Upgrading an old shower is a great way
to refresh your bathroom.
Installing a brand new shower enclosure
is actually a job you can do yourself.
I'll show you how it's done easy as.
The one I'm installing is the round Calais model.
Make sure you check the instructions that
come with the enclosure you're installing.
And if you've got any doubts, just
get in touch with a licensed shower installer.
And as always, check with your local council
to make sure you're up to date with the latest
regulations in your area.
Now a really good tip before you kickoff,
you might want to take out your shower liner
and just let it open up because it
can get a little bit of a memory from sitting
in an awkward position.
Now as you can see, I'm in a studio environment.
But it doesn't matter what style shower you're installing,
the principles are still the same.
The main thing is that your walls are plumb, straight,
and square.
And if you're in an older style house,
you want to ensure that your floor is level.
You may need to put some self-leveling compound down
before you start.
One of the first things we have to do
is slip our shower tray in and make sure
that your waste pipe lines up.
Now, what I'm going to have to do
is cut some nogs that are going to go just
above the shower tray.
The reason for that is it's going to take our wallboard,
and also it's going to give solid support for our shower
liner.
Now you're also going to need some solid fixing for where
our door screws to our wall.
So as you can see, I've actually got some solid timber
running all the way up.
My door starts about 20 millimeters
in from the edge of my shower tray.
If you didn't have that, you'd also
have to put some solid fixing on the end to take your door.
[HAMMERING]
[STAPLING]
A wee tip, before we silicone and glue,
grab a piece of cardboard and trace the curve of the corners
to use as a guide for cutting the GIB Aqualine later.
Now, it's a good idea to take a quick photo
of the position of your plumbing and framing
for future reference.
Now the shower tray actually comes with a slight film on it,
so what we're going to do is leave the bulk of the film on.
And we're just going to peel the back that's
off that's kind of up against the wall for now.
Now this particular shower comes with its own silicone
and adhesive.
But if yours doesn't, just double
check exactly what type of adhesive and silicone
you should be using.
Now, before I put the shower tray in, what I'm going to do
is add some silicone to the bottom plate.
Now the reason for that is because when
you stand on the shower tray, if the shower tray is actually
touching the framing, you could get a bit of squeaking.
So this is just acting as a buffer.
Now, we're just going to add a little bit of our adhesive
to the bottom of the feet before we slide it in.
Leave the tray for 24 hours to let the adhesive set.
Now, just put some cardboard so I can stand on here.
That's going to protect my tray as well.
Now when we cut our GIB Aqualine,
we want it to be 10 millimeters above the top of the shower
tray.
And also, I want it 10 millimeters off the floor
as well.
So 105 millimeters is exactly what
I'm going to cut off the bottom of our wallboard.
The width of my tray is one meter,
and I'll set my combination square to 105 miles high
and continue that across.
I've cut out my cardboard corner,
and I'll use that as a template for the curve.
I could then use my utility knife to cut that section out.
Okay, now I'm just using my ruler as a 10mil packer.
I've applied adhesive to the wall,
and I'm just ready to throw this in now.
For more information on installing wallboard,
check out the "How to Re-lign a Room: Easy As Guide."
Right.
I'm just about ready to measure out to cut holes out
of our wallboard.
So just so wee note to remember that our GIB Aqualine is
actually going to be 10 millimeters
off the top of our shower tray.
So I'm just going to take that measurement.
953, and I'll take 10 millimeters off that.
So that will be 943 to the center of my mixer.
And it's 1,500 to the center, so I'll take off 10 millimeters,
so that's 1,490.
14,90.
280.
And 280.
I've transferred the measurements
onto the GIB Aqualine.
Now just before you drill the holes out,
you just want to double check your instructions that
come with your mixer just to make
sure you're cutting the hole size as per instructions.
And also as a double check, you also
want to take your face plate and just
make sure that that is going to cover your hole nicely.
[DRILLING]
Now, so what we're going to do is just
temporarily take our shower liner over to the wall.
And there's a couple of different things
we're checking for.
One, that it's actually the correct width for the shower
tray.
And the other thing is we want to be looking
to make sure that our shower liner is actually
sitting hard down and parallel with our shower tray.
OK, now as you can see, that's sitting
there absolutely beautiful.
If yours is slightly out of parallel, what you can do
is rule a pencil line parallel with your shower tray.
Take it over to a solid surface, and gently shim that off
with a sharp block plane.
I'm just about ready to mark and drill out
our shower liner for our mixer.
What I'm going to do this time is actually
measure hard off our shower tray because that's
exactly where our liner is going to be sitting.
Just before I crack on and drill our holes out, a couple of wee
points.
The dimensions that I've got here,
I'm going to take off two millimeters for the thickness
of our liner here.
So I've got 380 mils off my wallboard,
so I'm going to take 2 millimeters off that.
That'll bring it down to 378.
Now just before I drill the hole,
I've double checked my dimensions of the hole size
with my instructions that come with the mixer.
And also, I just go really nice and slow
and make sure that your drill bit is really sharp.
[DRILLING]
It's really important that you just
do this over the top of a solid surface.
[DRILLING]
Place the liner in position.
And using a pencil, mark around the edge
so you know exactly where to apply the adhesive.
Then apply silicone in a continuous speed,
10 millimeters from the top of the shower tray.
And at the very end, come down onto the tray and return
about 100 millimeters just to ensure a waterproof seal.
Now, the tip when putting the glue on,
we want to come in from our pencil line
that we put on around the shower liner.
80 millimeters, and we're going to do strips
of 80 millimeters vertical.
I'm not going to do any horizontal strips whatsoever
except for right at the bottom.
The reason for this is, a gas will come off
the glue as it sets, and the vertical lines
will allow it to escape out the top.
Wipe the back of the liner down to get rid of any dust
or grime.
And then to attach, place the corner in first,
and then fold each side onto the wall.
Now, you can see the silicon right
down the bottom that's oozing out on that point.
That's exactly what we want to see.
And then just wipe the excess silicon off with a damp cloth
before smoothing the liner down to help the adhesive take,
and then leave it to dry.
I'm just going to peel that back just on that edge
just enough to get the wall profile on.
Now add a bead of silicon to the back of the wall profile
before fixing it to the wall.
Now as per my instructions, it says
I have to to allow three millimeters
from the inside of my shower tray
to the outside of my wall profile.
[DRILLING]
Now it's just a really good idea just
to double check that it is level and when you're installing it.
And then, do the same on the other side.
OK, I've got my wall profiles on,
now it's time to start assembling our door frames.
So what I've got is a bottom extrusion and a top extrusion.
So what we've got here is a side panel.
Now when we're installing these, we've
got this little locking mechanism
on the side that's going to connect it to the wall profile.
So at this stage, we're going to leave that open.
So to do this easily on my own, I'm
just going to assemble this on the table.
Now be careful with the edges of the glass.
Don't place it on any hard surfaces without protection
as it could shatter.
OK, the first thing we do is slide our channel
onto our glass.
And now we're just going to attach it
with a couple of screws at the back.
[SCREWING]
Now effectively, it's exactly the same for all four corners.
To keep it nice and easy, grab a spare pair of hands
to help you lift the frame into place.
On this side here, I'm just half sitting it
into our wall profile so I can concentrate on this side here.
Now our channel wants to go on the outside of our wall profile
here.
And it's not going to go in properly
unless we've got our locking mechanism fully opened.
Once I've got that in, I can then lock it and then
start working on the other side.
OK.
Now that we've got it all locked into place,
next thing we need to do is make sure
that our outside channel here is parallel with our shower tray.
So we're just going to release the locking mechanisms
on the bottom only.
And then we're just going to pull that out
off the wall on either side.
So it should be around about eight millimeters
off the channel.
And then we'll just lock it back into place.
Now that the bottom's set, we're just
going to make sure that the top is plumb.
To do that, I'm just going to release the locking mechanisms
at the top.
And using our level on the glass,
we're just going to plumb that.
Pull it out so it's looking good.
And lock it back up.
OK, the next thing we're doing is putting our seals
on to our glass.
Now we're just making sure that the flat is on the inside,
and we're going to start from the bottom and work our way up.
Use a rubber hammer to softly tip the seal on, and then
do the same for the other side.
Next thing we do is put our handles on.
So with these handles here, we've
got a set of screws that hold these two together.
So we want the holes, the screw side,
on the inside of our glass.
[SCREWING]
Just before we take our doors over to our shower unit,
we're just going to attach these seals.
Now with these ones, we're going to make sure
that the flap is facing outwards.
Same deal, start from one end and work your way along gently
with a rubber hammer.
[HAMMERING]
All I have to do now is fit the doors to our rails
now obviously, our handles are going to go into the middle,
and we've also got a sticker on our door
indicating which way is up.
We've got a safety lock in the middle of our wheels here.
We just want to make sure that they're turned to the side
so we can actually get it in.
And then once we get the wheels in,
we can lock those back in place.
We also just want to make sure that our seals of the door
is on the outside of these seals here.
So we're going to install that.
And then we're going to put that lock back in.
Now with our bottom rollers, these are pretty simple.
All we do is push these down, and they just
clip into the bottom of the track.
The next thing we have to do is put our seals to the doors.
Now these have actually got a magnet on each side of them,
so they join together quite nicely like that.
Now, it's really important when you do put these on the doors,
there is a way that it's supposed to go on.
So as you can see, there's a slight angle on each of them.
So depending on which way your water source is coming from,
you want to put it on the door accordingly.
So my water source is coming from here,
so I want to make sure that when the water hits it,
it's not going to go through the seal that way.
So I'll be installing that one on this door.
OK.
So they're joined in really nicely.
But if you find that your doors are only hitting on one
end, easy way to fix that.
Got a little bit of adjustment on these screws
in both of the doors.
You can wind those in or out, and that'll
move the door left or right accordingly
to which way you want to go.
Now, if your shower's got a sliding door,
now's the time to install your adjustable doorstops.
One of the last things I have to do
is apply the silicone from where it
sits on top of the shower tray.
Now, I've already put some masking tape there,
which is pretty much level with the top of my tray.
And I'm just going to fill that full of our silicone
that comes in our pack all the way around.
And I'm just kind of come up the wall 100 millimeters.
Now just a really good tip, when you are applying your silicone
you never actually want to put any silicon
on the inside of your shower.
It's always on the outside.
Now you can remove the rest of the protective film.
Now as part of council regulations
they require a bead of silicon at the top of the shower
liner all the way around, so we have
to wait at least 24 hours for the adhesive of the liner to go
off before we can do that.
That's the job done.
There's your new shower enclosure.
And it was easy as.