Need to install grab rail in shower. Difficulty; ceramic tile.

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have a wonky hip and knee, opposite sides. I need to install a grab rail in my shower which is lined with ceramic tile. Will an electronic stud finder work through tile? Can’t very well drill exploratory holes looking for one. What kind of drill bit do I need to drill ceramic tile?
Anyone have experience with this?

I’m living in the house I grew up in, bought it from the estate when my mom died. Now that I’m old myself (62) I regret not making sure a grab rail got installed for my mom when she was in her eighties! Thankfully she never fell in the tub/shower but I should have made that happen.

2

I’m going to follow this thread as I need to do the same. I’m 59 with very wonky joints.

3

Please for your own safety, have this professionally done. It’s nothing to experiment with.

4

A poorly or improperly installed hand rail is worse than none at all.

Please seek professional help.

5

Actually, I have this same question. I have long been of the opinion that all towel racks need to be grab bars.

6

What is in the room behind the shower? Perhaps you can locate the studs from that side.

7

My father fell and broke his hip a year and a half ago; once he had recovered enough to be able to go upstairs again (which is where the only shower is in their house), my mother and my sister put in some grab bars that are affixed to the wall with strong suction cups, as they have a solid plastic tub surround that was put in decades ago.

They seem to work reasonably well, though I would not be surprised to learn that they could come off the wall if enough force was applied.

8

My mother has that type of suction cup grab bar in one bathroom, but they’re not ideal as they can fail at the wrong moment.

9

BTW, this is another option; it’s a grab bar that is attached to a pole that is wedged between the floor and the ceiling.

10

How handy are you? I think I could install a grab rail in my shower with ceramic tiles and feel secure with the outcome. But I have had experience a) finding studs in a variety of walls, and b) drilling through ceramic.

I haven’t tried it but I don’t know any reason why a stud finder would not work through a single layer of typical bathroom tile. In any case, it wouldn’t hurt to try one to see, since it is the first step before you actually drill. I assume you know how to use a stud finder, they keep improving them, but I always test multiple times and when I get the same results enough times I conclude that I have found the stud. After the first one, it should be easier because studs are usually 16" on center unless your bathroom walls were constructed a very long time ago, or had a dodgy contractor.

Drilling through ceramic takes a little practice. If you have spare tiles of the kind in your shower, practice on some of them first (leave some to replace any tiles you might crack in error). If not, buy a few of the closest you can find and practice on them. They sell ceramic drill bits at the home center, the ends are sort of spade shaped and they have a special coating like diamond dust or something. The object of your practicing is to drill a hole without cracking the tile. Start your drill on the slow setting until it has gotten through the glazed coating, then you can speed up a little. When you are satisfied with your skill, go ahead and tackle the real thing. Of course, once you are through the tile, switch to a drill bit for wood to complete the hole. I assume you know to make the hole the right size for the screws you are using.

If you find this in the least daunting, and if you don’t have replacement tiles that match the ones in your bathroom, I concur with those who urge you to hire a professional. If you buy your grab bar at a home center, they will probably have references to professionals who can install it. If you are seeking outside help, I don’t think I would necessarily trust an unbonded handyman with the job.

Good luck, and let us know what you decide to do.

11

Lots of good ideas, thanks. I’m pretty handy but not so much with home improvement type stuff like this. I’m fairly sure there is a box with leftover tiles in the attic to practice drilling.
Now that I think about it, my mom was using a shower chair and a grab rail thing that clamped to the tub. That may be in the attic too.

Don’t know why I didn’t think to look there first but there are several YouTube videos for this exact thing. I haven’t watched any yet but will soon.

12

Watched two videos and apparently hitting studs is not required. The rails come in lengths that don’t match stud distances unless you slant them.

13

And the right size hole in the tile is bigger than the right size pilot hole for the screw.

CMC fnord!

14

I’ve watched several videos now and 3 or 4 of them are done by professionals that do them regularly. Now that I see that finding studs through the tiles isn’t necessary I’m much less intimidated by the job. In one video they do use an electronic stud finder which appears to work through the tile but he only anchors one end to the stud because the bar is not the same length as the distance between studs. The other end gets screws with anchors. I have an electronic stud finder somewhere but haven’t been able to find it yet so can’t test it. I think the next step is to buy some bars and decide what type of screws or wall anchors I’ll be comfortable using. What kind of anchors I use determines what type of hole I need to drill.
I’m kind of leaning towards this guys method. It’s not the best video overall because he’s mostly done when he remembers to start video-ing but the fasteners he uses look to be the easiest and most straightforward and also require drilling smaller holes which in my mind would be less likely to break a tile than drilling 3/4 inch holes some of the other anchors require. The results appear adequate. The initial steps he didn’t video are covered in other videos.

15

I would not use those Walldogs. I wouldn’t trust them to not pull out.
I’d use something like a “snaptoggle” bolt.

16

When we remodeled our condo I was in my 40s, and I had my GC have a grab bar installed in my shower. Haven’t really needed it much until the last year or two…over 20 years later. Really glad we had it done at the time.

17

Yeah some of the other videos I watched used those. I would also feel comfortable using them because they don’t require such a huge hole.

18

If the wall itself is solid you can use an adhesive-mounted grab bar like this:

Of course if the wall is something flimsy like fiberglass, you will need to drill into a stud. But ceramic tile is likely okay for adhesive.

19

That is frankly terrifying. So many potential points of failure.

Has water seeped behind the tile degrading the adhesive?

How solid is the surface that the tile is attached to? Will it pull apart when it is needed most?

If this intended to be in use long term, please look into getting a permanent solution.

20

OK, I saw a few YouTube videos on this. Seems like something on the edge of my competency.

Now tell me, where in the shower does one install these things? One at nipple-level in the shower? Maybe a vertical one near where you enter and leave the shower?