Shower Door Reversal
When the builder made our camper, they decided arbitrarily to ignore our drawings of the shower, bathroom and hallway, and the dimensions thereof. The result was a narrow hallway, bathroom door that can't swing past 85º and a shower door that opens into the hallway, instead of into the shower itself.
We designed the shower to allow access to the shower cubicle with an inward swinging door. The cubicle was deliberately elongated to provide an area to step into while closing the door. It also provided a way of including a fold up seat inside the shower. Of course the inward swinging door wouldn't drip water all over the hallway floor, like the one the builder installed.
The door removed by grinding off three hinge pins. The hinges were also glued and screwed to the surfaces, and these also had to be broken off.
Also by having an inward swinging shower door, the bathroom door could be left open while showering, so when we got out of the shower, we had a sizeable area in which to step and dry off. That area being made up of the hallway and the bathroom space. With the way they built things, this couldn't be done. Another example of the shop workers making arbitrary decisions instead of following detailed shop drawings, which of course they didn’t have.
Since we were going to completely redo the walls and ceilings inside the camper, we decided to fix one of the builders screwups by altering the shower door swing. It meant removing the shower door, which they installed with hinges that had non-removable hinge pins. Yes, the pins had to be ground off.
Removing the screws that held the plastic inner door jamb in place.
Once the door was removed, the interior seal that was made from 1/4" thick white polyethylene sheet, and glued and screwed to the inside wall, also had to be removed so the door could swing inward. Doing this left the interior shower wall with black glue lines on it, as well as the holes from the screws. To deal with this we'll have to cover the inside of the shower with tile or Corian style solid surface material. This we wanted to do anyways, since all those ugly white painted corner angles are everywhere in the shower, and some don't even have enough powder coating on them to completely hide the metal. But that job will have to wait for another day.
After removing the inner plastic door seal, we had to turn the door upside down so the former outside was now inside. This would situate the rubber gasket on the door itself, now facing outward so it would engage the new jamb/seal that we had to make to replace the 1/4" thick plastic one that was on the inside. Our outside jamb was made from .080" thick aluminum sheet, powder coated white and screwed to the outside wall. White caulking was then used to seal it to the wall so no leaks could escape the confines of the shower.
The striker plate was reversed and taped in place so we could do all the other work before committed to screwing the plate in place. The fold up shower seat can also be seen in the upward position.
Since we turned the door inside out, this put the door handle mechanism also inside out and upside down. So it all had to be removed and reinstalled the proper way. But because this hardware was orientation specific, we had to dismantle the latch itself and flip all the components to face the different way. If we didn’t do this, we’d have to purchase the opposite swing door latch model for several hundred dollars. Fortunately we got around that expense. The striker plate for the door latch also had to be reversed, but because it's mounted off centre to the wall thickness, we had to recut the slot in the wall so it was off centre in the opposite direction. The bonus at least was that the installer at the builder actually positioned the door latch dead centre of the door, vertically. So flipping the door upside down meant everything still lined up. I guess we do get lucky sometimes.
The shower door now in the inward swing orientation. The fold up shower seat can just be seen in the downward position.
Once the door swing reversal was completed, we had to manufacture the outer door jamb/seal. At the same time we did this, we also made a new jamb/seal for the bathroom door. We did this not because we were changing that door swing, but rather to eliminate the ugly looking exposed 1/4" thick polyethylene door jamb that was visible from inside the bathroom. That thick seal was also going to be in the way of the decorative wall panels that we wanted to put in. So it had to go as well.
Our new door jamb/seal was installed with glue and screws, and ended up the same thickness as the vent mounting plate below. It also ended up the same thickness as the sliding door stop plate just to the left of it. This also shows the laminate "baseboard" trim we installed to cover up the white paint.
As mentioned above, the two new door jamb/seals were made with thin aluminum. Since we already had aluminum closure panels in the hallway to hold the floor heater vent in place, the addition of our door seal sheets meant that the whole surface on that face of wall ended up level with each other. A bonus for us when the upholstered wall panels were installed.
Removing the last of the shower door vents.
Our objective in all this, aside from making the shower door work the way we initially planned, was to eliminate all the visible white surfaces inside the truck. This white appearance was a huge impediment, psychologically, for us to enjoy using the truck. Seeing it was a constant reminder that we chose a less than competent builder.
With our shower door now reversed, and the new jamb/seals made and out for powder coating, we could turn our attention to the last remaining detail. This was the shower vents that we forced the builder to install when we arrived to take delivery of our truck. We found the plastic louvered vents, and brought them with us when we flew down to get the truck. But now that we've turned the door upside down, these vents were also upside down and wouldn't do their job.
Since the vents were installed by gluing them in with silicone sealer, we just had to cut that material with a knife and then push the vents out. Reinstallation was easy, and it was now just a matter of letting the interior finishing experts make the appropriate cutouts in the wall panels they would soon install. The finished product can be seen below. An attractive, fully functional and dry shower door installation.
