Shower door to ceiling gap to avoid humidity damage

January 11, 2018 7:59 AM

We are installing a fixed glass panel and a hinged glass door on a tiled shower which will not have a tiled ceiling or an exhaust fan in the shower. There will be an exhaust fan in the room outside the shower. What is the minimum gap between the top of the glass and the ceiling to allow humidity to escape the shower?
posted by grahahw to Home & Garden (2 answers total)

There's so many factors involved - temperature of the room, air humidity where you live, fan throughput, temperature and materials of walls and ceiling, typical duration and frequency of shower, water temperature, room size... you're not going to be able to calculate a minimum gap very easily.

Having said that, my shower has just over a foot between the top of the glass and the ceiling, and that seems to allow plenty of convection. I wouldn't want less than six inches.

I think what's most important is keeping the room warm enough to reduce condensation (and increase evaporation) to an level that keeps things fairly dry. Leaving the shower door open or ajar is probably also a good idea.
posted by pipeski at 8:20 AM on January 11, 2018

Recentish had the same thing done. The door guy said 24 inches is a good number, depending of course on your ceiling height. Just measured mine. 26 inches. That's with floor to door top height of ~7 feet. YMMV
posted by Splunge at 8:33 AM on January 11, 2018