frameless shower leaks?

12 years ago

Motivated by jimnyo's question, I am hoping to find out from folks here what your experience with frameless full-glass showers is wrt leaking. We have a half wall that has glass up the rest of the way, connected to the tub, in our bathroom, and a tub/shower alcove in our DDs, but for this last one, I'm considering a full-height neo-angle frameless shower.

So any leaks? Or if so, what would you do if you could do it over? Or what did you choose instead? Thanks very much for any thoughts on this. I know I can ask installers, but I trust disinterested information with which to triangulate my local info.

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Comments (7)

attofarad
12 years ago
My wife has inline, not neo. No leaks. The shower doesn't strike the gap directly, and the body jets are also centered on a panel. No leak at the bottom or walls either.

I'm redoing my master, and will either have one fixed panel and the door, inline with stub tile walls, or will hang the door off another glass panel and go wall to wall with glass.
skatermom
12 years ago
We don't have a neo angle, but we have one full glass panel that goes floor to ceiling. We opted for no channel and just have the clips.
Right now we are testing it out and did not silicone where the glass meets the curb.

The water will puddle if You angle the shower head right at the intersection, but if you don't, there will be a drop or two to clean up, maybe.

We don't want to silicone b/c we hear it gets gunky so we will just wipe up the few dribbles we have.

I love not having the floor channel, the clips make it look so much better!
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gr8daygw
12 years ago
I am getting a little bit of puddle not much in one spot. The only metal on this extra huge glass shower is at the top U-channel and two clips at the door. There is no knee wall, it goes floor to ceiling three sides. I didn't want the top u-channel but I also didn't want all those clips. It is siliconed in. There are clear shims under the glass where it meets the tile at the bottom because the glass cannot sit right on the tile or it will grind it after awhile, houses do move and vibrate so that is why they do that. We just had this put in so I'm not happy hearing these stories about silicone getting nasty down the line : (
jakkom
12 years ago
Sorry, didn't see this until today.

I would be reluctant to do the neo-angle frameless again, for a couple of reasons:

- I should have had the shower bar offset so that the angle of spray would be away from the door. The showerpan's door threshold is not quite angled sufficiently, so water aimed at the door puddles up and will leak, when a really strong spray is aimed for too long directly at the door. It'll take a few quick hits without leaking, but a constant, 15-min barrage of water is just too much for it.

- These doors are heavy - REALLY heavy. We should have gotten a 3-hinge door. 2-hinges are NOT sufficient. The door weighs 80 lbs and falls out of alignment, so it won't quite close. There's a minor 1/4" gap that we're stuck with. We've gotten it re-adjusted twice, but it just sags again in a couple of weeks. Doesn't get worse, but it's just another irritation

- I will also note that we now wipe off the silicon gaskets(?-not sure of the correct word for the long flexible waterproofing strips) after every shower. If you don't, the soap scum eventually stiffens them up and they'll need replacing. After 7 yrs I had to call the installers to come out and replace all the door strips, at a cost of $250.
mahatmacat1
Original Author
12 years ago
jkom, no worries -- I completely spaced that I'd asked it, and thus didn't properly thank attofarad, skatermom and gr8day. I appreciate all the replies...even though they're more concerning than reassuring. Knowledge is extremely important, all kinds of it.

The stories actually help me confirm my possible design of a half-wall (the vanity will be right next to the shower) of tile rather than a full-height glass on the face opposite the showerhead. I think this will solve the frameless full-height problem, and still let us go frameless on the rest of the glass.

I will take your advice about the door, too, jkom. *3-hinge* door--is it too late to go back in your case and have a third hinge put in? I don't like the idea of 80 lbs of glass falling out of adjustment.

Extremely helpful -- thank you al so much again.
jakkom
12 years ago
Nope, it's too late for us. We would have to have the entire enclosure redesigned. At a cost of $2100 in 2003, it's not something we will ever do again.
attofarad
12 years ago
"--is it too late to go back in your case and have a third hinge put in? "

Any notches or holes for hinges/handles/anchors are cut before the glass is tempered. Once tempered, there is no way to modify the glass, only replace.