Heavy glass,held by almost nothing

Three-eighths is the workhorse for frameless doors and handles most residential openings without complaint. Half-inch is stiffer, quieter and noticeably more solid in the hand, and it becomes the practical choice on tall panels and wide fixed lites where 3/8 would start to read wavy. The catch is weight: glass runs 12.98 lb per square foot per inch of thickness, so a 30 by 76 inch door goes from about 77 lb in 3/8 to about 103 lb in 1/2. That extra weight lands on the hinges and, through them, on the wall — which is why the thickness question and the blocking question are really the same question.

Because the glass is cut to the tile, not to the framing. Tile thickness varies, thinset varies, a wall that was plumb when it was framed is rarely plumb once it is tiled, and the curb ends up where the tile setter puts it. We measure the finished opening at the top, the middle and the bottom, check plumb on both jambs and check the curb for level and slope, then cut to what is actually there. Templating off a drawing produces glass that fits the drawing.

For a frameless swing door, yes. The hinges carry the entire weight of the door and also resist it trying to pry off the wall, and both of those loads have to land in solid framing. Cement board and tile do not carry that over years of use. If your walls are still open, this is the moment to add blocking, and we will mark the locations for your contractor. If the walls are already closed, we can often work with heavy-duty anchoring or move to a channel-mounted or header-supported design instead, but pre-installed blocking is always the stronger answer.

Two or three heavy-glass hinges and nothing else. A wall-mount hinge bolts through the tile into blocking; a glass-to-glass hinge clamps the door to a fixed panel or a return, so the load goes into the glass instead of the wall. Fixed panels are held either in a continuous U-channel or on two clips. There is no top track and no perimeter frame, which is exactly why the hinge schedule and the wall behind it get sized before anything is cut.

Yes. A shower or bathtub enclosure is a hazardous location for glazing under IRC R308.4.5 and IBC 2406.4.5, so the glass has to be safety glazing and it has to carry a permanent mark identifying it. We use fully tempered glass throughout. Tempering puts the surfaces into compression, which is what makes it several times stronger than annealed glass of the same thickness and what makes it break into small blunt pieces rather than long shards.

Usually. Older homes across DC, inner Maryland and Alexandria routinely have walls that lean, and it is normal rather than a defect. A wall profile or U-channel absorbs roughly a quarter of an inch over the height of a panel, and beyond that we either scribe the glass to follow the wall or move to a design with more built-in adjustment. What we will not do is order glass without knowing the number, because past about a quarter inch the gap visibly tapers and there is nowhere to hide it.

Bypass sliders. Nothing swings, so nothing needs floor space in front of the opening, which makes them the right answer over a tub or in a small bathroom where a vanity or a toilet sits close. A swing door needs roughly its own width plus a couple of inches of clear floor to open into, and that clearance is measured to the nearest fixture, not to the nearest wall. If a swing door is what you want and the clearance is not there, reversing the hinge side or narrowing the door solves it more often than people expect.

A neo-angle cuts across a square corner with two side panels leaving the walls at 45 degrees and a door hung across the diagonal. It buys usable floor space in a bathroom where a rectangular enclosure would eat the room. It is also the least forgiving layout we build: the angles are fixed by the hardware, so the base and both walls have to agree with the geometry. We template a neo-angle off the finished base, never off a drawing.

Yes, and it is one of the most common requests for aging-in-place work. Without a curb, the water containment moves entirely to the floor slope, the position of the head and the length of the glass, so the enclosure has to be designed alongside the tile and the drain rather than added at the end. A longer fixed screen or a short return panel usually does more to keep the floor dry than a door would.

Often, if the hardware is sound. We look at the hinges, clips or channel, the wall fixings and the curb condition during the visit and tell you honestly whether the existing hardware is worth keeping. What we will not do is hang new glass on hardware that has already loosened or corroded, because the glass is not the thing that failed. Note that new glass has to be fabricated to the old cutout pattern, so the existing panel has to be measured, not guessed.

Tempered glass is under permanent internal stress. Cutting, drilling or grinding it releases that stress and the whole panel breaks apart, so every hinge cutout, handle hole, bench notch and polished edge has to be finished before the glass goes into the furnace. Our shop rules are a hole diameter of at least one glass thickness, a hole no closer to an edge or to another hole than twice the thickness, and no closer to a corner than six times the thickness. Everything downstream of that depends on the template being right.

A steam shower is sealed rather than vented, so the glass runs to the ceiling, the joints get continuous gaskets instead of the deliberate gaps a normal enclosure lives with, and a transom at the head opens to air the room out afterwards. Ceiling height becomes a hard constraint: once you add the curb, the header and the transom, a tall enclosure can simply not fit under an eight-foot ceiling. That gets resolved before the glass is cut, not on install day.

Squeegee it after each use. Most of what clouds shower glass is dissolved mineral left behind when water evaporates on the surface, and DMV water carries enough of it to matter; removing the water removes the problem before it starts. For buildup that has already formed, a white vinegar and water solution dissolves it without harming the glass or the hardware. Avoid abrasive pads and scouring powders, which scratch the surface microscopically and make future deposits stick harder. Protective coatings are available and we are happy to talk through the options at the measurement visit.

The measurement visit is short. Fabrication runs several business days once the glass is cut, tempered and, where relevant, coated, and specialty finishes such as reeded glass are made to order and take longer. Installation is typically a half day. The realistic answer for any specific enclosure comes after we have seen the opening, because a neo-angle in reeded glass and a bypass over a tub are not the same job.