What Thickness Glass for a Shower Screen?
Shower screens are one of the few applications where the specification is largely decided for you. The glass has to be toughened, and the thickness follows from how the panel is supported.
Toughening is mandatory
A shower screen sits in a wet area where someone could slip against it, which puts it squarely inside the safety glass requirement. It is also a panel a wet, unsteady person leans on regularly.
Toughened is the standard answer here rather than laminated — laminated interlayers do not enjoy constant water at an exposed edge, and the strength of toughened is what you want against impact. See toughened or laminated for the general comparison.
Thickness by screen type
Framed screens — 6mm. The frame carries the load and holds the panel on all edges. 6mm toughened is adequate and keeps the weight manageable.
Semi-frameless — 6mm to 10mm. Depends how much framing there is. Panels held on two or three edges can stay at 6mm; a panel held top and bottom only wants 8mm or 10mm.
Frameless — 10mm or 12mm. The glass is the structure. It carries its own weight, resists the door swinging, and has no frame to stiffen it. Below 10mm a frameless panel flexes visibly and feels flimsy.
For a frameless fixed panel over about 1000mm wide, or any frameless door, 12mm is the safer specification. The extra weight is real — 12mm is about 30kg per square metre — so check that your hinges and wall fixings are rated for it.
Clear, low iron, or obscure
Clear is standard. On 10mm and 12mm the green cast of ordinary float glass becomes visible, particularly at the edges and in the corner where two panels meet.
Low iron removes that. On a large frameless screen the difference is noticeable, especially against white tiles where the green reads as a tint on the whole panel. It is a common upgrade on higher-end bathrooms for exactly this reason.
Acid etched frosted for privacy — an ensuite off a bedroom, or a screen visible from a doorway. Available toughened in 10mm and 12mm.
Which face goes toward the water
If you choose frosted or textured glass, fit the smooth face toward the wet side.
The reason is practical. A textured surface holds water, and water in Melbourne carries enough mineral content to leave deposits in the texture that are very hard to remove. A smooth face squeegees clean in one pass. Read which side faces out for the full explanation.
Everything must be final before toughening
This is where shower screens go wrong. Hinge holes, handle holes, corner notches and cutouts for a wall channel all have to be drilled before the glass is toughened. Nothing can be modified afterwards.
So the fitting hardware needs choosing before the glass is ordered, not after. Send us a dimensioned drawing showing every hole position and diameter.
If you are working from a hardware kit, the supplier will have a template. Send that.
Measuring
Bathrooms are rarely square and tiled walls are rarely plumb. Measure the opening at top, middle and bottom, and both sides top to bottom. Allow the clearance your channel or hardware requires.
For a frameless screen, this is the one job where we would genuinely suggest having someone measure on site if you are not confident. A 12mm toughened panel cut 5mm wrong is an expensive mistake, and it cannot be trimmed.
Email us at info@affordableglassonline.com.au with your dimensions and hardware details and we will check the specification before anything is cut.