Many people as they get older struggle to get into a bath, especially it is very high sided or has no grips or handrails. When it gets to be a little too difficult then one solution is to change from a bath to a shower. The following image shows such an installation.
Sometimes when baths are removed for this purpose they are replaced with level access shower trays. These are designed for use by people with quite extensive disabilities and can be accessed by a wheel chair. These serve a purpose but they are not very attractive, are not cheap and offer no advantages over a large standard cubicle to someone who can walk in to a shower. In this instance the customer decided to install a walk-in shower in a modern frameless design. The cubicle has a showering area and a drying area (with a wooden duckboard) and the glass panels are fixed so there are no moving parts as would be the case with a pivot door or bi-fold shower door . The shower tray was installed flat on the floor to ensure access remained as easy as possible.
The bath was removed with the aim of installing the large shower in its place. Obviously the removal of the bath would leave visible damage to the walls so the customer opted to use our waterproof wall panelling to cover up the affected area. These are ideal for use in such applications as they are easy to install, can be fitted over a variety of substrates and, importantly from the end user’s point of view, require no maintenance.
Removing a bath and replacing it with a shower can have ramifications for other occupants in the house but in this case there was only one person living at the property so the decision made sense. Families with small children would usually prefer a bath to a shower so a solution involving an over bath shower might be more appropriate. As the bathroom showroom saying goes:
“You can have a shower in a bath but you can’t have a bath in a shower.”