If you’re planning on remodeling your bathroom, you’ve undoubtedly seen the increasingly popular frameless shower doors. This type of door is constructed using special brackets instead of the heavy frame and gives your bath a sleek, minimalist look. However, there are advantages and disadvantages to this type of shower door.
Benefits of frameless shower doors
Angi’s shower door installation experts see a lot of benefits to frameless shower doors. These include:
- Aesthetics. There’s no denying that a frameless shower door has an attractive, sleek appearance.
- Less opportunity for mold. One of the downsides of traditional shower doors is that “impossible to clean” area beneath the lower track. Over time, this is a great place for mold and mildew to accumulate. Frameless shower doors don’t have such a track.
- Greater versatility. Frameless showers come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Conversely, with a traditional shower door, you are limited to a door on a track.
Reasons to opt for a traditional shower door
There are also a few reasons you might not want to switch to a frameless shower door, according to our Angi experts. Just a few of these include:
- Cost. Frameless shower doors are considerably more expensive than traditional shower doors. Frameless shower doors, installed, cost between $300 and $3,000 for labor and materials. This compares to between $200 and $500 for a traditional shower door.
- Less potential for leaks. The seam where the glass comes together in a frameless door has the potential to leak, unlike a traditional shower door, which contains all the water behind the door.
- Less likely to break or shatter. While this shouldn’t keep you from buying a frameless shower door, there have been rare instances of glass shattering on frameless doors. This is caused by tiny chips or cracks in the glass, what is known as a nickel sulfide inclusion, a problem that occasionally occurs during manufacturing. However, the glass used in shower doors is tempered, so that if it does break, it shatters into tiny pieces that are less likely to hurt someone.
While a frameless shower door isn’t the right choice for every homeowner, this type of door is stylish, less prone to mildew and mold, and offered in a variety of shapes and sizes. Our team at Angi (formerly known as Angie’s List) feels it is wise to carefully weigh the pros and cons of both types of doors before making your final decision.
