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Shower Glass Doors: Frameless, Sliding, Hinged, Folding or Pivot?
What is the best opening system for for your shower doors?
Before we answer this question, we need to talk about the shape of your shower enclosure. Square-shaped bathrooms usually have a corner shower, and rectangular bathrooms usually have wall-to-wall doors.
We’re gonna talk about the possible opening systems for each of these shapes separately. So if your bathroom already exists, you can click straight on your case in the menu below.
If you still have a choice, wall-to-wall doors are cheaper and more practical.
Page Contents:
Wall-to-wall shower doors
This is the shower shape in most bathroom layouts. In rectangular bathrooms, the shower doors usually close the whole bathroom’s width.
Wall-to-wall doors can also be used in larger or square bathrooms. Even if the layout suggests a corner shower, there can be a side wall, so the glass door or curtain closes the enclosure front only.
This layout makes the door or curtain installation more simple.
Glass sliding doors work for most sizes of bathroom, since one door slides on top of the other, not taking up any space. Project by Loft 87.
In this bathroom, the sliding doors present two variations: they have 4 sheets instead of 2, opening in the center. And the barn sliding rail system looks lighter than the traditional one, that has a rail embedded in a frame.
Hinged doors look even cleaner than barn sliding ones, as they don’t not need any hardware at the top. There are only two discreet hinges on the side of the door. In addition, it is easier to adapt the position of the door for each bathroom than with the sliding doors, in which the glass has to be divided into equal parts. In this layout, for example, the toilet is on one side and the countertop on the other, so the door was centered between two fixed panels.
Even cleaner are the fixed glass panels, possible in large bathrooms, as you need a wide panel to hold the water and a wide enough gap on the side for getting in the shower. In this case, it is even more important to have a properly sloped floor in the shower area, leading the water to the drain.
Less common, pivot shower doors can be wider. The pivoting system allows part of the door to rotate inwards and part outwards. Thus, even when wide, the door does not take up too much space.
When it is necessary to open the entire span, you can choose a glass folding door: it has two sheets that fold to the same side, fully opening the span. It is a good option for narrower showers, where two sliding sheets cannot fit, for example.
Corner shower doors
When the shower is placed in a corner of the bathroom, the doors get more complex, as there is more than one surface to be planned.
Corner shower doors usually have less variations of opening systems, being the sliding doors the most common.
Square corner shower with sliding doors: this opening system allows both sides to open, getting a wide enough gap even with narrow doors, for small shower enclosures.
Hinged doors are also common for corner showers, but they take up some inner space, since they are placed diagonally to get enough width.
For larger corner showers, any opening system is possible. You can have a fixed side panel and have doors on one side of the enclosure only. Here, a hinged door was installed between fixed glass panels.
If you opt for a curtain instead of glass doors, you don’t have to worry about the opening system. Here, the curtain was divided in two parts, so the rod could be supported by a cable at the midpoint.
So, have you found out the ideal opening system for your shower doors yet?
You may also want to check the other articles of this section to learn about glass doors vs curtains and ideal dimensions.
