Frameless Shower Sliding Doors

Hello. In this post, I'll be looking into frameless shower sliding doors in general, as well as one particular product on the market. First though, there's the whole sliding thing. Now doors come in different forms and varieties. There's the usual door set up and installation where in order to access what's behind the door, you simply pull it toward you or push it away from you, and then step through, and then when you wish to close it, you simply perform the act which is the reverse of the opening motion. That's a fairly straightforward process and for many other points of exit and entrance around the house, it is this type of motion which tends to be used. Why is that? It could be because the construction and installation is fairly straightforward. You have the doorway, and then you have the door, and then you find a way to use whatever set of hinges is applicable to connect to door to the doorway, by attaching it to one side. Also, it doesn't take that much strength to swing a door toward you or away from you, assuming that the hinges are of a suitable quality and that the door was installed properly, since the points of friction where parts slide against each other do not cover that much surface area, since that movement is more or less primarily limited to the hinges. And this type of door is also quite evident in shower doors. Whether a particular product makes use of glass or some other type of material, there is usually the option to simply install it in a similar manner where in order to enter or exit the shower enclosure, all a person needs to do is push the door open, or pull it open. And then the person can simply walk through, and now having entered the main area of the bathroom, the person then simply needs to push the door or pull it closed, depending on whichever one is the opposite of the motion used to open the door.

There is nothing in particular about this setup which makes it better or worse than the type of installation used for frameless shower sliding doors. It becomes more a question of suitability, especially in relation to the rest of the bathroom. The key question here tends to be just how much space there is. Given certain constraints with respect to the amount of space, it may not at all be convenient to have a shower door which either pulls in or pushes out. If the shower enclosure itself is not very large, which can be the case in many bathrooms, it would be difficult to install a shower door which pulls in, because then it would become that much more inconvenient for the person trying to get out of the enclosure. In fact, if the shower area really is quite small, it may become almost impossible for a person to walk around the door and out the doorway, because having pulled the door in, it may now be almost completely blocking the surrounding walking space. So in a situation like this, an alternative must be used. A very similar consideration exists for those shower doors which push out in order to be opened. If there is nothing blocking the area immediately outside the shower enclosure, or there is no similar space constraint existing, then all is well and good. The person can simply push open the shower door, walk out, and then push that same door back in (I just realized that I may have described the opening and closing of the door incorrectly above. If a door is usually pulled in to open, it will have to be pulled in to be closed as well, and when a door is pushed away from the person to open, it will also have to again be pushed away to be closed.).

This can be unsuitable to a particular bathroom, however, if there is something close to the area where the opening of the shower is, which might block a door and prevent it from properly opening. There may be a bathroom dresser in the way, or there may be a sink jutting out just enough to create an obstacle. Or there may be any number of things, from installed pieces to furniture, to smaller items, which could prove to be hindrances. After all, it isn't necessary that the item or items completely block the adjoining area and as a result also completely block the door from opening. It's enough for something to become an obstacle or inconvenient. After all, showers tend to get used quite often, either daily or at some other regular interval, so it really would be a pain to always have to take steps to avoid a particular obstacle on the way in to the shower, and especially when you're already on your way out, and you might still be dripping wet. A person might end up slipping and sliding onto the floor, in the process of avoiding something, which could very well be a painful experience. So in these situations when having a door swing in or out, in order to access the shower area isn't suitable for the particular size or design of the bathroom, then a sliding design may very well do the trick, and allow a relatively smaller bathroom to be used, without having to worry as much about areas for walking, and possibly bumping up against the furniture. So this is one strength in particular of frameless shower sliding doors. They can be rather versatile when it comes to bathrooms with space constraints or special design considerations, and they allow a home owner to do more with less floor area. I was supposed to discuss a particular product that I have come across, one of many frameless shower sliding doors, but I think that this post has already turned out to be rather long unfortunately, so I'll simply save that discussion for a future post.