Trust us when we say you don’t really need a shower door. Who has time to remove the streaks (not to mention the hard water and soap scum stains)? Doorless showers for your bathroom conversion are a much better option.

Glass shower doors require constant cleaning to look their best. If you don’t use the right tools and cleaners for the job, you can end up with a mess that makes your bathroom look outdated and unclean.

If your glass shower doors are looking less than lustrous these days, you could spend time researching the most effective ways to keep them sparkling like new. Or you could schedule a consultation for a bathroom conversion project that replaces outdated glass doors with a better alternative.

In this blog we’ll discuss:

• What is a doorless shower?
• What are the pros and cons of doorless showers?
• Are doorless showers cheaper?
• How do you keep water in a doorless shower?
• Where can you find doorless showers?

What is a doorless shower?

Doorless showers are a great alternative to traditional showers with glass doors. Sometimes called walk-in showers, they are designed in such a way that you can keep water off your floors without using a door or curtains.

Another important distinction is that doorless showers only contain a walk-in shower. They can’t be used as a bathtub-shower combination.

Doorless showers first emerged in the U.S. in the 1980s but were limited to high-end homes. Today, anyone doing a bathroom conversion or remodeling project can request a doorless shower.

What are the pros and cons of doorless showers?

It’s not difficult to spot the benefits of doorless showers. One of the biggest advantages is easier maintenance. Gone are the days of scrubbing your glass doors several times a week. As a bonus, without glass doors in the way, you can get a deeper clean for the shower surround.

Some of the other pros include:

• Added market value. Some upgrades to your home don’t increase its overall value. Doorless showers aren’t one of them. A study of homebuyer behaviors revealed home sellers who had added a doorless shower during remodeling sold their properties for as much as 5% over their asking price.
• Improved accessibility and safety. Doorless showers don’t require a high barrier, so you can easily step into them. That’s good news for anyone who plans to age in place. Anyone with mobility issues for any reason also appreciates this feature.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the disadvantages of doorless showers (there are some). The biggest issue is the lack of privacy. Without a door, there’s not much of a barrier between you and anyone else who may wander into the bathroom.

Other cons include:

• Lack of heat retention. Glass shower doors and curtains help hold in heat, which is important during the colder weather months. You may need to install a separate space heater near the doorless shower.
• Reduced space. To make a doorless shower work well (and keep water off your bathroom floors), you need ample space. Doorless showers require a gentle slope toward the drain and a properly angled showerhead to pull it off. Not every bathroom has enough space to accommodate.

Are doorless showers cheaper?

Yes and no. Installation of doorless showers tends to be cheaper. However, the product itself can be pricier than a traditional shower.

The reason doorless shower products cost more is that they require a specialty drain that prevents water from getting onto your bathroom floor. Normally, a shower door would prevent this. Without one, the design of the doorless shower must perform that duty.

How do you keep water in a doorless shower?

Using a specialty drain is one way to keep water in a doorless shower. Another popular way to keep water in a doorless shower includes overlapping short walls at the shower’s entryway.

Using this design to prevent water from exiting the shower involves two short walls, one on each side of the shower. In addition to keeping the water in the doorless shower, it provides the added benefit of more privacy for the person using the shower. The only downside to this method is it requires ample space to accommodate the two walls.

Other ways to keep the water inside your doorless shower include:

• Installing a rainfall showerhead to keep spray from bouncing off the shower walls.
• Sloping the shower floor slightly to direct water toward the drains and away from your floor.
• Using multiple drains to keep up with the water flow.

Where can you find doorless showers?

Just Bath’s team of bath conversion specialists can install a doorless shower during your bathroom in one day project at your request.

Before installation, our team ensures your bathroom has adequate space to accommodate a doorless shower. If we find your bathroom is not suited to this kind of shower for your bathroom conversion, we can make other recommendations for bathroom remodeling strategies that work.

Request a free quote for your next bath conversion project on our website and receive 20% off with no payment or interest until 2023!