Frameless, semi-frameless and framed enclosures · fabricated in our shop, templated after tiling · NYC, NJ & PA
A shower door is a piece of structural glass that gets wet twice a day, swung on hinges bolted into tile, in the one room of the house where nothing is square. Alex GC fabricates shower doors and enclosures in our own shop from tempered safety glass, templates every one on site after the tiling is finished, and installs them with hardware chosen for the weight of the glass and the wet environment. We do frameless, semi-frameless and framed enclosures, hinged and sliding, for alcoves, corners, tubs, walk-ins and steam rooms, across New York City, New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania.
This page is long because the questions are real. Which thickness, which glass, which hinge, why it leaks, why the quote from the big-box store is half ours and what the difference buys. If you only read one section, read the three decisions below; if you only remember one thing, remember that the enclosure is templated after the tile is on, never before.
Every shower door we make is tempered safety glass. That is not a preference, it is the code: glazing in and around bathing enclosures is a hazardous location, and it has to be safety glazing that passes CPSC 16 CFR 1201 Category II impact testing, so that if it breaks it breaks into blunt granules rather than shards. See tempered glass for what the process does to the glass.
Tempered glass carries one known risk: a very small number of panels break spontaneously, months or years after installation, from nickel sulphide inclusions that were in the glass from the float line. It is rare, but the place it happens is a shower, with someone standing next to it. We specify heat soaked glass on shower doors for that reason: the heat soak test forces the inclusions to fail in the oven rather than in your bathroom.
On colour, we say elsewhere on this site that low-iron glass is not worth paying for on ordinary windows. A frameless shower is the exception. The glass is ⅜″ or ½″ thick with polished edges on show, standing next to white or light-coloured tile, and standard glass at those thicknesses has a visible green edge and a green cast across the panel. Low-iron glass removes it. If the bathroom is white marble, pay for it; if the tile is dark or the enclosure is small, you will not see the difference. Our Ocean Avenue project is the low-iron case: marble bathrooms and a steam room where the green would have shown.
A ½″ glass door thirty inches wide and seventy-eight tall weighs a little over a hundred pounds — glass is about six and a half pounds per square foot at that thickness; the same door in ⅜″ is about eighty. Two hinges carry it, and they carry it every time the door is opened, for twenty years. The hinge is the part of a frameless enclosure that decides whether it still closes true in year ten.
Wall-mount hinges fix the door to the wall and are the strongest and simplest arrangement; they need solid fixing behind the tile. Glass-to-glass hinges hang the door off a fixed panel, which puts the load through the panel and its clamps and lets the enclosure stand clear of a wall that cannot take fixings. Pivot hinges at head and sill let a door swing both ways and suit heavy doors and wide openings. Offset and 135-degree hinges handle neo-angle and corner layouts. We size the hinge to the door weight rather than picking the one that matches the handle, because the handle is cosmetic and the hinge is structural.
Fixed panels are held in a U-channel or on clamps, and any panel taller or wider than the glass can support on its own gets a support bar to the wall or ceiling. Finishes are chrome, brushed nickel, matte black and brass; hardware is solid brass or stainless under the finish, because plated zinc corrodes in a shower and the finish lifts.
A shower door should swing out, into the bathroom, or both ways on a pivot. Never inward only. If someone falls or faints in the shower and is lying against an inward-opening door, the door cannot be opened from outside. It is a small design point that matters exactly once, and it is the first thing we check on a layout that someone else has drawn. The practical consequence is that the bathroom needs clear floor space for the swing, which occasionally means a sliding door is the right answer in a room where a hinged one would look better.
A shower enclosure is installed in two visits, and most of what makes it work is decided on the first one.
Shower glass is tempered without exception — the code requires safety glazing in and around bathing areas, and there is no route around it.
3/8″ is the workhorse for frameless enclosures. Rigid enough for most door and panel sizes, lighter on the hinges, and less expensive.
Either thickness can be used for a door. Which one we quote depends on the size of the door and panels, the look you want and the budget.
1/2″ is for larger panels, taller doors and anywhere the glass is a fixed panel spanning a wide opening. It feels noticeably more solid in use, and on a big enclosure the extra rigidity is what stops a door flexing as it swings.
Thickness also drives hardware. A 1/2″ door is materially heavier, which changes the hinge specification and the number of hinges — and heavy glass on undersized hinges is the most common cause of a door that sags and stops closing properly.
Frameless is thick tempered glass held by hinges and clips with no surrounding frame. Cleanest appearance, easiest to keep clean because there are no channels holding water, and the most demanding to install because the glass has to be cut to a tolerance the tiled opening rarely deserves.
Semi-frameless uses a channel on the fixed panel and leaves the door edges free. A sensible compromise where the opening is out of square.
Framed surrounds the glass with aluminium channel, allowing thinner glass and more tolerance. Cheaper, and the channels trap water and soap residue — which is what people are usually trying to escape when they ask for frameless.
Hinged gives the widest opening and the cleanest look. It needs swing clearance outside the enclosure, and the door must be able to open outward — a shower door that only opens inward can trap someone who falls against it.
Sliding or bypass on a header track needs no clearance, which is why it suits a bath enclosure or a small bathroom where a swinging door would foul the basin or the WC.
Fixed panel with a walk-in opening has no door at all. Works where the enclosure is deep enough that spray does not reach the opening, and it is the easiest of all to keep clean.
Neo-angle and corner entries suit a corner installation and need careful templating, because two walls out of square compound rather than cancel.
A shower enclosure is not watertight and is not meant to be. It is designed to contain spray and let the rest drain back inside. Leaks happen when that intent is broken, and the causes are consistent.
The opening is not square. Tiled walls are almost never plumb and almost never parallel. An enclosure cut to nominal dimensions will have a gap at one end. This is why we template on site after tiling is complete rather than working from the builder's dimensions — and why ordering glass before the tiling is finished is a false economy.
The threshold slopes the wrong way. The curb or the tray has to fall back into the enclosure. If it falls outward, no seal will hold the water.
Fixings into tile alone. Hinges carry real load and must be anchored into the substrate behind the tile, not into the tile itself. Tile will crack and the door will drop.
Missing or wrong seals. A door needs a sweep at the bottom and a seal at the vertical edges, sized for the actual gap. On a hinged door the gap changes along its length if the hinges are not aligned.
Steam enclosures are different. A steam room has to seal at the top as well, usually with a transom panel and a vent, because steam rises and escapes where a shower enclosure would simply be open. See steam room ventilation.
The dulling people blame on cleaning products is usually hard water. Minerals deposit on the surface and, over time, etch into it — at which point no cleaner will recover it.
A factory-applied protective coating makes the surface hydrophobic so water beads and carries deposits away instead of drying on the glass. It is applied before installation, it is not a spray-on product, and it genuinely extends how long an enclosure looks new. On a low-iron enclosure, where the whole point is clarity, it is worth having. See our coatings page.
The other half is a squeegee. We say so because it is true, not because it is the answer people want.
These describe the kind of work each area brings rather than any specific client project.
High-end apartment bathrooms where the enclosure is a visible design element against marble or pale stone. This is the clearest case for low-iron glass: at 3/8″ or 1/2″ the green cast of standard clear is obvious against white stone and makes the tiling look slightly off-colour. Access and building rules usually shape the programme as much as the work does.
Large houses with substantial bathrooms, frequently wanting oversized fixed panels and heavy hardware. At those panel sizes 1/2″ is usually right, and the hinge and support specification matters more than in a standard enclosure. In the coastal locations, stainless rather than plated hardware.
Older buildings, smaller bathrooms, and walls that have moved over a century. Templating is not optional here — the out-of-square is often large enough that a semi-frameless approach with a channel on one side is the honest recommendation rather than forcing frameless and accepting a tapering gap.
Whole-bathroom renovation work where we are usually coordinating with a contractor rather than the homeowner. The critical point is programme: glass is templated after tiling and takes time to fabricate, so it belongs in the schedule rather than being ordered at the end.
Send us the opening dimensions and a photograph, and tell us whether the tiling is done. We will give you a budget figure from the dimensions and confirm it at template. We fabricate enclosures in our own shop and install across Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island, and throughout Northern New Jersey, the Jersey Shore, Philadelphia and the Lehigh Valley.
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