The flush shower, with no step at all, is what almost everybody wants. In new build it is the norm. In a flat from the sixties or seventies it sometimes cannot be done, and it is better to know that before signing a quote that promises it.
What exactly it depends on
On one thing only: the clear depth between the top of the floor structure and the level of the finished floor. The trap or the drain has to fit in there, plus the fall needed for the water to run to the waste.
A conventional drain needs between 9 and 11 cm. Extra-slim and linear drains come down to 6 or 7 cm. If your screed is 5 cm, there is no room and there will have to be a step, even if it is only two or three centimetres.
How to check it at home
You do not need to strip anything out to get an idea. There are two easy clues:
- Measure the step between the bathroom floor and the hall floor. If the bathroom is higher, you have screed and probably some room.
- Look at the height of the bath's current waste. If the bath sits directly on the floor and the waste comes out of the side, there is little room.
That gives you an idea, but the real check is done at the visit, measuring and sometimes opening up a small trial hole.
What can be done if there is no height
It is not a dead end. There are three sensible ways out, in this order.
A linear drain against the wall
Placed against the wall, it lets the fall run in a single direction and makes better use of the centimetres available. It usually solves most of the tight cases.
Raising the bathroom floor
The level of the whole bathroom goes up by two or three centimetres. The shower ends up flush with the bathroom, and the step moves to the door, where it gets in the way far less and is dealt with by a threshold strip.
Accepting a minimal step
An extra-slim resin tray leaves an upstand of two and a half centimetres. It is not a flush shower, but compared with the edge of a fifty-centimetre bath the difference in accessibility is enormous.
What we do not recommend
Cutting into the floor structure below the structural level. It is expensive, noisy, it needs authorisation and in a building with neighbours below it can end in a serious problem. If someone proposes it lightly, be wary.
Want to know what your bathroom will take? We will come and look and tell you with the tape measure in our hand, not over the phone.
