Our walk in is 60 x 52 with the walk in on the short side. We are doing French doors, 26" each. The glass company said it made no difference to them whether we did fixed or stationary panels. Since this will be our roll-in wheelchair shower if that ever becomes necessary we thought the widest possible opening would be the best choice. HTH.

I was definitely worried about hiring a contractor who didn't know what he was doing. I did a fair amount of research so when I spoke with them, I could tell how comfortable they were with the requirements and in our case need to modify the joists below the floor. Some even opening admitted they hadn't done one but were willing to take on the task. No Thanks! I monitored several forums on the web and set up a google alert for "curbless shower" and tried to get a sense of experience. One of the forums is particularly good and turns out one of the contributors was from our metro area. I could read how he communicated and also sense how the other experienced guys on the forum respected him. It was amazing to me how in such a large metro area where we live, how few contractors have much experience with this. From what I can tell, it was rather difficult though since our house has a "pier and beam" foundation, that made it a bit more straightforward. It was also very expensive but the guy I hired is good and he knows he's good so didn't have to low bid the job. (I also liked that his bid didn't change during the job). We have an old house and he personally lived in an old house so was accustomed to the eccentricities and surprises of old houses. Overall, I felt VERY lucky. Maybe in time, contractors will get more experience but for now, it is scary what a risk you are taking hiring someone for this job. If I hadn't had the extra information for this contractor, I might have just chosen one of those "kits" - check out the Schluter web site (linear drains are a bit expensive but worth it) and definitely the forum run by John Bridge. I think a homeowner shouldn't try hiring for this kind of job without doing a lot of research and having a lot of confidence in the contractor they end up hiring. Angies list had a couple of reviews that looked interesting if I hadn't of found the contractor I ended up with. Good luck.

Your "better bet" is to have the shower floor slope away from the entry and to have the linear drain on the back wall of the shower. That will allow you to minimize floor slope to get the required 2" drop if you are required to have a code-compliant shower. There are no out-of-the-ordinary issues with linear drains stopping up or clogging. An occasional problem with them is having the drain at the shower entry. Sudsing action from soap/shampoo can sometimes cause suds and water to sheet right over the drain's grate and puddle out on the bathroom floor. There are some locales that prohibit trench drains at the entry to the shower. The idea of dropping the floor framing in the shower is an excellent idea. If you do go with the drain at the shower entry, use a membrane to waterproof your bathroom floor out a few feet away from the shower entry. With a linear drain you'll be using a topical membrane throughout the shower floor. That can usually be carried out onto the bathroom floor. And one clarification regarding your post: "The contractor says he will lower the floor (via the floor joists) to be about 3in lower than the bathroom floor then build the shower floor up with mud?. He says the initial entry to the shower will be flat and then slope downward to a central drain in the floor. Then: "The linear drain would be placed under the shower door where the entry to the shower begins. " Is that a description of two different showers? The first being with a central drain, the second with a linear drain? The thing is, if you're going with a linear drain at the shower entry then you really don't need to drop the framing in the shower at all. You can pretty much build the "upslope" right on top of the shower subfloor that is the same elevation as the bathroom's subfloor.

Mongoct/Live Wire Oak, Thanks for the replies. Here's a photo I took right after the hot mop was done. You see it terminates at the outer half wall surface with a 'lip' maybe 1" tall (I didn't measure it so just guessing). So that centered tile in the entry sits above that and during a normal shower the water line (water that splashes over the drain to the door) doesn't go past about halfway the thickness of those half walls or doesn't go past the glass door that's centered between those half walls. So if I understand what you're saying about the capillary break, the tiler should've physically separated the thinset/mud under the entry area tile by creating a physical divider barrier to separate it from the thinset/mud under the rest of the tiles on the bathroom floor? I'm picturing a thin vertical layer of sealant (or membrane) from the bottom of the tile surface through thinset all the way through the mud down to meet the hot mop 'lip'? That would then form a barrier and force the water that gets under the tile to stay in the pan and go back towards the drain. I'm still trying to get a feel for how much water could be sitting under my bathroom floor (worst case) or if it's limited to a few areas of damp thinset due to wicking that are showing up as dark grout spots (best case?). Relative to the amount of water that seems to be making it down the drain, how much water are we talking about that could be wicking out through the thinset/mud/grout? 10%? 20%? 50%? How long does it take for the water that eventually sits on the concrete slab to evaporate or absorb into the slab itself? And what damage would this cause long term assuming the water never makes it to any wood?