New Construction Shower Doors In Ferndale, MI
On a build, glass is the last thing through the door and the one item nobody can order off a plan set. Here is where we fit into your schedule, what the shower has to be before it can be measured, and who owns that call.
Glass Is A Site Item, Not A Plan Item
Most of a bathroom can be ordered off a spec sheet. The enclosure cannot. We can talk a job through from your drawing, but the panel that gets built is cut to the opening your tile setter leaves behind, right down to the quarter inch a wall leans across its height. Book the glass the day you set your tile date, not the week the walkthrough goes on the calendar, and it stops being the item holding a finished house open.
Plenty of building in Ferndale is not a bare lot. It is an addition, a second story, or a gut down to the studs, so new framing ties into walls that have stood a long time and have shifted since. Those joints are rarely square. We cut for that and it is routine, but it should steer the style conversation early. Where a full frameless header wants a true opening, semi-frameless shower doors take up that variance quietly.
Then give us a name. We need one person who decides the glass and one who calls when the shower is finished, because on a build that call sets everything after it in motion. Builders normally hold that role on a spec house. Once a house is under contract it often shifts to the buyer, which works fine as long as the date the answer is due belongs to somebody. Sort that early and glass shower door installation lands as a scheduled item rather than a punch list survivor.
What We Need From The Job Site
The Shower Has To Be Finished
We take numbers once the waterproofing, the pan or curb and the tile are done and the walls are final. Trim and fixtures can land after us. What cannot land after us is the surface the glass sits against, because every dimension on the order comes off that surface.
Getting Us Into A Finished House
By the time we show up the floors are down and the paint is on. Tell us about stairs, tight turns and anything a panel should not be leaned against, and keep the bathroom clear on install day. A big piece of glass is a two person carry.
One Spec Across Every Opening
Where a job has more than one bathroom, lock the enclosure style and the hardware finish for the whole building at the start. Rooms then differ only in dimensions. We still take each opening separately, but the buyer reads one consistent standard instead of three unrelated ones.
When The Numbers Change After The Measure
Fabrication runs off the numbers we take on site, so anything that moves afterwards matters. A second bed of thinset. A curb rebuilt a little taller. A knee wall nudged over, a niche relocated, a threshold added late. Any one of those and the panel being cut no longer belongs to the room. Fine if we hear about it, a real problem if we find out on install day. Tell us and we take the opening again, because forcing a panel into a room that moved underneath it is how glass becomes the last live item on a punch list.
Two items belong to your framer, and both are trivial while the walls are open. One is solid backing anywhere a hinge or clip will bite, since a full height panel loads that wall every time it swings, most of all on the frameless shower doors buyers keep asking for. The other is swing direction, drawn on the plan and then physically walked against whatever will sit near the opening. Rooms that refuse a stock door and panel are no trouble either. A corner, an angled wall or a walk-in with a return gets built as a custom glass shower enclosure shaped to what you framed.
- Solid backing behind the tile where hinges land
- Swing direction drawn before the walls close up
- Tile, grout and waterproofing done before we measure
- Curb or pan set and pitched in toward the drain
- Hardware finish locked with the plumbing trim order
- One name and one number for the glass decision
Common questions.
When should a builder call about the glass?
Twice. Early, with the walls still open, so backing and swing direction get drawn while changing them is trivial. Then again once tile and waterproofing are finished, for the measure. The early call is the one people skip, and it is the one that prevents what nobody can undo after tile is set.
Do you need to see the room, or can we send dimensions?
Send them by all means, they help us talk the job through. The panel still gets cut to numbers we take ourselves in the finished room. A drawing carries design intent. The glass has to live in the opening the tile setter actually left, and the two are rarely identical.
This is an addition and the old wall is not straight. Can you still do frameless?
Usually, and it comes up constantly on older houses around here. The wall gets measured as it stands and the glass is shaped to it. There is a limit, and where a wall leans beyond what a full frameless header carries cleanly you hear about it at the measure.
How do we keep several bathrooms consistent?
Settle it once at the top of the job. One enclosure style, one hardware finish, applied to every opening in the building. We carry a full range of finishes, so matching is never the obstacle. The obstacle is a choice still floating when the trim order goes out.
Who signs off when the house is already sold?
Worth deciding out loud rather than assuming. On a spec house it is normally the builder. Once a house is under contract, buyers frequently want input on glass and hardware, and that is workable. What is not workable is an open decision with no owner, because glass sits last.
What do you need on install day?
A clear bathroom, no other trade working in it, a clean path in from the door, and somebody on site who can answer a question. Plumbing, tile and waterproofing are other trades and all finish ahead of us. We handle the glass and its hardware, built and hung by our own family crew.
Framing A Ferndale Bathroom? Talk To Us Now
Call while the walls are still open and we will sort the backing and the swing with you, then come out for the free in-home measure once your tile is done. Call (586) 315-8900, text (586) 800-9481, or email [email protected]. Showroom at 42624 Van Dyke Ave, Sterling Heights, MI 48314, Mon to Fri 9 to 5, Sat 10 to 2.