They can, and the cause is almost never the glass. A frameless door hangs with deliberate clearance so it can swing without binding, and that clearance is closed by vinyl sweeps, a jamb seal on the hinge side and a drip rail beneath the panel. When water gets out, one of those parts is missing, worn or cut short.
Three small vinyl pieces do all the sealing on this kind of door. A sweep runs along the bottom edge and rides just above the curb. A clear jamb seal closes the hinge side where the door meets the fixed panel or the tile. A drip rail sits under the door at a slight angle to throw water back inside rather than letting it wick along the underside and drop outside.
All three are consumable parts. Vinyl goes hard, loses its lip and stops making contact, and a stiff sweep looks perfectly fine from across the room while passing water freely. They pull out of and push into the same channel along the glass edge, which makes this the first thing to check and the least expensive thing to correct.
These doors are hung with intentional clearance, a small consistent gap, because tempered glass cannot be trimmed afterward and a door with zero clearance binds against tile the first time a wall moves. The gap is engineered, not a defect, and closing it with more silicone is the wrong instinct.
It does mean water aimed at the hinge side has a path. On a door swinging out over a curb, the hinge stack sits right in that path, so a jamb seal that is missing, short by an inch at the top, or fitted to the wrong face announces itself as a thin steady trickle at the hinges. A header bar, where one is used, sits above the water line and is almost never the culprit.
The last variable is behavior. An enclosure with a wall mounted head pointed at the door is being asked to do something no seal handles well, and a handheld pulled off its bracket puts water at angles nobody laid the enclosure out for.
Two habits fix most of it. Aim the head at the tile wall rather than the glass, and give the door a few seconds to shed before swinging it open, since a large panel carries a surprising sheet of water on its inside face and opening it immediately dumps that sheet onto the floor outside. On a door that swings outward over a curb the habit counts double, since everything the panel is holding lands beyond the enclosure rather than back inside it.
Because tempered glass is finished before heat treating and cannot be adjusted afterward, and because walls are not straight. The clearance lets the door swing freely past a wall that leans and through seasonal movement in the framing. Vinyl seals close that gap against water while leaving the door free to move.
Yes, and they are meant to be. Sweeps and drip rails slide into a channel along the glass edge and come out with steady hand pressure, no tools and no hardware removal required. The only trick is matching the profile to the panel, since a 3/8 inch sweep will not grip a 1/2 inch piece of glass.
A worn sweep, a jamb seal cut short and a curb pitched the wrong way all produce the same wet tile, and only one of them is a quick fix. Bring measurements and a photo of where the water lands to the walk-in showroom floor in Lodi.
