When updating a shower area your primary concern should be to design a space dedicated to your me time. Comfortable, relaxing, an oasis where you can spend some quality time with yourself. Aesthetics and functionality always go hand and hand when designing a shower area.
Whether you’re remodeling an outdated master bathroom into a luxury personal spa, or deciding to maximize the available space in a smaller bathroom for the kids, whatever your personal design preferences, considering a frameless shower door can be your golden ticket to a beautifully designed bathroom.
While frameless shower doors can have a complex installation process, when you hire a professional design team who not only helps you select but also install your shower door, the entire process becomes a piece of cake.
If you want a modern, minimalist bathroom design, that gives you twenty-four-hour access to a five-star spa, this stylish shower enclosure could be it, but there are some things you should consider first.
The Benefits And Downsides Of Framed Shower Doors
While both choices can turn any shower from dull to elegant, both framed and frameless shower doors do have their pros and cons. Before choosing a shower door, consult with a local glass door company to hear about the benefits and drawbacks of frameless vs framed shower doors.
If you feel you want to know more now, here we’ll discuss the differences between the two so you can purchase the shower door that fits your bathroom’s design and budget.
Benefits Of Framed Shower Doors
The framed enclosure includes a metal framing that goes along the door frame and each individual glass panel. Normally priced lower than a frameless shower door, their framed counterpart is much simpler to install, making them easier to fit into any bathroom remodeling budget.
This sturdy heavy-duty aluminum frame holds the glass shower door in place when sliding it open and close. The frame around a glass shower door adds strength and stability, drastically reducing the chance of the door snapping off its hinges and shattering. When you install a framed glass shower door it’s as simple as setting up the metal frame, then placing the shower door inside.
One of the biggest benefits of framed shower doors is that they’re virtually leakproof since they’re positioned on a track that traps water. With a layer of caulk and an airtight design to defend against spillage, the watertight design of a framed glass shower door prevents shower spray from getting on your bathroom floor.
Downsides Of Framed Shower Doors
While framed shower doors can come in a variety of striking styles, such as copper-painted frames and frosted glass, the frame does have some downsides. When looking at your bathroom space as a whole you might notice that the metal framed shower door obstructs your view of the inside of your shower. If you spent all this time and money choosing exotic tiles and luxury shower fixtures why wouldn’t you want them to be readily displayed?
Having a limited range of motion, a framed shower door will only open outward, inward, or along the tracks of the frame. As you can see, the framed counterparts of frameless shower doors unfortunately have an outdated design when installed in a bathroom with modern finishes.
While framed shower doors can sometimes look as glamorous as a frameless one, part of the big reason why people avoid them is because they’re more difficult to clean and maintain. The framed design has pockets and crevices where excess moisture is trapped, allowing mold, mildew, and soap scum to build up in hard-to-reach places along the shower frame.
While both shower door designs have their merits, most homeowners in Massachusetts and New Hampshire prefer to install frameless shower doors.
Why Should You Install A Frameless Shower Door?
Providing your bathroom design with a high-end, sleek modern aesthetic, installing a frameless shower door is something we can all appreciate. While a framed glass shower door requires the support of a metal frame, a frameless enclosure does not.
Frameless Shower Doors Are Modern And Stylish
Most consumers right now really appreciate the stylish appearance of a walk-in shower with a frameless tempered glass door. With several styles, sizes, and configurations frameless shower doors offer plenty of design options for any type of bathroom renovation project.
A Wider Range Of Motion
Frameless shower enclosures don’t use metal frames to stabilize the glass door, instead opting for hinges, ceiling support arms, a headrail across the top of the frame, or the most popular option which is centering the door with a panel on both sides.
Shower door hardware like hinges give you a wide range of motion, allowing you to open and close the shower door inward or outward. Compared to their framed counterparts, a frameless pivot shower door is a fully customizable option for anything from a tub-shower combo to a jetted jacuzzi bathtub.
Frameless Doors Are Easier To Clean
Since there’s no frame trapping any excess moisture from the shower spray, a frameless door becomes effortless to clean. The insides of a frame become the nesting environment for collections of soap scum and mildew, over time developing into a hideous problem.
Without a frame, shower doors won’t collect the same amount of slimy debris, as these doors only require you to wipe down the tempered glass and included installation hardware. There is nowhere along a frameless shower door where extra water will build up.
Easier To Repair And Replace
Besides being simpler to clean, deciding to install a frameless shower door in your bathroom is tremendously easier to replace in the event of any unlikely accidents that damage the glass or hardware. While with framed shower doors you need to order the replacement materials from the original manufacturer, frameless options can use parts from many different manufacturers.
More Visually Appealing
In this day and age of modern bathroom design, a stylish frameless shower door can really accent the elegance of your new shower tiles and shiny chrome fixtures. When you compare them to traditional shower enclosures, the pros of a frameless shower door heavily outweigh the cons.
Why Shouldn’t You Install A Frameless Shower Door?
While Perry Brothers Construction strongly urges homeowners to consider the benefits of installing a frameless shower door compared to a framed one, there are a few downsides to keep in mind.
Frameless Shower Doors Are Expensive
Unfortunately, if you desire the allure of this beautiful type of shower door design, the biggest downside you’ll come across is the combined price of purchasing and installing a frameless shower door. Typically, the overall cost of a walk-in shower ranges from $4,200 to $8,500, and a frameless glass shower door can account for $500 to $1,500 of the total price.
The cost difference is mainly because of the heavy ½ inch-thick tempered glass used for frameless shower doors. While tempered glass is strong and sturdy, weighing 80 pounds or more, if it falls and breaks, the dangerous shards of glass could damage your tub-shower area. This is because the glass of a framed shower door doesn’t have to be as thick because it’s supported by the metal frame surrounding it.
The other main reason for the high price of frameless shower doors is that the labor is more demanding, often requiring two individuals or more to hold and install the glass door. Using specialized hinges that can handle the added weight, this pricier hardware should only be installed by professional bathroom remodelers.
Unstable And Fragile
While extremely unlikely to happen, a glass shower design does have the potential to break and cause a mess in the bathroom. While not as stable as a framed shower door style, the frameless option is still safe, but like with anything else there’s the chance of an unfortunate event.
The glass of a frameless shower door could’ve been warped during the manufacturing process, resulting in weaker structural integrity, so when someone closes the door a little too hard, there’s the potential for disaster.
Let Perry Brothers Construction Install You A Frameless Shower Door
With fifty years of experience Perry Brothers Construction has been the go-to bathroom renovation contractor from Essex County to North Hampton New Hampshire. Whether you have a glamorous master bath that needs a fresh makeover or an odd-shaped smaller bathroom that needs an effective redesign, we can help build you an oasis that you’ll never want to leave.
With our expertise, the process of installing a frameless glass shower door for your bathroom redesign will be a breeze. From selecting the frameless shower door to installing and securing the heavy tempered glass, our professional bathroom design team can do it all and much more.
If you’re interested in scheduling a free consultation to learn more about our bathroom renovation or remodeling services visit our website at Perrybrothersconstruction.com or call our office at 781-233-7511. We look forward to hearing from you.
