Shower door/panel - fitting in a dodgy alcove

[Lobster]

I'm scratching my head a bit over how to fit a shower door to a stone resin shower tray in an alcove. The difficulty is that the tray doesn't quite fill the width available, added to which the ceiling above slopes. Bit hard to explain so I've uploaded pictures and more details to some webspace so if you're interested in helping please click here:

text is copied from the link] Shower tray, plinth and door have all just been assembled 'dry' so far, for the picture. The question is, how best to fill the gap on the right, in between door and the wall, as outlined in red and green (it's approx 10" from wall to edge of door frame)?

Ideally, the infill would be a customised glass/metal shower panel of just the right size; however at the top of the gap to be filled there is a slope (due to the roof) which makes life awkward...

My intention is to completely box in the area outlined in red using Aquapanel and tiles, so that on three sides of the alcove, there will be a tiled surface butting right up to the top of the tray; but what to do with the area outlined in green? This bit will have the shower door frame attached to it, so needs to be pretty firm; however because it overlaps the shower tray at the bottom how would I fix it to the tray firmly enough, and maintaining it waterproof? And what should I make it from?

Any thoughts gratefully received!

David

[John Rumm]

Hence a few questions:

Is the tray wider than the door? Do you expect the tiled inner walls that face into the shower to butt up against the side of the tray, or are they going to be stood a bit away from it?

Build a studwork frame and clad in WBP or shuttering ply. You can then fix expanded metal lath to the surface that faces the shower and render it before tiling.

I take it the door is narrower that the tray then...

A few options spring to mind:

Glass bricks (either in their own on in a wood frame) would build a wall that is sturdy enough to fix the door too.

You could just use more studwork and tile it.

A DG window maker might be able to make a PVC frame to match the space.

Build nice looking wood frame and clad the whole thing on the inside with a polycarbonite/acrylic sheet.

[Lobster]

Very boring actually - the tray and door are both butted up flush left in the alcove (should have clarified that, sorry)...

.... therefore, yes, by the amount visible in the photo

On the three sides of the alcove without a door, I'll butt aquapanel up to the side of the tray, then tile down as far as the tray (ie so the tiles will basically overhang the tray

Yup. In fact, I drew the red and green outlines slightly wrong, and in doing so I rather missed the point! Which is that the green-outlined area has a cut-off top too, and that is the reason why I couldn't buy a shower tray exactly the same width as the tray - the door I bought is as wide as I can get in there. (FWIW I've update the picture on

gives the general idea, although it's still not quite right.

Thanks for these. All sort-of along the lines I have been thinking but am still concerned how rigid any of these would be, given (a) I can't screw the bottom of the frame, or whatever, downwards (as the tray's there) and (b) it has to support the opening shower door frame.

Cheers David

[John Rumm]

I just did something similar but went for render on top of the panel so that overlaps the tray. That way if any water were to get through the tile grout etc. it would reach the render wich is still overlapping the tray.

I presume you mean door the same width as they tray... Yup I can see why you went the way you did.

Hmmm...

One might argue that you _could_ screw to the tray if you really wanted to - drill a hole carefully, perhaps use a hollow wall toggle fixing in it etc.

Having said that I would not bother, since if you have a bit of wood and butter the bottom of it with silicone before sticking it onto the tray, you will find that it sticks *very* firmly.

Another thought, can you hinge the door from the other side? That would reduce the loading on your extended side panel greatly.

It looks like your aquapanel will be fixed over studwork. Hence the interface between whatever goes in your greeen outline and the red section can be very stong since you can screw straight through the aquapanel into your studs.

Personaly, I think I would build a wood "figure of 8 section" frame.

e.g:-

__ | | | | |--| | | |__|

It can be screwed to the aquapanal/studs on the right. The bottom cross member would be siliconed to the tray. All of them would be tennoned into a vertical posts on the right and left. Since the right hand one is screwed firmly to the aquapanal/studs, the left hand end is not about to move anywhere. If you wanted still more rigidity, you could take the jamb that door is fixed to (i.e. the left hand side of your green area) up to the ceiling and fix it there. Finally silicone a acrylic sheet to the inside of the frame and seal all the edges.

All done in PAR 2x2" hardwood and varnished would look nice. Of go for softwood if painting. I might be tempted to route a roundover on the edges of the wood that face into the room.