Replacement or full renovation, the buying path is the same: a glass shop measures the finished opening and builds to it. Accurate Glass & Mirror handles both for Washington Township, with a free in-home measure, panels fabricated in Lodi, and a showroom about ten minutes from town in Midland Park.
A straight replacement is the more common job, and it is not a like-for-like swap. The old unit came with a bottom track and side jambs that hid a great deal. Take them out and the tile underneath tells the truth: screw holes, silicone residue, a curb that is not level, sometimes a chipped edge where the frame was doing the covering. All of it gets read at the measure, because new glass has nothing to hide behind.
Existing holes usually fall within the footprint of the new hardware, or they get filled and sealed. Where they do not, the hinge plan shifts to land on solid backing. The measure is when we decide which of those two things happens, with the frame still off and the tile in plain view.
On a renovation the call comes after waterproofing, tile and grout are complete, since panels are cut to finished surfaces. It is worth a conversation earlier than that, though. Five minutes before the tile goes up can put blocking where a hinge will want it, get the curb pitched properly, and confirm header height for a tall opening. Those are simple to arrange in advance and awkward to fix afterward.
If a general contractor is running the project, we can coordinate with the schedule directly so the glass is not the thing everybody ends up waiting on.
Silicone is the usual mess. Old sealant peels away, but it leaves a shadow line on the tile and sometimes in the grout, and it needs cleaning before new glass is set against it. A rusted track can stain the curb as well. None of this is unusual, and it is a good reason to have one crew remove and replace rather than splitting the work between two companies. Ours does both ends of that job, licensed and insured, and the panels going back in are cut and edged at our own shop before they are tempered.
Usually yes, and the opening rarely needs changing. What changes is the tolerance. A framed unit adjusts to the room, while frameless is cut to it, so the walls and curb get measured far more closely than they were the first time around. Occasionally a wall needs backing added where a hinge has to land.
Small holes are filled and sealed, and in many layouts they end up hidden behind the new clips or hinge plates anyway. Larger damage where a frame was through-bolted may need a tile repaired by your tile contractor. We flag anything like that during the measure so it is not a surprise later.
Washington Township is about ten minutes from the Midland Park showroom, which sees people by appointment. Call (201) 507-5918 and ask for the free measure, then mention whether the old enclosure is still in place, since that changes what we look at when we arrive.
