Glass doors over tub - bad for the elderly?

mazelady2006

16 years ago

I'm wanting to get rid of the shower curtain and put glass doors over the tub. But I'm wondering if I will regret that since my 73 year old mother just moved in with me.

She's in fair shape and gets in and out of the tub fine (we don't have bath rails).

But is this something we will regret when she starts getting feeble?

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Comments (4)

pinktoes
16 years ago
Yes. You might want to do a little reading up on the subject before you do any remodeling, to save yourself some grief. If anything, install properly secured (see ADA guidelines for that; you can use WingIts if you don't have blocking inside your walls). And it's a good idea to also have your shower curtain rod installed as if it were a grabbar. Because during a fall people often grab the curtain and the rod comes down on them.

I would get my house ready for someone (and it could be you--no guarantees that it'll be the most likely candidate agewise) to come home from the hospital after a sudden medical calamity. It is the most trying time to have to contact contractors and bring in workers.

It's really, really hard, even for a young man, to lift a weak person out of a bathtub. No matter how lightweight they are. They're like "dead weight" because they often have so little muscle tone to tighten themselves up for lifting. If you've ever seen someone who is good at "going limp" do this little enactment, then you'll know exactly what I mean.

Oh, and you're aging, too. (Hate to be the bearer of bad news.) But if you stay in that house, why not make it user-friendly for all ages and abilities?
jerzeegirl
16 years ago
Not even just for older people. Yesterday I fell as I was taking a walk and banged up my knee really good. Both of my bathrooms have tub and shower combos. This morning I had an extremely difficult time trying to get in and out of my shower because I had to step over the tub with my swollen knee. Ow!

This made me think that at least one bathroom in the house should have only a shower. The only question is which one - the master or the hall bath!

If my bathroom were big enough, I would design a shower that needed neither a shower curtain nor a shower door. Just a big open space with a drain. Good for dog washing too!
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Thanks for all the thoughts! You've caused me to think twice on the glass door. I stood in there, didn't get in the shower but realize that the room is a little large so it's not going to toast up in the whole space as some have mentioned as working. Plus it isn't a wet room and it will annoy me when there is water everywhere, for sure. And it's expensive. DH's solution was to get a newel from HD and hang it from the ceiling at the curve in the tub to allow two shower rods not just one of those curved ones that never work and always sag and look horrible. I could then get one of those shower rods that curves in the middle for the long side to get more elbow room in the tub. I was wondering about that too as it's not a huge tub. I should perhaps yet stand in the shower and use it to see. Someone asked why the door wants to hinge at all, lori I think. Because I think otherwise you have a long way to scoot forward on a potentially slippery tub floor, and also to stretch to get out of the bath. It seems dangerous to me to have a pane that doesn't swing when it's ending at the top of a tub, as opposed to the floor as some have shown in their setup/s. I think a half door to the top of a tub that does not swing is a definite no-go. We have a really bad tiny fan from HD that's noisy and I really don't think those things do one thing at all as far as ventillation goes. However, I'm in SoCal and it's pretty dry here; dry enough. Even so mildew is a problem and I just do really hate that about curtains, taking them down, washing, airing, and the ick that accumulates on top of the rods. Ick ick ick ick ick. This is why I want a glass door. OTOH -- well, I was going to say for the cost you can buy a lot of replacement shower curtains. Though in all honesty, that's not quite true. Those curtains are expensive too! Oy, now I'm swinging back the other way .... I hate shower curtains. But to box in the whole tub with glass would be very constricting. There is some shine and opacity to the glass no matter how "clear", still you'd feel that the space was being cut down.
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Handshowers that come with Roman tub faucets are not for use in a shower situation with a drop in tub. They are for cleaning the tub or rinsing shampoo out of the hair of a seated bather. If you wanted a tub/shower unit, you would have needed to have designed the installation as such from the beginning and used a tub that was designed with an integral tile flange and then used a wall mounted tub/shower type of faucet instead of a deck mounted Roman tub faucet. Those tub/shower types of whirlpools are usually designed for alcove installation where a glass door can work with them just fine. But, since you've already put in what you have, the only way to use safely such a tub as a shower without setting yourself up for a lot of water damage is to do a "ring" shower curtain like you would for the old fashioned claw foot tubs. It's basically a rectangular suspended curtain rod that you use shower curtains with. A glass door of any variety will not work in your situation, as it will not keep the water off of the tub deck and walls, which is the big danger with using a drop in tub in such a situation. The water that splashes on to the walls and deck has no way to drain back into the tub because the lip of the drop in interferes. The water has to go somewhere, and that usually is your floor or into the walls and deck surround. This makes for a nasty moldy rotten mess in a few years.
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jakkom
16 years ago
Probably not a great idea to have glass doors for the tub. If your mom likes to bathe - both my mother and MIL do, whereas we're shower people - getting in and out of a tub when you're disabled or handicapped is extremely difficult with glass doors impeding accessibility.

Safety bars are a necessity, installed before she arrives, or soon after if you want her to be there to fit for exact placement. My DH had a stroke and it was nerve-racking for months afterwards when he went to take a shower, because his balance was so "off". I really regretted that we had just remodeled the bathroom but not put in safety bars.
cindyandmocha
16 years ago
Ditto on the grab bars. When we re-did our master bath 3 years ago, I had a grab bar installed in our walkin shower (removed the tub). DH wanted to know why.

LOL, I reminded him that he constantly grabbed our old towel bar above the old bath to haul himself in and out of the shower when showering, and I DIDN'T want him doing that with our new hand-held-shower bar and shower door handle. He's remarked countless times how much he uses that grabbar now, and we're not (gulp) old yet.

Glass doors over tub - bad for the elderly?

Comments (4)

pinktoes

jerzeegirl

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