Attaching a frameless glass shower door to a glass block wall

General Questions
#1

We’re doing a bathroom remodel in a small bathroom that is compromised by a staircase slant on one wall and doorways on both ends of the room (one out to the kitchen, and one to a bedroom).

I’ll spare you the sordid details and just say that we’re going to do a custom tiled shower stall and need to conserve as much internal space in the shower stall as possible, while also letting in as much ambient light as possible with 2 of the 4 walls.

So right now I’m weighing the options of doing

a) one wall with glass blocks and a perpendicular frameless glass door.
b) one wall as a frameless glass partition with a perpendicular frameless glass door.

I like the idea of the glass blocks better, but I’m concerned about the stability of the attachment points for a glass door. I’ve been searching around all afternoon and the best demonstration of a technique I’ve found is to drill holes in the grout between the glass blocks, and use silicone adhesive and plastic wall anchors as per http://www.clevelandglassblock.com/glass-block-shower-accessories.aspx in their answer to Question 3: ‘How to install a semi-frameless shower door system in a glass block wall’. Now granted the illustration is for a semi-frameless shower door and I’d like to do frameless, but the same general attachment technique would apply, I assume.

Has anyone done something like this with glass blocks? Do you think it will hold? I can either put the door clasp on the corner with the glass blocks or the door hinges.

#2

Yes, I have done similar projects. The screws and anchors alone may not hold but once the silicone sets the door track will be secure.

#3

how about securing the pivot doors to the ceiling and floor?

How about making another glass wall partition instead of a door? Extra support. and more space to put other stuff against.

How about using a clear transparent shower curtain (rod fastened to either the ceiling or the glass wall). Saves a lot of space as it doesn’t have a turning circle.

How about just not having a shower door? What would go wrong then? If you make drains in the floor and tilt the floor so that the water runs towards it, it may even save work. It is not much more work to squegee the floor then to squegee the floor AND the shower door.

#4

There’s no need. Glass block walls, if built correctly, are much stronger than most believe and can easily support the weight of a glass door.

Sure, but I think the OP is going for some aesthetics and is not going to all the work of tiling and glass blocks to finish it with a plastic shower cutain.

That said, depending on the size of the opening you could install a set of sliding glass doors as well.

3 basic reasons:
1.) Privacy
2.) Temperature - to contain the heat in the shower stall while you’re in it.
3.) Moisture - to contain the humidity to the shower stall and exhaust it to outside.

Allowing the heat and humidity to migrate from the shower to the rest of the room and your house can create several problems including mold, mildew, frost, etc.
It’s always best to minimize moisture at the source.

They do this for larger shower areas or say handicap accessible showers etc.
Of course, cost is one major issue. Waterproof wallboard and/or membranes are expensive plus the added cost of tile and labour.

Another major concern would be in the event of a clogged shower drain (which happens quite often) The curb of your shower stall will prevent any flooding from spreading to the rest of the room and the rest of your house. You would never be able to slope your floor enough to achieve the same height or effect.

#5

Fair enough. Although I have seen many shower doors (especially in hotels) where the strips (not the glass) had yellowed and lost shape so water pooled in, and generally showed its age. Whereas a shower curtain, which can be repaced for a couple of bucks once a year, can be a fresh and fashionable aesthetic accent.

Also, a shower curtain is generally much less work then a shower door, or a sliding door. It doesn’t have to be squegeed after every damn use.

Shower curtains, if long enough and hung high enough to the ceiling, can keep in heat and humidity just as well. You need to have an forced air vent near your shower anyway, regardless of choosing a door or a curtain. many shower doors don’t reach the ceiling either.

The only drawback I see to a curtain is that your shower stall needs to be wide enough, OR have upstanding edges (from a bath or high shower curb) where it can cling to. Otherwise, the bernouilli effect will have the shower curtain cling to your body, and that gets really annoying real fast.

#6

Aesthetics aren’t a HUGE priority, but we’re spending a good chunk of change to do this, so I’m hoping we can make it look nice. Being able to stand up and fit into a shower-like space alone will be cause for celebration. That being said, a simple shower curtain isn’t off the table yet by any means, and I’d also consider using the ceiling and the floor to attach a door. The lines will be cleaner if we can attach directly to the glass cube wall though, and we don’t have room for a sliding door.

It is the privacy factor that has me leaning toward glass blocks instead of a clear glass wall, and we still need a way to get into the shower, so I’m not sure I follow the suggestion of using two glass walls. The other two walls will be the corner of the room.

The old tub and vanity are being removed today, which will give me better access to complete the demolition, take some pictures and measurements and finally get some accurate plans drawn up for the framing and drain placement.

Thanks for sanity checking the glass block technique. It is good to know it is a valid option. I was also thinking that I could alternate something other than glass blocks into the edge of glass block wall that would provide a better substrate and more options for placement of the anchor holes. It could even be expensive waterproof something if I only had to use a couple of pieces of it.

#7

Some before/during shots.

Apologies for the lack of multiple angles, but that’s my fault. I figured the less photographic evidence that there was ever a cramped pepto-bismol-vomit-pink bathroom the better.

This is a shot from the bedroom doorway prior to any demolition. You can barely see the edge of the tub that was removed today on the right.

This is a shot taken today from the kitchen doorway once the tub was removed. The hole in the wall that you can barely see in the corner is where we’re going to be adding a small extension, such that the new shower will be oriented perpendicular to the depression left by the old tub, running parallel to the stairway stringer slant (that you can just barely see at the top of the picture. So the front half of the new shower will be rather dark and surrounded by tile on three sites, around the corner to the left. The proposed glass block wall and door will be out in the exposed center of the room without getting too much in the way of walking through the room from one door to the other. And we’re going to put a pedestal sink somewhere immediately under the staircase around where the end of the tub depression is in the floor.

#8

I meant like this.

#9

Gotcha. I don’t think we have room for that either, but as you can see it is still pretty much a blank canvas, so I’m not really ruling anything out yet.

#10

I’d go with option B. I do a lot of bath remodels and I do what you’re proposing often. I’ve never used glass block admittedly, but it’s because I’ve seen examples of glass block not lasting as a structural element (granting that it is probably due to being improperly installed).

#11

We are probably going to go with a glass partition, custom cut to fit our oddly shaped space. The room is so small, that the extra inches we’d loose due to the chunky width of the glass blocks actually impacts the layout of where we can put our sink and still have a clear path to walk comfortably through the room, if you can believe it.

#12

I am also planning to do a major bathroom renovation a few weeks from now. I have a similar idea:

I did a little research and found out that frameless shower doors can do the job perfectly. I would also go for option B (one wall as a frameless glass partition with a perpendicular frameless glass door) I think it will add up to the aesthetics and brightness of the room. If you what you are looking for is an ambient light, then i think shower curtains are not an option.

I am still looking for the kind of glass shower door suited for my bathroom. I am currently browsing online and found this site http://www.eframelessshowerdoors.com Does anyone have an experience buying from them?