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Home Decorating

Shower stall emergency

12 years ago

Today the fiberglass pan in our MB stall shower cracked. We've been talking about replacing that shower for a while, but it's been back burnered due to about 18 thousand other priorities. Well, now, it's been bumped up to the top 10. Fortunately we have another shower we can use in the interim, but we will have to make a decision soon on what to do.

DH can temporarily repair the crack, but we're sure it cracked because the subfloor needs replaced...can't tell unless we pull the whole unit out and see it. It's more likely due to a crummy install by the PO, but we're prepared for the worst.

So here is the emergency...it's a 36" stall in a tiny bathroom. DH barely fits in there and often has to poke his arms out the side to shampoo, I hate it because it's so dark and impossible to clean well. So we're considering a neo-angle shower, that ought to give us more elbow room while not taking up as much visual & floor space. But...in our plans we want to add about 2' of depth to the room, and we wanted to do a nice big double shower with tile & glass doors in that new space. But that is a big undertaking and means a big reno...includes work done to the bedroom, too.

At this point we can delve into savings to do the big reno, but we'd really rather not do that at this time.

Does anyone have a rounded or neo-angle stall shower? Can I get your thoughts on a pre-fab fibergass unit versus a tiled/glass space in the same size that we would install. I realize the tile option will cost more initially, but until we did a major reno, that would be my preferred choice.

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Comments (2)

GreenDesigns
12 years ago
Neo angle units do NOT give you more room. They actually give you less room because of the cut off corner. They just fit into a corner better than a regular unit and give you more floor clearance than a regular unit. using them is even more uncomfortably small and tight than a regular 36x36 shower.

If I were you, I'd use the fiberglass patch kits from an autobody kit and at least waterproof the current problem. It won't be pretty at all, but it will at least buy you some time to plan this out better and move your priorities around to get this to the top of the list. Start haunting the Bathrooms forum here to brush up on your DIY skills and your reno may not be as costly as it could be. Thank goodness you have another shower in the home to use!
sable_ca
12 years ago
Pesky - I sympathize! When we moved into this house 23 years ago our handyman installed a drop-in fiberglass neo-angle shower in our master bath. At that time I knew nothing about remodeling or contractors, but he did a good job. This shower began to fail (develop small cracks) about two years ago, and now definitively needs replacing. It's a 36" x 36" and GreenDesigns is right, it's small. Fine for me, but DH uses the tub-shower combo in the front bathroom because, at 6'2", he is not comfortable in the MBR one. However, with its all-glass doors, it appears to take up little space, which I liked.

If you can get a larger neo-angle and you still have plans for a major remodel in the future, then I would say go for it. However, if this is a one-time only redo, then perhaps think twice about it. Although the neo-angle looks good, and doesn't use much room, the issue of interior space is a big one. And we have found that as we've gotten older, the more space the better.

We are about to begin our bathroom reno, tearing out everything, skimming the walls, removing and repairing the subfloor, and the new shower will be larger, rectangular, and will probably have solid surface walls and frameless glass doors, as there is nothing I hate more than cleaning tubs and showers. Expensive, yes, very (at least for us); we'll put most of it on our home equity loan and the rest will come from savings. But we can manage that and we made a mutual decision that finally, we want a nice bathroom that is built to last.

Good luck!
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First off you need to get it clean get a can of fume free easy off oven cleaner soak it good then scrub and rinse, wont take a lot of scrubbing and youll be surprised at how clean it comes, especially the floor Then do as joseph says i usually clean with alcohol and let it dry good before putting new silicone sealer back. If you havd never worked with this id suggest watching some YouTube videos. Looks like small seams do don’t cut a huge hole in the tip of the tube
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