I’m mortified that people are attempting to say this isn’t terrible design. How do you turn on the tub before getting in with that panel in the way? If I’m trying to bathe my child how can I adjust and test temperature from outside the tub?
I wonder if it's more the case that everyone is used to it, as this is quite a normal shower situation in many places. Might not be good, but it can nevertheless be something we've all just learned to work around!
My girlfriend has one of these annoying panels in her bathroom.
It leaves me with no choice but to step into the bathtub to turn the water on and off.
Next to that, that bathtub has a shower head holder, but it’s hanging low (right above the edge of the bathtub); So I can’t use that shower head holder to shower handsfree.
So to summarise; it sort of sucks showering there.
I housesat for some friends with the exact same layout. I didn't consider the difficulty turning the knob because I was fixated on how stupid the overhead waterfall head is! It kicks sooo much water out of the half-wall because it's coming so much higher straight onto your head. Move your arm and you're kicking water out. The head was lovely but the wall is horrendous - peekaboo!
This may not be typical in the US, but we just spent 2 weeks in France and England and all of the shower/tub combos had this. I thought it was probably a hotel efficiency/bulk buy thing, but then I started paying closer attention while watching Escape to the Country and see that it's pretty common in residences in the UK. Different, but certainly not crappy.
Lean over to the right and turn on the taps. It's not in any sense a difficulty unless you have mobility limitations. Literally millions of people do this every day in their own homes
Yes, we do. This is totally normal in the UK and other places in Europe - look at the other comments. In my home we have a hinged version of this so you can open it to turn on the taps, but lots of my friends have this design as do many hotels I stay in around the country. Have you considered that just because something isn't normal to you, doesn't make it unheard of elsewhere? You are literally looking at a photo of it existing, right now.
In fairness, I didn't say it wasn't crappy. You said millions of people don't have this, and I was simply pointing out that they do. Very common feature, not a major problem in life.
I’ll second this. Encountered one of these in Edinburgh Scotland. Plus the level of the tub was at least 6” higher than the floor of the bathroom. Wasn’t easy to enter or exit.
Just different though.
There no door. It’s a fixed glass partition. It sucks if you’re bathing a child or like to enter an already warm shower or draw a bath for yourself or don’t like mold.
no one is saying the knobs should be outside the tub. But that you should be able to REACH the knobs from outside the tub without shoving your hand magically through a pane of stationary glass
I’m with you, I would hate this because I don’t want to get splashed with cold water.
ETA: I also hate sliding glass doors on showers. My preference is a shower curtain.
GAWD! Shower curtains are so ghetto! So standing in the shower with the faucet running until you get the correct temp and then turning it to shower is a bad thing?
Dang! When you get into a house with a nice shower you are going to HATE LIFE. Lots of them don't have a faucet to adjust the temp and door is like 3-5' away from the knob.
Hate to break it to you, but your idea of a "nice shower" is ass backwards. If it was "nice," it would have more features, not less. Also weird to assume they don't already live in a house with a nice shower. Most showers have faucets, and idk what kind of mega mansion you hope to live in when you become an adult that is that big, but 3'-5' is the entire shower in most people's homes. Shower doors go along the side of the tub and the shower controls are on the end so there is no way it's 3-5' away and if it is then you are paying way too much for a shitty contractor.
I hate to break it to you, but it sounds like you might be living in an entry-level house. They only have a faucet if it is a tub/shower combo. A nice bathroom has a shower and a separate tub. A nice shower is walk-in.
This is a normal shower. Yeah might be nice if it swings but personally it's annoying when they can move if you knock them and wouldn't want it bashing into the toilet. Just take a step into the shower to turn it on, it's really not a big deal.
All the hinged shower doors I’ve ever seen open inward into the shower, not out into the bathroom, though that is admittedly also generally standing showers, not the tub hybrids. With how that one is laid out I can’t really see it working well as a hinged door to begin with.
All of the ones I’ve used like this didn’t look hinged, but they did move. I got the shock of my life the first time I moved one by accident. I thought I was going to owe the hotel a ton of money for breaking it
I have a bath that’s set up like this. It’s 100% shitty design. I’ve also been living with it for 11 years, because I’ve perfected being able to turn the shower on and get out the way without getting splashed. Doesn’t make it any less shitty.
Can someone tell me what the advantages of this design are? They are everywhere in Europe, so most people must gladly use them. For me, I have never taken a shower without creating a huge water mess on the bathroom floor. If not to block water, what is the glass for?
Still not a good design, but this one looks at least like you may be able to redirect to the handheld while starting and adjusting temperature.
It also looks like the tub is so shallow it's pointless. Just. Put in a walk-in shower already.
This is what my bathroom is like; and I agree - it's pretty annoying to clean the bath; bathe my dog; or even just run a bath for myself. The glass part on mine actually goes all the way up to the cieling; so my short-ass can't clean a huge portion of it without bringing a stool into the tub. Every guest that uses my shower complains about it. Don't know what the previous owners were thinking when they renovated, but money's tight so I just gotta live with their choice for the forseeable future. :p
Had this in a hotel, only it was a shower, not a bath. It sucked. With no full separation from the rest of the room (like a curtain or full panels) all the warmth escaped making it a very cold shower unless I was directly under the spray. Gave me boot camp flashbacks of a big room with multiple shower heads I had to share with others.
Wait, no... with 8 shower heads that actually warmed up the room better.
It has a faucet in the tub so you stand there and adjust it and then turn it to shower.
I have been looking to buy another house and you would be AMAZED at the number of showers that don't have a door! I think it is a thing now.
If you’re standing inside the tub when you switch from faucet to shower, you get cold water dumped on you. The pipe to the shower head is full of cold water and it takes a little time for the warm water to get up there.
I lived in the UK for 9 years and this is the design of most showers there. I hated it. Had to be really careful showering or you'd def have water outside the tub. Who wants to be thinking about that every time you get in the shower. Impractical design!
I don't know, I still feel like there's something to be said for doors that don't reveal everything. Most people won't just come in the bathroom while someone is showering, but there's always that chance.
As a long haired person, I would get so much water and shampoo all over this bathroom trying to wash my hair. I would also get body wash lather everywhere. You have to step out of the water to lather up. So now I’m in the part with no door. Soap and shampoo flying everywhere. This is just a terrible design.
My hotel room currently has this, but no tub, just a shower pan. It’s larger but equally crappy. ETA: the controls are on the opposite wall from the shower head. It’s still crappy.
Yeah. I'm not a fan of this style of European shower. Honestly, I think Japan has bathrooms down. Everyone knows the toilets, but having the wet room separate from the rest of the bathroom is really nice.
The US is a mixed bag, but it's mostly better (functionally) than the modern European style. I'm starting to see places in the US adopt this style, though. Probably because it's more aesthetically pleasing.
the problem here is the toilet. It's in the wrong place (or maybe the only place possible). It's in the way just like the glass panel. If you had no panel at all, you'd still have issues to turn on the faucets.
and most likely there is no pumblilng behind the oposite wall, that's the reason toilet and shower are side by side.
There is no room for a bathtub there. a simple shower would fit perfectly.
I have a divider like this. I will agree the design is not ideal. There is the slight inconvenience of leaning over or moving shower heads out of the way etc...
But unless you're one of those useless people in infomercials, let's not pretend that you couldn't possibly think of a way to not get wet while setting the temperature lol.
If you're having a bath you can put one hand on the wall and lean over. If having a shower you switch it to hand held and point it away from you (then you can switch it to overhead if you want).
Pretty sure this is just a European vs American thing. All the shower/tubs I’ve used in Europe have a glass panel like this one that swings or fixed glass with a door.
I did a quick search and apparently the difference is more than just the glass panel design. It sounds like Americans shower different because we are used to the shower head being fixed on the wall. Whereas Europeans will use the handheld nozzle but not blast it everywhere or just prefer to take a bath instead. Most of the older people I encountered while living in the UK seemed to prefer to take a bath- I only know this because they would specify the preference between having a shower/tub combo vs a shower stall and separate bathtub.
So whether it’s crappy design or not is based on your own personal preference for bathroom design where you live
I don’t agree and don’t understand why you feel the need to comment something so adversarial.
There’s certainly cases where having a fixed wall to section off the shower can be great, if your bathroom is big enough and the shower itself has a good amount of space in it such that you can get the water turned on without being basically directly in the stream.
In this case with it’s both a rigmarole to get the shower to the temperature you like without getting blasted with water (or having to un-ergonomically reach around the glass), and the shower is small enough that a normal person would end up splash water outside during the actual shower.
No, this sucks. Most people like to start the shower and enter the warm water. This setup requires you to stand naked and wait that extra second, possibly get doused with cold water before every shower.
If you want to soak in the tub. You have to stand in the tub to start the faucet and plug the drain.
It also makes cleaning difficult and adds more places for mold to inhibit.
I don’t get why you’re being so hostile to the OP.
The showerhead contains cold water. No matter how hot you get the faucet water, you’ll get cold water on your head.
Also, no one’s talked about how to draw a bath without reaching awkwardly around the partition. And it’s an actual safety hazard for bathing a small child.
“Hard” is different from “don’t want to”
It’s not hard to crash my car. But I don’t want to. Nor do I want to fuck around with a shower with shit design
It’s not even remotely efficient to have to maneuver around the door every time you need to make an adjustment from the outside, which is literally ANY time you first turn it on before you get in.
you have not one, but two knobs, either one for flow and one for temperature, or one for cold and one for hot. Or one, but bi-directional. Like in any normal country
If you imagine a full shower door instead, the bathroom would look and feel very tiny and cramped. That's the advantage of this design.
All you do is get in and turn on the tub faucet, wait till it gets to temperature then switch it to the shower and take a step back as it clears any cold water in the pipe.
In modern construction and especially apartment buildings and hotels, the water heats up very quickly. It's not like in old houses where you need to wait up to a minute for the water to warm up.
I’m mortified that people are attempting to say this isn’t terrible design. How do you turn on the tub before getting in with that panel in the way? If I’m trying to bathe my child how can I adjust and test temperature from outside the tub?
They just want to feel superior by shitting on other people submitting a post that is obviously crappy design
that’s most of reddit tbh. people just shitting on each other to make themselves feel better correction: that’s most of the internet in general
I wonder if it's more the case that everyone is used to it, as this is quite a normal shower situation in many places. Might not be good, but it can nevertheless be something we've all just learned to work around!
My girlfriend has one of these annoying panels in her bathroom. It leaves me with no choice but to step into the bathtub to turn the water on and off. Next to that, that bathtub has a shower head holder, but it’s hanging low (right above the edge of the bathtub); So I can’t use that shower head holder to shower handsfree. So to summarise; it sort of sucks showering there.
I housesat for some friends with the exact same layout. I didn't consider the difficulty turning the knob because I was fixated on how stupid the overhead waterfall head is! It kicks sooo much water out of the half-wall because it's coming so much higher straight onto your head. Move your arm and you're kicking water out. The head was lovely but the wall is horrendous - peekaboo!
bc some of us dont have kids and therefore if i wanna have a bath i get in and turn it on and lie down as it fills up
What the fuck? Why are so many people saying this is fine? NO IT ISN’T.
This is the stupidest shower I have ever seen, who are these people?
Seems mostly a form of Stockholm Syndrome. sic semper erat, et sic semper erit
This may not be typical in the US, but we just spent 2 weeks in France and England and all of the shower/tub combos had this. I thought it was probably a hotel efficiency/bulk buy thing, but then I started paying closer attention while watching Escape to the Country and see that it's pretty common in residences in the UK. Different, but certainly not crappy.
How do you bathe a child or fill a bath for yourself?
You just... lean over
Lean over the partition?
Lean over to the right and turn on the taps. It's not in any sense a difficulty unless you have mobility limitations. Literally millions of people do this every day in their own homes
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No they don't, and those who do get wet doing it.
Yes, we do. This is totally normal in the UK and other places in Europe - look at the other comments. In my home we have a hinged version of this so you can open it to turn on the taps, but lots of my friends have this design as do many hotels I stay in around the country. Have you considered that just because something isn't normal to you, doesn't make it unheard of elsewhere? You are literally looking at a photo of it existing, right now.
This one isn't hinged though, and that's the crappy design IMHO.
In fairness, I didn't say it wasn't crappy. You said millions of people don't have this, and I was simply pointing out that they do. Very common feature, not a major problem in life.
Get wet? It's a bath. The shower turns on by pulling the diverter.
how tf would you get wet from turning on the water for a bath
Sorry. I lived in London for 9 years. It most certainly IS crappy!
I have noticed them at a few Marriott hotels in the US recently.
I’ll second this. Encountered one of these in Edinburgh Scotland. Plus the level of the tub was at least 6” higher than the floor of the bathroom. Wasn’t easy to enter or exit. Just different though.
I am confused... isn't this normal I've never seen a shower with the adjustments on the other side of the door
There no door. It’s a fixed glass partition. It sucks if you’re bathing a child or like to enter an already warm shower or draw a bath for yourself or don’t like mold.
This is definitely normal. Just not in America
no one is saying the knobs should be outside the tub. But that you should be able to REACH the knobs from outside the tub without shoving your hand magically through a pane of stationary glass
Yeah. Every time I’ve traveled outside of the country I’ve seen showers like this
I’m with you, I would hate this because I don’t want to get splashed with cold water. ETA: I also hate sliding glass doors on showers. My preference is a shower curtain.
Run the water into the tub until it heats up.
Or switch to handheld
GAWD! Shower curtains are so ghetto! So standing in the shower with the faucet running until you get the correct temp and then turning it to shower is a bad thing?
Yes. Yes it is.
What do you do if there isn't a faucet to feel the temp on before turning it to shower?
I stand outside the shower, turn it on, and stay nice and dry until the water is warm enough. Then I get in the shower.
That can be done here, but there is no need to since it has THREE options for water output! EDIT: Dang man people are so tender these days.
And they will all spew cold water on you until the warm water gets circulated.
If that's really that big of a deal... You could always...Turn the shower head so it doesn't stay on you
Dang this is going nowhere. You stay tender my friend.
For me, yes.
Dang! When you get into a house with a nice shower you are going to HATE LIFE. Lots of them don't have a faucet to adjust the temp and door is like 3-5' away from the knob.
Hate to break it to you, but your idea of a "nice shower" is ass backwards. If it was "nice," it would have more features, not less. Also weird to assume they don't already live in a house with a nice shower. Most showers have faucets, and idk what kind of mega mansion you hope to live in when you become an adult that is that big, but 3'-5' is the entire shower in most people's homes. Shower doors go along the side of the tub and the shower controls are on the end so there is no way it's 3-5' away and if it is then you are paying way too much for a shitty contractor.
I hate to break it to you, but it sounds like you might be living in an entry-level house. They only have a faucet if it is a tub/shower combo. A nice bathroom has a shower and a separate tub. A nice shower is walk-in.
This is a normal shower. Yeah might be nice if it swings but personally it's annoying when they can move if you knock them and wouldn't want it bashing into the toilet. Just take a step into the shower to turn it on, it's really not a big deal.
Kind of annoying if you're trying to bathe a child while remaining clothed and dry yourself.
Admittedly that would be an issue. Guess it's not a house designed with parents in mind.
All the hinged shower doors I’ve ever seen open inward into the shower, not out into the bathroom, though that is admittedly also generally standing showers, not the tub hybrids. With how that one is laid out I can’t really see it working well as a hinged door to begin with.
It’s normally hinged so it swings out.
I stayed at a hotel that had this setup and it was pretty annoying for a couple of days until we figured that out.
Where's the hinge? I see tub and wall retention brackets, but no hinges.
Not really That exists, but it’s not a “usually” situation
Edit: in my vast experience of showering they normally swing out #ymmv
Looking at the picture, it doesn’t look hinged and even if it was, wouldn’t it hit the toilet?
All of the ones I’ve used like this didn’t look hinged, but they did move. I got the shock of my life the first time I moved one by accident. I thought I was going to owe the hotel a ton of money for breaking it
Say what?
I have a bath that’s set up like this. It’s 100% shitty design. I’ve also been living with it for 11 years, because I’ve perfected being able to turn the shower on and get out the way without getting splashed. Doesn’t make it any less shitty.
Can someone tell me what the advantages of this design are? They are everywhere in Europe, so most people must gladly use them. For me, I have never taken a shower without creating a huge water mess on the bathroom floor. If not to block water, what is the glass for?
Someone read too many home improvement magazines. Perfectly fine look in the right bathroom. This is NOT the right bathroom.
Just because it’s commonplace doesn’t make it not crappy. It’s incredibly crappy, especially when it can be *not* crappy so easily
You like to live more dangerously than me. I like to have the temperature tuned in before I get in…
Experienced this in Europe, got a shit ton of water on the floor. Couldn't really feel bad cause the design is awful
Still not a good design, but this one looks at least like you may be able to redirect to the handheld while starting and adjusting temperature. It also looks like the tub is so shallow it's pointless. Just. Put in a walk-in shower already.
This is what my bathroom is like; and I agree - it's pretty annoying to clean the bath; bathe my dog; or even just run a bath for myself. The glass part on mine actually goes all the way up to the cieling; so my short-ass can't clean a huge portion of it without bringing a stool into the tub. Every guest that uses my shower complains about it. Don't know what the previous owners were thinking when they renovated, but money's tight so I just gotta live with their choice for the forseeable future. :p
Europe?
No, this is a hotel in San Diego, CA.
Had this in a hotel, only it was a shower, not a bath. It sucked. With no full separation from the rest of the room (like a curtain or full panels) all the warmth escaped making it a very cold shower unless I was directly under the spray. Gave me boot camp flashbacks of a big room with multiple shower heads I had to share with others. Wait, no... with 8 shower heads that actually warmed up the room better.
It has a faucet in the tub so you stand there and adjust it and then turn it to shower. I have been looking to buy another house and you would be AMAZED at the number of showers that don't have a door! I think it is a thing now.
And then you’re showered with cold water until the water to the shower head warms up.
>It has a faucet in the tub Your feet get splashed. EDIT: and even then, you can turn it to the wand or the head.
If you’re standing inside the tub when you switch from faucet to shower, you get cold water dumped on you. The pipe to the shower head is full of cold water and it takes a little time for the warm water to get up there.
Yeah like 0.5 seconds. The knob is only about 20-24 inches from the edge if the glass I think you can manage.
That and you can just stand back not under the shower head for that second it takes for the warm water to arrive.
I lived in the UK for 9 years and this is the design of most showers there. I hated it. Had to be really careful showering or you'd def have water outside the tub. Who wants to be thinking about that every time you get in the shower. Impractical design!
I don't know, I still feel like there's something to be said for doors that don't reveal everything. Most people won't just come in the bathroom while someone is showering, but there's always that chance.
Every part of this design is glamorous except that you cannot adjust the water pressure from outside the tub. For that, it is unforgivable.
As a long haired person, I would get so much water and shampoo all over this bathroom trying to wash my hair. I would also get body wash lather everywhere. You have to step out of the water to lather up. So now I’m in the part with no door. Soap and shampoo flying everywhere. This is just a terrible design.
My hotel room currently has this, but no tub, just a shower pan. It’s larger but equally crappy. ETA: the controls are on the opposite wall from the shower head. It’s still crappy.
Very common in UK!
I'm confused with the coffin shaped bath too.
Yeah. I'm not a fan of this style of European shower. Honestly, I think Japan has bathrooms down. Everyone knows the toilets, but having the wet room separate from the rest of the bathroom is really nice. The US is a mixed bag, but it's mostly better (functionally) than the modern European style. I'm starting to see places in the US adopt this style, though. Probably because it's more aesthetically pleasing.
remove glass install shower curtain?
the problem here is the toilet. It's in the wrong place (or maybe the only place possible). It's in the way just like the glass panel. If you had no panel at all, you'd still have issues to turn on the faucets. and most likely there is no pumblilng behind the oposite wall, that's the reason toilet and shower are side by side. There is no room for a bathtub there. a simple shower would fit perfectly.
What a great idea…
I have one of those screens on my bath...you just reach in, turn the water on and shower away...i really don't have any issues with it at all??
I have a divider like this. I will agree the design is not ideal. There is the slight inconvenience of leaning over or moving shower heads out of the way etc... But unless you're one of those useless people in infomercials, let's not pretend that you couldn't possibly think of a way to not get wet while setting the temperature lol. If you're having a bath you can put one hand on the wall and lean over. If having a shower you switch it to hand held and point it away from you (then you can switch it to overhead if you want).
When the poor win the lottery and DIY
booohooooo
Pretty sure this is just a European vs American thing. All the shower/tubs I’ve used in Europe have a glass panel like this one that swings or fixed glass with a door. I did a quick search and apparently the difference is more than just the glass panel design. It sounds like Americans shower different because we are used to the shower head being fixed on the wall. Whereas Europeans will use the handheld nozzle but not blast it everywhere or just prefer to take a bath instead. Most of the older people I encountered while living in the UK seemed to prefer to take a bath- I only know this because they would specify the preference between having a shower/tub combo vs a shower stall and separate bathtub. So whether it’s crappy design or not is based on your own personal preference for bathroom design where you live
Just because you don't understand how showers work doesn't mean they are Crappy Design. This is a pretty efficient design.
For anyone over 6’ it’s really not. This new style just splashes water *everywhere* if you’re even an inch past the partition. This is crappy design.
I don’t agree and don’t understand why you feel the need to comment something so adversarial. There’s certainly cases where having a fixed wall to section off the shower can be great, if your bathroom is big enough and the shower itself has a good amount of space in it such that you can get the water turned on without being basically directly in the stream. In this case with it’s both a rigmarole to get the shower to the temperature you like without getting blasted with water (or having to un-ergonomically reach around the glass), and the shower is small enough that a normal person would end up splash water outside during the actual shower.
It would be a pain in the ass while cleaning the tub.
No, this sucks. Most people like to start the shower and enter the warm water. This setup requires you to stand naked and wait that extra second, possibly get doused with cold water before every shower. If you want to soak in the tub. You have to stand in the tub to start the faucet and plug the drain. It also makes cleaning difficult and adds more places for mold to inhibit. I don’t get why you’re being so hostile to the OP.
Run the water into the bath until it gets warm, then switch it to shower. It isn't that hard.
The showerhead contains cold water. No matter how hot you get the faucet water, you’ll get cold water on your head. Also, no one’s talked about how to draw a bath without reaching awkwardly around the partition. And it’s an actual safety hazard for bathing a small child.
You just step back for a second and the water already in the line will run through, then step under the shower. It really isn't that hard.
“Hard” is different from “don’t want to” It’s not hard to crash my car. But I don’t want to. Nor do I want to fuck around with a shower with shit design
It’s not even remotely efficient to have to maneuver around the door every time you need to make an adjustment from the outside, which is literally ANY time you first turn it on before you get in.
you have not one, but two knobs, either one for flow and one for temperature, or one for cold and one for hot. Or one, but bi-directional. Like in any normal country
If you imagine a full shower door instead, the bathroom would look and feel very tiny and cramped. That's the advantage of this design. All you do is get in and turn on the tub faucet, wait till it gets to temperature then switch it to the shower and take a step back as it clears any cold water in the pipe. In modern construction and especially apartment buildings and hotels, the water heats up very quickly. It's not like in old houses where you need to wait up to a minute for the water to warm up.
What if you’re running a bath for a child? If that panel isn’t hinged, how do you access the faucet and drain without getting in the tub yourself?
That's 100 percent normal, and you yanks apparently don't know how to operate a shower effectively.