be safe as well as beautiful!

1. Do not hinge a door a fixed panel using glass-to-glass hinges, if the fixed panel is not supported at the top.

If a door is to be hinged off of a fixed panel using glass-to-glass hinges, one of the following criteria must be met:
(A) The door must be hinged off a fixed panel that is secured at both the curb and ceiling with either U-Channel or Glass Clamps.
(B) If the fixed panel does not go to the ceiling, the top of the panel must be secured with a header system or a support bar.

If the design allows, using wall mount hinges, and not glass-to-glass hinges (to avoid swinging a door off of an unsupported fixed panel), is a good solution. A door swinging off of an unsupported panel can cause the panel to wobble or flex, and can be unsafe!

2. When using wall mount hinges, put a straight edge on the wall that the hinges will be mounted on. Remember, the wall can be out of plumb, but has to be straight. Hinges operate on a pivot point, and pivot points must align with one another. When the pivot points are not aligned, and are clamped to a heavy piece of glass that will not flex, the glass can slip when the door swings. By identifying this problem when measuring, you can avoid the problem by either using top and bottom pivot hinges (to avoid the wall completely), or plan on putting a shim plate behind the back plate of the hinge that is closest to the wall, pushing it out so that it aligns with the pivoting point of the other hinge/hinges.

3. Make sure that when using wall mount hinges, the wall has a wood stud behind it, or that the surface substrate is strong/thick enough, and secured sufficiently to accomodate appropriate screw anchors.

4. Generally, hinging a door using a combination of wall mount and glass-to-glass hinges can be done, as long as precautions are taken and certain conditions exist. The wall mount hinge should be recessed so that the front surface of the back mounting plate is flush with the front surface of the marble or tile. By recessing the back plate of the wall mount hinge, the pivot points of the wall mount hinge and glass-to-glass hinges will be aligned, and the clearance gap will be even up the full length of the door. If you are fortunate, you can perhaps make an arrangement with the tile setter to provide the appropriate size recess in the correct location. However, this is often not the case. An excellent alternative to this dilemma is to use top and bottom pivot hinges. They don't require any tile alterations and can be mounted in a variety of ways (floor and ceiling, floor and header, floor and transom, etc.). Top and bottom hinges are also easier to install.

5. For a neo-angle enclosure with a knee wall, if the knee wall is mitered at a 45° angle you can use standard wall mount hinges. However if the knee wall has a 90° square end mounting surface, this will not work. The only solution to addressing the square end mounting surface, is to place at least a 6" mitered fixed panel next to the wall, and swing the door off of the panel using 180° glass-to-glass hinges (your opening needs to be wide enough to accomodate the fixed panel plus a satisfatory door width). If the knee wall is on the strike side of the door, there is no problem, simply miter the strike side of the door glass and everything will match up.

6. When using wall mount hinges with a combination towel bar and pull mounted on it, design consideration must be given to whether or not the end of the towel bar closest to the hinges will hit the wall, before the door opens to its full 90 degrees. As a solution, use top and bottom pivot hinges, and inset the hinges far enough from the edge of the glass so that the pivot point now has projected far enough from the wall to clear the towel bar.

7. When using wall mount hinges, and the same wall has a towel bar mounted on it, design consideration must be given as to whether that towel bar will be hit by the door when it opens to its full 90 degress. This situation can cause two problems. It restricts access to the shower, and more importantly, with the glass hitting the towel bar, there is a chance of the door exploding. A possible solution is to use top and bottom pivot hinges, and to insert the hinges enough so that the pivot point projects far enough from the wall to clear the towel bar.

8. You would like to install a frameless shower unit in a tiled or marbled enclosure that has a protruding accent strip, which is located in the area the glass will go. You must address this in different manners depending on whether the door is invloved, or just a fixed panel of glass. If you are mounting a door off of a wall with an accent strip, you have two choices. You can notch the door to match the accent strip profile, or remove the appropriate amount of accent strip both in front and behind the door, and replace it with a flat piece of matching tile or marble.

9. You plan to use a wall mount hinge, but the wall you are hinging off of is not at the standard 90 degrees to the curb. This is an important factor to determine in the design stages, not at the time of installation. AArtistic offers several hinge series that have reversible pivot pins, or will even accept custom angled pivot pins. You can alter the closing position of certain hinge types by 5° in or out by using the reversible pivot pin that comes in the hinge, or you can order custom angled pins ranging from 1 to 45 degrees. It should be remembered that these hinges work off of a pivot point that is approximatel 1-1/32" off the wall. As you change the angle from the standard angle the hinge was designed for, you will pull the hinge side of the glass off center-line, proportionate to the amount of angle change.

10. When using glass-to-glass hinges, we suggest never using a pivot pin over 5 degrees. The reason for this is that the hinge operates off of a pivot point that is inset 7/8" in from the edge of the glass panel. As you increase the degree angle, the portion of the glass behind the pivot point starts to swing out proportionately with the degree of the pin offset. This causes the hinge side of the door to not align with the fixed panel. A 5° pin will project the hinge side of the door glass out apporximately 3/32". This is usually acceptable. On glass-to-glass applications that require an angle of more than 5 degrees, we suggest you use top and bottom pivot hinges. By the inherent design of the top and bottom hinge itself, they can be mounted at the angle needed to align perfectly with the fixed panels.

11. Consider the use of top and bottom hinges as part of your design criteria. As you read our other design considerations, you have noticed that we recommed the top and bottom pivot hinges as a solution to many design problems. The top and bottom pivot hinges have grown in popularity for so many reasons. They will offer you more of the "all glass" look, since they are mounted top and bottom. You don't traditional type hinges mounted anywhere in between the top and bottom interfering with that "all glass" look. The flexibility of application is another plus. Top and bottom pivot hinges can be mounted floor and ceiling, fllor and header, floor and fixed transom, and several other ways. Of course, not everyone will want to use top and bottom pivot hinges, but the combination of beauty and design flexibility makes these hinges something to consider when doing frameless shower enclosures.

12. An aluminum shower door threshold should be considered when a flat or outsloping curb condition exists under the door. We offer stock lengths of threshold that can be siliconed to the curb under the door. The rounded, low contour of the threshold will not harm feet when entering or exiting the shower. The thrshold helps to act as a dam, and will assist in watershed back into the shower. The bottom wipe can work in conjuction when positioned above the threshold. Attention should be given as to whether the slope of the door causes an uneven clearance gap directly underneath the door. If so, we offer a Double Fin Vinyl Wipe that offers two different leg lenghts. Having the flexibility of two fins allows you to deal with the uneven clearance gap. The Double Fin simply drags across the top of the threshold.

13. In the interest of safety, we recommed that all fixed panels should be supported by mechanical fasteners (U-channel or glass clamps).

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