kellied--I thought I would share a shower curtain design solution that my designer came up with yesterday. I am in your situation. Master bath without a tub and soaking tub in the hall bath which has to be used as a shower as long as my teenagers are still here (another year or so) and after that when they are home for summer/vacation and when guests come. I don't want to enclose the tub but because it is a short tub (the Kohler Greek), I need coverage. My designer suggested a ceiling track for the curtain (like a hospital track). They make them flexible so you can have them cover multiple sides of the tub. So the track is barely visible. Here's the good part--we are designing a pocket wall next to the tub. About a foot or so of the pocket will house the curtain that can be pushed into it. The rest can be used as a recessed closet. So the curtain will be barely visible and I don't have to keep putting something up/taking it down. Maybe you could do something similar. Hope this helps.

My 1963 vintage tile tub/shower is leaking along the front wall grout seam because the tub settled, opening up a grout line. I have stopped the leak by bracinig the tub (from below) and regrouting the joint. I also plan on either a tub/tile reglaze or having an acrylic liner put in to make doubly sure the leak does not return. It caused a bit of wood rot. I contacted the following for quotes: Bath Fitters, Re-Bath, and BCI Acrylic Bath Systems. Bath Fitters quoted $3800 for a reline of the tile and tub (I thought that was rather steep!) and gauranteed no leaks and a lifetime warranty. I was told that water could not get between the tub and liner. BCI said he did not suggest a bath tub liner (odd, because that is what their web site is mostly about), because the caulk seal fails and water gets between the tub and liner and can not be removed, but suggested a reglaze of the tub and either a reglaze of the tile or an acrylic liner over the tile. He quoted about $800 for a reglaze of the tub and tile and about $1500 for a reglaze of the tub and an acrylic liner over the tile. The price seems reasonable. Re-Bath comes by tonight. BCI and Bath Fitters have contradicting pitches, as far as the tub is concerned. I also had a house once where the tub was reglazed (about 1990), and the glazing chipped off around the drain. BCI said this WILL NOT happen because of improvements in the reglaze process. I have also heard negative things about Bath Fitters I am kind of at a loss right now as to what to do. How much should a tub and tile acrylic liner run (Washington, DC area) and is there concern for leakage between the tub and liner? Are regalzes any good? Any input concerning this would be helpful. Thanks. --Nate

I don't understand the last post to this thread? Thermasol offers a 5-year replacement warranty on all their controllers. Why would you pay to replace it? Maybe you had it more than 5 years? If so, then it's too bad it failed but how long do you expect it to last? I doubt you could expect a car to last reliably with no problems longer than 5 years, so why expect that of your steam shower. I have a PRO-395 that I installed 14 months ago. It just failed tonight. Not sure if it is the controller board or the heating element, but it stopped producing steam. Called tech support and they are shipping me a new replacement unit tomorrow and paying for the install, all at no cost. I am going to call them tomorrow to talk to them about the fact that it failed so soon. They are supposedly the best and charge a premium for their product. I am curious how they will explain that it failed so soon. Will update this post if they say anything interesting. Update: Spoke to them this morning and they are sending me a new unit, and pay for installation charge. One other thing. Someone in the tread above talked about making their shower with a 10 ft ceiling. Don't do that! That is just dumb, and will affect the experience of a good steam. If you ever want to make your steam shower bigger, do it in the length or width but never in the height. My house has 10 ft. ceilings, but my shower has a 7.5 ft up to an 8 ft. ceiling and that is plenty high enough. The 7.5 ft part is over the bench so the fact that it is lower there makes no difference because you are sitting down.

I did the sliding doors and really the new frameless sliding doors aren't that huge of an issue to clean. I chose the sliding door because of space issues too, plus in my other home which had a swing out door, water was always on the floor from where it dripped when the door was opened. I used to dart out of the shower to minimize the time the door could drip on the floor. I agree the frameless swing doors are more attractive, but I've heard many stories about water leaking out of those doors if the curb isn't slanted properly etc... I just decided to avoid the water on the floor and potential leak issues and trade that off with wiping the track periodically.