Shower Door or Curtain: What’s Best for My Bathtub?

You’ve probably been told at some point that every house needs a bathtub, that a tub increases home value, or that potential buyers are looking for a bathroom with a tub to bathe they’re young children. We’re not here to debate the merits of these claims; the fact is, most homes do have a tub, including yours.

For the purpose of our discussion, we will be talking about shower/tub combos and not freestanding soaking tubs.

Do you go with a rod, liner, and curtain? Or do you invest in a glass door enclosure? The choice you make will affect the look and feel of your bathroom and how practical the tub ends up being for your everyday needs.

Let’s answer a few questions in this article to help you make the best decision for your bathtub.

How is Your Tub Used?

Is your tub in a guest bath that only gets used a few times a year when you have company? Or is this shower used every day, multiple times a day?

Considering how often the bathtub is used for showering, you can start to drill down to the pros and cons of your differing options.

For example, for the rarely used guest bath, investing in a shower door will largely be for visual appeal and to add a touch of luxury to your space; whereas a curtain provides very little practical advantage to a shower that is dry over 300 days out of the year.

What if, though, you use your tub several times a week for your little one’s bath time? Practicality is paramount in this situation; you need easy access to the tub and to the water valve, not to mention keeping the rubber ducky from straying too far from your toddler’s grasp. Needing to stretch and reach around a standard shower door might prove to cause more problems than solutions. In this case, a shower curtain might very well be the best solution if you choose to have anything at all.

Another option that can give you maximum access to the tub would be double doors- two frameless swinging doors, one mounted to each wall, typically meeting in the middle of the tub. This solution would require that any toilet or vanity is far enough away from the tub that a swinging door could open fully without making contact with an obstruction. You can easily access the back of the tub and the water valve with both doors fully open.

This system might present some challenges, however, for a tub that is often used as a shower. Having 2 frameless doors on a bathtub has the potential for water leakage, especially if there is a hand-held nozzle that could easily be pointed in the direction of the glass.

In this situation, a more water-tight solution might be recommended.

What Type of Tub Do You Have?

This applies to both the style and material of the bathtub. Here are a few examples:

*For our purposes here, we will only be referring to alcoves- tubs surrounded by 3 walls

Cast iron tub with a porcelain overlay

Fiberglass surround, shower/tub combo

Stainless steel

Fiberglass/acrylic

Jacuzzi

Drop In

Cast Iron

Due to the nature of the material, you should not attempt to drill into cast iron tubs. This can limit some of your options when it comes to shower doors. A framed or semi-framed slider would be a workable option, but you want to keep in mind that having a metal frame on the tub would make it uncomfortable to lean over when bathing a child.

When thinking about a frameless door option, consider the slope of the top of this type of tub. Oftentimes the slope can be uneven, causing the water to flow outside of the tub rather than toward the drain.

NOT SUITABLE: Frameless double sliding doors

POTENTIAL FIT: Frameless swinging door with stationary inline panel; splash panel (partial enclosure), Frameless single slider

BEST FIT: Semi-framed double slider; shower curtain

Fiberglass Surround/Acrylic Kit

This is a one-piece shower and tub combination. Fiberglass and acrylic mounting surfaces are not great candidates for completely frameless shower doors; if it’s possible to fit a frameless door (depending on the specific tub), special hardware would be needed to properly support the heavy glass. The surfaces of these kits can have significant bowing. The width is also typically less than a standard shower, making pre-fabricated doors a less-than-ideal fit. Height is important to consider with this type of tub; the walls might only extend 5 feet or less above the bathtub. When you need to mount a header for your shower door, you will need to decide if you want to mount only on the fiberglass walls and have a potentially short door, or will you mount vertically beyond the fiberglass and into the drywall? This might require extra metal filler pieces for a framed slider.

NOT SUITABLE: Pre-fabricated sliders

POTENTIAL FIT: Semi-framed double slider, frameless sliders, frameless swinging door, splash panel

BEST FIT: Shower curtain

Stainless Steel

This is another material where you should strongly consider whether or not to drill.

Drop-In

What is the layout of the rest of the bathroom?

Most bathrooms with a tub have a total area of around 5 feet wide by 8-10 feet long. While these dimensions can vary a bit, this space is where you need to fit the shower, the toilet, and the vanity. To give the toilet area some privacy and to have easy access to the sink when entering the bathroom, the toilet and tub usually end up next to each other.

Does this mean that you can’t consider a swinging door for your tub? Not at all! We find that there is generally enough space for a normal size door, even if it doesn’t feel like a door would fit.

An exception to this might be when both the toilet and vanity are next to the bathtub. This would make it impractical to mount a swinging door to one of the walls. A slider might end up being the only option if you want a door in this scenario.