Open the door of a townhouse hall bath and the whole room is often inside one long step: vanity, toilet, tub against the far wall. There is no honest place for a shower door to swing. A bypass enclosure hangs two panels from a single overhead track and slides one behind the other. The glass stays inside the width of the opening at all times, so the floor in front of the tub is still floor. We build them for tub alcoves and stall openings alike, cut to the width you actually have. Track, rollers and pulls come in polished chrome, brushed nickel, matte black or oil-rubbed bronze. Every panel is cut and edged at our own Lodi shop, and nothing about the measure in Mahwah costs you anything.
A bypass enclosure lives or dies on two things: a level line at the top and two jamb walls that are rarely plumb. The header is where those get reconciled. It spans the opening, carries the rollers, and gets shimmed and scribed so the track sits dead level even when the tile under it is not. Get that wrong and the panels tell on you immediately, because a door hanging out of level will creep open or drift shut on its own. We measure the opening at several heights, note which way each wall leans, and cut the header and jambs to those numbers. The panels then hang from adjustable rollers, so the last bit of fine tuning happens on site with the glass in place.
The rest is water and clearance. Two panels have to overlap enough that spray cannot find the gap between them, and that overlap sets how much glass the opening needs. At the bottom, the glass sits above the tub lip or the curb with a sweep closing the last stretch, and the guide that keeps the panels tracking stays low and easy to wipe. Modern hardware runs on rollers rather than sliding in a deep bottom channel, so there is no trough collecting soap, and the panels lift out when you want to clean behind them. Glass is tempered safety glass. Track, pulls and guides come in polished chrome, brushed nickel, matte black or oil-rubbed bronze.
Mahwah has dozens of condominium and townhome communities, Ramapo Ridge, Society Hill and Darlington among them, and their bathrooms tend to follow a handful of floor plans. The hall bath is usually a tub set into a three wall alcove with the vanity a step away, which is exactly the room a bypass door was invented for. Nothing swings, so nothing clips the vanity, and the opening stays as wide as the day it was framed. What repeats is the layout, not the measurements. Units settle at different rates, tile gets reset by different hands, and two alcoves drawn from the same plan can come out a half inch apart. We template each one, because a slider built to the plan instead of the wall is the one that binds.
The other end of the township makes the case a different way. In the larger custom homes near the Ramapo Mountains, a tub or a shower can sit in an alcove wide enough that a single hinged panel would be a poor idea: heavy, hard on its hinges, and needing a clear arc of floor that a room full of fixtures does not have. Two panels sharing a track cover that width without asking for any of it. If the tub is staying, and in plenty of Mahwah houses it is, sliding glass closes that alcove properly and the tub, the tile and the valve are never touched.
Sliding enclosures our crew has set over tubs and stall openings in Mahwah and the towns around it.
More custom glass in Mahwah: frameless shower doors, semi-frameless shower doors, shower door replacement, custom mirrors, custom glass shower enclosures, steam shower enclosures, bathtub shower doors, glass railings, commercial glass. See everything on our Mahwah, NJ page. Sliding & Bypass Shower Doors nearby: Paramus, Ridgewood, Hackensack, Fort Lee, Lodi, Midland Park, Englewood, Teaneck, Fair Lawn. Learn more about our sliding frameless shower doors statewide, or read the How much do shower doors cost in NJ? and Modern shower design ideas that last guides.
It is the classic one. A three wall alcove gives the header two solid ends to land on and the panels a straight run between them, which is everything a bypass setup wants. The tub lip becomes the line the glass sits above, and the sweep closes the rest. We check the alcove at several heights first, since the walls in an older unit rarely finish plumb, then build the header and panels to those numbers instead of the nominal width printed on a plan.
There is, and it comes down to weight and floor space. A hinged panel wide enough to cover a long alcove gets heavy, puts real load on its hinges and needs a clear arc in front of it. Two sliding panels split that width between them and never leave the opening. The other trigger is clearance: measure the floor between the shower and whatever sits opposite it, and if a swinging door would touch, sliding is your answer. We work that out with you at the measure.
Yes. The glass hangs from rollers on the top track, and the panels lift up and out when you want to get behind them or wipe the track down. That is one of the real differences between what we build and the framed sliders that ran in a deep bottom channel, where the trough held water and soap and never came clean no matter what you used on it. A modern setup uses a low guide at the bottom instead, so there is no gutter to scrub.
Width first, since the opening decides how much glass gets cut. Then the glass itself: thickness, and whether you want standard clear or low iron. Hardware is next, because the track, rollers and pulls come in different finishes and weights. Whether the glass lands on a tub lip or a tiled curb matters too, and so does an opening that is well out of square, which takes more work to close up cleanly. We look at all of it in person, then send back a written price with the pieces broken out.
Nothing in Mahwah itself, so it is a short trip to Midland Park, about 16 minutes away at 108 Greenwood Ave. It goes by appointment, so call first and we will have it ready for you. The glass and finish selection wall is what settles the choice between polished chrome, brushed nickel, matte black and oil-rubbed bronze, and the full enclosure displays put the hardware where you can get a hand on it. Our main Lodi showroom at 80 Industrial Rd is about 27 minutes south and keeps regular hours.
The measure comes first, and with Midland Park about 16 minutes out we can usually get it scheduled quickly. From there the glass and the header are cut and finished at our Lodi shop, which normally takes a week or two depending on what is in the queue and whether the finish you chose is on hand. Install is typically one visit, and the old enclosure comes out the same day the new glass goes in. Firm dates land once the order is placed and the glass is in production.
Give us the width of the alcove, and tell us what the glass has to land on, a tub lip or a tiled curb. That is enough for Jessica to start talking numbers. Call or text (201) 507-5918 with a photo, or set up the free measure and we will template it in person.
Give us the width of the alcove, and tell us what the glass has to land on, a tub lip or a tiled curb. That is enough for Jessica to start talking numbers. Call or text (201) 507-5918 with a photo, or set up the free measure and we will template it in person.
Text Jessica directly and she'll get right back to you. To speed things up, include:
