A shower cabin is the one stop solution for creating a luxurious spa experience

What is a Shower Cabin?

Shower Cabin

A shower cabin (also known as a shower pod or a walk-in shower) is the one stop solution for creating a luxurious spa experience in your own home. It combines all elements of the bathroom shower system into a single enclosure, including the tray and the wall and door units, and comes flat packed ready for installation, meaning no messy tiling work is required.

They can be fitted into new bathrooms or en suites as well as in place of existing baths, and even direct into bedrooms if the plumbing arrangements allow. Shower cabins are available in a huge range of sizes to suit almost any space, and can even be bought in quick fit versions that require no silicone or waterproof sealant so you can get them installed as quickly as possible.

The base of a shower cabin is often formed from thermoformed acrylic which is extremely strong and forms the floor of the cubicle, while the walls are typically made from tough safety glass that can be chosen with a variety of thicknesses to suit the desired appearance of the finished product. The glass sections are normally coated in either a chrome or a brushed nickel finish to complement the colour scheme of the rest of the bathroom, and many models also include sliding doors rather than swing open ones.

Shower cabins generally come with a basic level of shower systems, but higher-end designs can include a variety of upgrades to give you that luxury spa-like feeling. These can include additional shower heads, ranging from an overhead rain shower to a standard head on the wall or even a multi-jet body massager that can create a full-body wash with powerful jets of water. Thermostatic valves are commonly included to prevent the risk of scalding, and you can also add an extractor fan on some fully enclosed shower cabin models for extra freshness.

You will need a pressurised supply of hot and cold water to operate a shower cabin, and this can be from a combi boiler, Megaflow or gravity fed systems. You will also need a fused 13amp power supply for control panels, lights and radios etc.

As they are free-standing, shower cabins will occupy more space than a traditional enclosure. This means that they won't be suitable for smaller rooms such as cloakrooms, and it's worth checking their listed dimensions to see whether you can fit them into your existing layout before making a purchase. Similarly, you will need plenty of space to manoeuvre inside the cabin and ensure you have enough room for your own personal comfort when using it. You should also consider the height of your ceiling as the internal dimensions of a shower cabin will be a few centimetres less than the external measurements. Lastly, it's worth remembering that these dimensions refer to the size of the enclosure when viewed from above, so the actual usable area will be slightly smaller than this.