Stacey, Bill & others- Windows in the shower area

12 years ago

What are the cons of having a window in the shower-from a tiling and cleaning/maintence perspective?

Stacey, I noticed you have 2 in your master bath, any thoughts? Maintence issues? BTW, thanks for posting your experience on the glass door installation, you saved me some grief. Your bath is beautiful.

Bill V-as far as the tile work involved for shower windows- what are your thoughts, is it a bad idea? My window guys sought of scared the heck out of me when they mentioned all the disasters they have seen with shower windows and how keeping them clean are a nuisance....My sense is that there shouldn't be any downside so long as the windows are installed correctly and the inside wall around the window is prepped correctly with the tile work. Since I have no first hand experience just want a reality check- because things often sound good on paper but not in reality.

Anyone can chime in...

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Comments (7)

nycbluedevil
12 years ago
About five months ago, I completed two bathrooms that have the window inside the shower. While we have rainheads in both (so the water comes pretty much straight down), the windows can and do get wet. Our windows are metal powder coated. Our marble goes right up to the frame. We have cement board below the marble. We have have absolutely no problem. From a cleaning point of view, having the windows insider the shower is a plus. We have a handshower and blast the window with it from time to time. Not sure what the cleaning issue would be.
bill_vincent
12 years ago
You need a little more than that. The tile either needs to abutt or cap over the edge of the window frame (which SHOULDN'T be wood), and beneath the tile, the cement board should be surface waterproofed, and the waterproofing sealed to the window frame, so as to make sure no moisture gets into the wall cavity.

nycbluedevil-- not to sew any seeds of doubt, but it takes a while to see the effects, if the surface under the stone wasn't waterproofed.
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From a technical standpoint, my feeling is if it's new construction and it's pretty much just framed, get rid of the window. It'll save you and future owners alot of headaches down the road. If you MUST have the window, though, your best bet would be a fixed window (doesn't open and close), preferrably vinyl, but if it's wood, that's fine, so long as you use a marine paint like Interlux. It's pricey-- last time I checked, something like 150.00 a gallon-- but it'll halp in making your tub enclosure watertight. You can then set the window so that there's a small return, and butt the tile up to it and caulk. I would strongly recommend using Kerdi above this tub, and sealing the Kerdi to the window, as well.
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The caulking should be where the tile butts up to the window frame. one thing you might consider is using a piece of travertine slab for the shelf.
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Comments (3)
Joe, do you need a tub? Or would a walk-in or roll-in shower work best? I'm in agreement with wisco-girl. I just did a shower for an MS customer about 3 months ago. A couple of items while I await your response, and these are geared towards a fully accessible roll-in shower: 1) Use a movable seat instead of a built-in bench inside the shower. 2) Grab bar guidance can be found on ADA sites. You can shuffle the locations slightly depending on your shower configuration and your wife's abilities, but their recommended locations are pretty good. 3) For the shower head, have a hand-held unit on a bar. Most bars are not certified for grab bar use, but there are units that are. I used an Alsons ADA handheld. Looks nice, and the vertical bar is an actual grab bar and the height adjustment is an easily manipulated lever. Use the longest hose you can find. 4) If the grab bars will not be screwed directly into a wall stud or solid 2-by blocking installed between the studs, I prefer to use "Wing-It" anchors. I can do chin-ups on those things. Kerdi? From the studs to tile, you're looking at: a) drywall or cement board, the seams between panels do not have to be thinsetted or taped. I personally prefer cement board (wonderboard or durock) but you can use regular old drywall. If using drywall I recommend 5/8" drywall. b) thinset and Kerdi over the drywall or cement board c) thinset and tile over the Kerdi d) grout With accessible showers, I recommend a deck mud base versus the Kerdi foam trays. You can use the foam tray, I simply find deck mud easier to shape to the shower sizes that I build. If a deck mud base, I staple plastic sheeting to the floor. Then set expanded metal lathe over the plastic and tack it in place, just enough so it doesn't flop around. Pack deck mud and set the drain, with the proper slope (1/4" per foot usually) from the walls to the drain. Once the deck mud has cured, Kerdi over it, then tile. If using a Kerdi Foam tray, thinset the tray to the floor, then kerdi over the tray. Easy. Here's a Kerdi thread from a few years ago. This is Kerdi over cement board on the walls, and Kerdi over sloped deck mud on the floor. Might not be the same methods you chose to use, but it shows a few techniques. Lastly, the curb. you need 2" of vertical drop from the top of the curb to the shower drain. Floor pitch needs to be between 1/4" per foot and 1/2" per foot. You can usually get an inch or so simply from the sloped shower floor. So you may still need an inch or so of elevation at the shower threshold. You can do a standard curb with square edges, or a roll-over hump. The hump is sort of like a speedbump. An inch or so of vertical over several inches of horizontal, gentle enough to roll over in a wheelchair is need be. There are also flexible "pop-up" curbs that can be glued to the tile at the threshold. They stick up a couple of inches, and being made out of flexible material they can be rolled right over. I'm not sure of their durability. Anyhow Joe, more than you asked for. And you thought YOUR post was long. lol Oh, and for grab bars, etc, look at a website called "grab bar specialists."
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Kendog-- As to the first two choices, I think either one would aork aestheitcally speaking. It would really be a matter of which look YOU like best. We're planning to use pencil rail around our niches as well as above and below the stone and glass liner. Would it look best with pencil around the window as well or could we just overlap the tile there? I would NEVER just overlap the tiles. Being you're going to use the pencil liner for trimming the niche, I don't think it would look out of place if you were to trim out the window as well. The pencil trim has a higher profile than the tile. Should all of it be cut down at the back to make it more flush with the tile if we use it to cover the edge where the tile meets the wall? No-- it's MADE to have that kind of protruding profile. Trim will be needed on the opposite wall where the half wall ends or maybe we could try to bullnose this with a router? The color of the tile edge nearly matches the color of the tile face. Nearly isn't close enough. Either it's exact, or it's not good enough. If you'd rather not use the pencil liners there, I'd use one of Schluter's bullnosing strips. as for the curb, you could always use a marble threshold, thereby elliminating the need for bullnose. Not sure about yours, but most curbs, after backerboard and tile, are about 5 1/2" wide, and a 6" wide threshold set flush to the tile on the outside of the curb, will give you just enough of an overhang on the inside to provide for a nice drip edge. This will do a couple of things for you. First, it'll provide another layer of protection for the curb. Secondly, it'll provide for a nice flat surface for the shower door to sit on, and third, it looks alot nicer than two back to back bullnose pieces. Like this: The floor is about 18 square feet. Do you think it would work well if we cut our wall tile into 4 inch squares to use for the floor? Could we just sand the edges to make them smooth or would we need to use a router? You COULD cut them down, but if the floor isn't perfectly flat, you could end up with uncomfortable edges under your feet. Again, unless the face and edge of the tile look exactly the same, you don't want to use ANY kind of abraiding process (router, sand paper, grinder, polishing wheels) that will show in the finished product. Our tile is rectified porcelain and we'd like to use 1/16 grout lines if possible. If it's rectified, that shouldn't be a problem.
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Stacey Collins
12 years ago
Our windows are non-operable vinyl ones (with privacy glass).... quite a bit less "nice" than the windows I've purchased for everywhere else in the house but I felt they were the safest bet in the shower. The entire window frame area is cement-boarded up to the frame and waterproofed, and Bill sloped the tile a little bit on the "stool" area for water drainage. As he said, tiles abut the vinyl frame and are caulked there.

I have to say it's one of the only things in our lovely bathroom that ISN'T giving us headaches, so I have no hesitation recommending it. Showering with all that natural light is lovely :)
barbcollins
12 years ago
Here is my experience (though I am not a professional).

1. Our first house had a window with wood trim and a cheap plastic shower insert. Wood turned black of course (yuk). We replaced the window with a vinyl window. Then used plastic/vinyl trim and a marble threshold. Caulked well with a new shower insert. Sold the house to BIL & SIL. No complaints.

2. We bought a vacation home with a similar issue but already had a vinyl window. Made similar repairs. Held up well for 3 years, but we sold the house so I don't know how long it lasted.

3. Current renovation home has a vinyl window, but it is small and high. We tiled around it and used a marble threshold sloped away from the window. Water does not sit on the threshold for long. Tile board around it was waterproofed with Redguard. Have used it for about a year. No signs of any problems.

I agree with Stacey, I like the natural light. I used contact frosted paper on the bottom of the window for privacy. I also like to crack the window open sometimes for the fresh air during the shower.
jjaazzy
12 years ago
I have a large over sized window in my shower area. 36" wide by 52" tall. I love it! When we remodeled the shower area we took the opportunity to replace the existing window with a PGT Impact Glass aluminum frame. The old window was the same Aluminum and it was 10 years old with no leaking issues. When we redid the shower we Rocked the walls and then used the Kerdi /orange for the walls. Special attention to all the corners and such so that everything was pitched for drainage and sealed up with inside corners (these I made) and outside corners (those I purchased from Kerdi). As you get further along in the process you will figure all that stuff out. But I love my window and I put a spring bar at half height for a curtain so that I can see out in the day time while showering and just push it aside so that I have full use of the window when not in use.
LE
12 years ago
We're planning a shower that you walk through to get to the tub at the end of the room, so the window would be by the tub, but I presume the issues would be similar? Thinking of fiberglass (wood inside) windows in the rest of the house, so it seems it would make sense to just get the all-fiberglass version (Marvin Integrity is the candidate) for the bathroom. Thoughts?
skeetie219
Original Author
12 years ago
Thanks for the feedback...

Stacey, Bill & others- Windows in the shower area

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Stacey, Bill & others- Windows in the shower area

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