Installing a Steam Stopper over a large Shower

A customer approached us with a bit of a difficult problem.

‘Install a Steam Stopper over a large Shower’

We had previously sold them a large (1600 x 900 ) shower enclosure with a semi frameless sliding door set (similar to what you see above) which has been installed in their home.
The shower was such a hit that it created a new problem in that the kids were taking longer and longer showers, generating steam and moisture in the bathroom. Their freshly painted bathroom was steaming up with their teenage children taking long showers and they wanted to eliminate the steam that was creating crying walls and steamed up mirrors in the bathroom.

The clients we’re aware that we also manufacture the Steam Stopper to stop steam in the bathroom.
They approached us wanting to know if we had a Steam Stopper solution for their large shower which is obviously bigger than standard Steam Stopper sizes.

They wondered if we had a Steam Stopper, which could be fitted to their Shower, to solve the problem.

The shower is 2mtrs high with overall dimensions of 1600x900mm.
The Steam Stopper dome height is 190mm, ideal to enable some of the higher shower heads.
The ceiling height in the bathroom is 2.4mtrs high.
The door set is an attractive semi frameless sliding glass enclosure, that has no top rail across the door opening.

After discussing the project with our staff, we came up with  2 possible solutions.

Option #1. Fit two Steam Stoppers end to end so that they effectively cover the whole shower.
Option # 2. Fit a modified Bath Dome onto the shower which is potentially a one piece option.
You can see a Bath Dome here https://steamstopper.co.nz/product/bath-dome-steam-stopper/

Option #1.

As the internal, installed size of the shower is 1570mm x 870mm (the area the Steam Stoppers needed to cover), we selected two 900x 760mm Steam Stoppers from our range and trimmed them both to suit the installed size of the shower.
We needed to trim both edges from the 2 Steam Stoppers so that the ‘Dome’ was centralised.
See How to install a Steam Stopper  click on  https://steamstopper.co.nz/cutting-steam-stopper/
We also needed some way of supporting the front edge of the Steam Stoppers where they span the door opening.
A standard Steam Stopper install requires U-channels ( supplied ) fitted to the back and end walls of the shower.
This then allows the Steam Stopper to be easily removed for cleaning without needing to be hard fixed to the top of the shower.
The two ( 1 long and 1 short U-channels ) which are screwed to the walls stay in place permanently, but the front and side ‘U’ channels (which supports the Steam Stopper over the open door section and the return glass in this case) remains unfixed and removable with the domes for easy cleaning. 
We thought these aluminium U-channels would be perfect to support the front edge of our Steam Stopper across the open door section and that assumption proved correct.
This successfully gave the support to the front edge of the Steam Stopper assembly so that the sliding glass door panel was not scraping or catching the underneath of the Steam Stopper when opened and closed.

Another issue was how to join the two separate Steam Stoppers together so that they became one and still easily removable .
We sourced an ‘H’ section plastic jointer available from Building Supply stores and cut it to length to act as a jointer between the two Steam Stoppers.
A clear ‘H’ jointer is also available which we can now supply which looks a bit better!
Our first thought was to glue this jointer to both Steam Stoppers but after some thought realised that it would then make it harder to remove and clean the Steam Stoppers so we’ve decided (and confirmed) no glue is needed.

Some final adjustments were needed but the end result works and looks great.The clients are very happy with the finished installation, but more importantly happy with the fact that their bathroom no longer steams up.
The Steam Stoppers effectively stops steam being generated and fixes the misted mirror and crying walls problem.

The next project is to try an alternative to this current solution by installing a long, one piece, Bath Dome instead of 2 separate Steam Stoppers.

 Click on the any image below for a larger view