The floor and the threshold
A zero-threshold shower means the floor is recessed or built up so there is no lip to step over, and it needs the structure to allow it — a framing and joist question answered on site, not a product choice. Where a true zero threshold is not possible, a low curb of an inch or two with a bevelled edge is the honest alternative and still a large improvement on a tub wall.
The floor has to slope correctly to the drain, built from a pre-formed pan or a properly packed bed. A linear drain at one end lets the whole floor slope in a single plane, which is both easier to walk on and easier to build correctly than four planes falling to a centre point.
Tile: small format or mosaic, because more grout lines mean more grip, with a slip resistance rating appropriate to a wet floor. A large glossy tile on a shower floor is a hazard whatever it looks like.
Grab bars, and the thing to do even if you do not want them yet
Put the blocking in the walls now. Solid timber behind the tile at the entry, along the long wall, and beside the seat. It costs almost nothing while the wall is open and it means a bar can later be anchored properly into structure at any point in the next twenty years. Retrofitting blocking means opening finished tile.
A real grab bar is rated for the load, anchored into that blocking, and positioned for how the person actually moves — vertical at the entry for the step in, horizontal along the wall for standing, one within reach of the seat. A towel rail is not a grab bar and neither is a soap shelf.
They need not look clinical. Bars come in the same finishes as the rest of the fittings, and one doubling as a towel bar is a legitimate choice.
Seating, controls and water temperature
A bench, built in and tiled, or a fold-down seat where space is tight. Built in is more comfortable and permanent; fold-down keeps the floor clear for someone who does not need it yet.
A hand shower on a slide bar as well as a fixed head, so water can be brought to a seated person rather than the other way round.
A thermostatic or pressure-balancing anti-scald valve. The specification most often missing, and it matters more with age: thinner skin burns faster and reaction time is slower, and a toilet flushing elsewhere in the house should not change the water temperature. Ask for it by name.
Controls reachable from outside the spray and from the seat, so the water can be started before stepping in.
Light, and the door nobody measures
Bright even light with no dark corner at the threshold, plus a night light or low-level fixture for the middle of the night, which is when most falls happen.
The door. A standard interior bathroom door is often too narrow for a walker and always too narrow for a wheelchair. Widening the opening while the bathroom is being rebuilt is far cheaper than doing it later, and it is the item nobody thinks to ask about. A door that swings out rather than in also means the door is not blocked if somebody falls against it.
And while the walls are open: blocking for a future wall-hung sink at the right height, and a clear turning space if that is a realistic need.
What this is not
It is not a one-day bath liner. A liner over an existing tub leaves the tub wall in place, which is the hazard, and it hides whatever is behind it.
It is not a walk-in tub, unless that is specifically what you want. A walk-in tub has a door and a threshold, and you sit in it while it fills and drains — a different product with different trade-offs, worth knowing about and not the same as a shower.
And it is not something to specify from a brochure. What is possible at the threshold depends on the floor structure, and that is found by looking.
What we do
Free walkthrough across Maryland and Northern Virginia, and a written line-item scope naming every item above: threshold type and why, drain type, the waterproofing method and product, blocking locations, bar locations and ratings, seat type, valve type, tile with its slip rating, lighting, ventilation and the door.
This is ordinary work for us and it is worth doing before it is needed rather than after a fall. MHIC #111971, Virginia Class A #2705183185, family-owned since 2005.
Get it looked at, free
We inspect across Maryland — Montgomery, Prince George's, Howard, Anne Arundel, Frederick, Carroll and Baltimore counties. Free inspection, photo report within 24 hours, and the report is yours to keep whether or not you hire us.