A custom glass shower enclosure in Wayne is held together by more metal than a single door ever needs: clamps at the walls, connectors where panels meet, hinges for the door, and now and then a bar across the top. Every piece of it ends up in view, so we plan where each one lands as carefully as we plan the glass, from a neo angle in a small bath to a three panel front in a large one. The glass is cut and edged at our Lodi shop, and nobody but our own crew installs it.
Take a corner unit, a neo angle or a three panel front apart and you find clamps where glass meets wall, connectors where glass meets glass, hinges for the door, and sometimes a bar across the top when a panel has nothing beside it to lean on. Add it up and it is more hardware than most people picture, and every piece of it is something you will look at. So the metal gets planned the way the glass does. Clamps go at the walls wherever the layout allows, where they sit against tile instead of floating in the middle of the view. Where two panels meet, the connectors are set at matching heights so they read as one line across the run, and the bar across the top goes in where a panel needs it and is left out wherever the glass can stand without it.
Along the curb there is a second choice. Fixed panels can sit on small clips, which show as a few dots of metal at the base, or in one continuous channel, which shows as a line and forgives a curb that is not quite even. The clips give the cleaner look and the channel the more forgiving one. On a curb capped in one flat piece of stone the clips almost vanish, while a curb finished in small tiles, with grout lines under the glass, usually wants the channel, which covers the joints and gives the sealant one straight edge to follow. At the measure we say which your curb suits. Then there is the finish, which on an enclosure is chosen once and turns up on every clamp, connector, hinge and clip together, so it is worth seeing the hardware itself at the showroom rather than on a chart.
Wayne has seen a steady run of tear-downs, older houses taken down and replaced by larger custom homes, and a larger house usually brings a larger primary bath with it. When the shower in one of those baths stands out in the room rather than tucked into an alcove, with two or three sides open, the question becomes how much of it you want closed. A three panel front with a door keeps more water and warmth inside. An open screen with no door at all leaves an entry around its end and asks the room to accept a little more splash in exchange for nothing to open. Neither is right everywhere. What decides it is where the head points, how far the shower runs from the entry to the spray, and what the floor outside the open end is finished in.
An open screen has conditions of its own. It has to run far enough past the spray that water falls short of the entry, and the floor beyond its open end should be one that can take a splash without complaint. A three panel front asks less of the floor and more of the finish, since it carries more hardware, which is exactly where planning the metal pays off. Either one is templated once the tile is set, whoever built the room. And where a stall is taking the place of an old tub in one of Wayne's older houses instead, your contractor handles the demolition, the plumbing and the tile, and the glass follows once that work is finished.
Wayne bathrooms, with a few from Franklin Lakes and Oakland, fitted with enclosures that range from a small neo angle to a three panel front. The clamps, connectors and hinges in them went where the glass needed them and nowhere else.
More custom glass in Wayne: frameless shower doors, sliding & bypass shower doors, semi-frameless shower doors, shower door replacement, custom mirrors. See everything on our Wayne, NJ page. Custom Glass Shower Enclosures nearby: Paramus, Ridgewood, Hackensack, Fort Lee, Lodi, Midland Park, Englewood, Teaneck, Fair Lawn, Mahwah, Wyckoff, Tenafly, Franklin Lakes, Ramsey, Glen Rock, Montclair. Learn more about our frameless shower enclosures statewide, or read the The ultimate guide to custom shower doors and Shower glass thickness: 3/8″ vs 1/2″ guides.
Often, in a small room. A neo angle trims the corner off at an angle, so the front of the shower steps back and leaves more floor in front of it, and the door hangs on that angled face where it has room to swing. The trade is inside: you give up the square corner of standing room. A square corner unit keeps the full footprint but pushes its door further into the room. Standing in the bathroom with both outlines in mind usually settles it quickly.
They can, and on a big enclosure it is a fair question, because the clamps and connectors sit against tile all day while the pull sits in your hand. Most people carry one finish through all of it, but a pull in the finish of the faucet with plainer clamps behind it is a legitimate choice, and the connectors between panels can follow either. You can see the finishes side by side at our Midland Park showroom, by appointment, before you decide.
In some ways. There is no door edge, sweep or strike seal to wipe, and far less hardware to work around. But the screen is one large sheet that takes the spray full on, so it spots faster than a door tucked out of the stream, and the floor at the open end sees water that a door would have stopped. Plenty of people find the trade worth making; a quick wipe once the day's last shower is done covers most of it.
They should not. Fixed panels are clamped at the wall and held along the curb, and the door closes against a seal rather than bare glass, so the contact is soft and the panel stays put. If a fixed panel ever moves when the door shuts, it is telling you a clamp has loosened, which is a small adjustment rather than a glass problem, and worth mentioning to us rather than living with.
That end gets support of its own. Depending on the layout it clamps to a knee wall, sits in a channel fixed to the curb, or ties back to the panel next to it with a glass to glass connector. Which one we use comes down to how tall and how wide that panel is, since an unsupported edge on a big piece of glass wants to move. We settle it at the template and show you exactly where the metal lands.
Lodi is the place for that. Midland Park, about sixteen minutes from Wayne at 108 Greenwood Ave, is by appointment only and keeps glass, hardware finishes and samples rather than displays. The main Lodi showroom, about eighteen minutes away at 80 Industrial Rd, keeps full enclosure displays and a glass and finish selection wall, and it is open without an appointment Monday to Friday 9 to 5 and Saturday 9 to 4. There is no showroom in Wayne itself.
Tell us where you stand when you look at the shower, from the vanity or through the bedroom door, and call (201) 507-5918. That view decides where the clamps and connectors should sit, and we work the rest out at the free in-home measure in your Wayne bathroom.
Tell us where you stand when you look at the shower, from the vanity or through the bedroom door, and call (201) 507-5918. That view decides where the clamps and connectors should sit, and we work the rest out at the free in-home measure in your Wayne bathroom.
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