Custom Glass Showers

3/8" (10mm) tempered glass is the default for frameless shower doors up to about 30" wide and 80" tall. It's stiff enough to resist visible deflection when you open and close the door, light enough that two-person crews can handle install without lifting equipment, and meets the load and impact requirements of the major hinge manufacturers (CRL, Frameless Hardware Company, Coastal Industries) for residential applications.

1/2" (12mm) tempered is required for doors wider than 30", for doors taller than 84", for any door with a full-height single hinge configuration, and for steam showers where the door is sealed top and bottom. It's also our default for high-end primary bath jobs where the homeowner wants the visual weight of thicker glass — the difference at the edge view is significant. A 1/2" door at 36"x84" weighs roughly 110 lbs of glass alone, and the hinge spec changes accordingly.

We never recommend 5/16" (8mm) glass for residential frameless showers despite some discount fabricators offering it. The deflection is visible after the first year, the edge stress concentration at the hinge holes is higher, and the hardware compatibility is poor.

Low-iron Starphire glass is the upgrade option — about 20% pricier than standard clear, but it eliminates the green tint at the edges and through-thickness. Worth it on showers where the homeowner sees a lot of the glass edge (curbless doorless walk-ins, oversized fixed panels).

Wall-mount glass-to-wall hinges: the standard configuration for in-line shower doors with the hinge attached to the bathroom wall (not to a return glass panel). The hinge anchors carry the entire door weight in shear — substrate matters enormously. Tile over solid backing (cement board, Schluter-Kerdi, Wedi) holds anchors well; tile over drywall does not, and we won't install glass-to-wall hinges into drywall substrate without first sistering structural blocking inside the wall.

Glass-to-glass hinges: used when the door hangs off a fixed return panel rather than the wall. Avoids the substrate issue entirely. Common in neo-angle and 90-degree configurations. We spec CRL's Geneva series or Frameless Hardware Company's M-series for residential, both rated for doors up to 110 lbs.

Pivot hinges (top and bottom pivot pins): the cleanest visual look — no visible hinge body. Limited to doors up to ~30" wide and ~75 lbs. Requires precise sill and header alignment because the pivot pins are unforgiving of out-of-plumb conditions.

Finish: brushed nickel and matte black are the current high-volume finishes in NJ. Polished chrome remains specified on traditional designs. Champagne bronze and brushed gold are growing in primary bath remodels. We stock all five finishes from CRL.

Frameless doesn't mean unsealed. Every shower door we install gets a polycarbonate or vinyl door sweep at the bottom (drag seal), a magnetic strike jamb at the latch side when meeting a fixed panel, and a polycarbonate side seal at the hinge side to bridge the 3/16" gap between door and wall. Without these, water sheets out of the shower onto the bathroom floor — the #1 reason homeowners call us back on installs other contractors did.

For curbless walk-in showers and large no-door enclosures, water containment depends on the shower floor slope (1/4" per foot toward the drain, minimum) and the glass panel length and offset. We measure the wet zone — typically a 24" radius from the showerhead at standing height — and place the fixed glass panel to contain the spray within the enclosure. Multi-head and rain-head configurations need taller and wider containment.

Door clearance: a frameless door needs 3/16" to 1/4" clearance under the door to operate over a curb or threshold without binding. The door sweep bridges that gap. On a curbless install we drop the door to 3/8"-1/2" above the tile so the sweep makes consistent contact with the slope.

IRC R308.4.5 mandates safety glazing for any pane in a shower or tub enclosure where the bottom edge is less than 60" above the standing surface. In practice that's every shower enclosure pane we install — fixed panels, doors, transoms, return walls. All tempered or laminated, all marked with the manufacturer's permanent etched designation per CPSC 16 CFR 1201 Category II.

Tempered glass cannot be cut or drilled after fabrication. Every hole for hinges, clips, knobs, and towel bars has to be fabricated before tempering. That means precise hardware layout at the measure visit — once the glass is tempered, mistakes mean re-fabrication and 7-10 day delay. We do CAD layouts on every frameless job and confirm hole locations with the homeowner before sending to fab.

For multifamily and hotel applications in NJ, IBC Section 2406 imposes additional safety glazing requirements on access aisles and pedestrian areas — relevant when shower enclosures border egress paths in studios and lofts.