How To Install Shower Bar

Getting A Grip: How and Where to Install Bathroom Grab Bars

By Steve Willson, Dwelling Improvement Expert

When 1 is closer to beingness onetime than young, bathrooms can become harder to navigate. Getting up and down from the toilet seat or in and out of the shower can be a real challenge when balance and/or strength are an result.

In the bathtub and shower, surfaces are wet, anxiety are usually cold, and invariably there is a step up-and-over required. The side of most tubs is around 18 inches loftier, and getting into a freestanding claw-foot tub adds another 4 inches to this hurdle. While stall showers are much less dangerous, fifty-fifty they have a 4- or 5-inch-high curb merely beneath the shower door. This doesn't seem like much of an obstacle until i's rest deteriorates from the years, some medication or an orthopedic problem.

Choosing a Catch Bar

Today's grab bars come in many finishes and styles, like this one in polished chrome, to fit any bathroom style. To assist alleviate condom concerns in the bath, grab bars are an easy and necessary option. They don't cost very much ($15 to $fifty depending on the model), they come in a multifariousness of sizes, and they feature an array of materials, colors and finishes (stainless steel, brass, chrome, plastic, and often with the option of some kind of textured surface to make grabbing easier). A quick trip to a dwelling middle, hardware shop, or a kitchen and bath showroom presents plenty of choices.

Most grab bars have a diameter of 1-1/4 inches or one-1/2 inches, both of which piece of work well for most hands.

While finish and color are a personal choice, the surface on the bars is most important. Some bars accept polish surfaces that look clean and bonny. Merely the articulate preference, from a safety indicate of view, is for a textured surface that provides a better grip: Some have ridges, some are knurled, others have etched lines that spiral around the circumference. The all-time choice is the one that's the nigh comfortable.

Installing a Take hold of Bar

Finding the safest and most convenient place to install the confined is the overall goal. But making sure it is firmly attached is the start priority. Nearly every specification from credible authorities like the Americans with Disabilities Human action (ADA) to the packaging on most grab confined in the store, recommend attaching the bars with screws driven into the studs behind the wall covering. While hollow wall anchors of various types can work, specially on plaster walls, screwing straight into the studs is the safest arroyo. And, after all, safety is what catch bars are supposed to meliorate.

To locate the studs in bath walls, it's best to utilise an inexpensive, battery-powered stud sensor. This tool will locate both sides of each stud. Lightly mark the walls with pencil where the studs fall, then effigy out what bar lengths are needed based on what will fit between these marks. Catch bars are bachelor in different lengths to suit non-standard stud spacing. Keep in heed that you want these confined to "piece of work" well, not necessarily look great. Most people would probably prefer a shorter, rather than longer bar. But when in doubt, it's meliorate to choose the longer model. It presents more than places to become a grip.

Mounting a grab bars on acrylic or fiberglass tub surrounds isn't very difficult. Standard drill bits can handle these materials besides as wood, drywall and plaster. Just ceramic tile in showers or above tubs can't be drilled with regular bits. To diameter these screw clearance holes, you need a masonry scrap. It is chucked in a drill simply similar other $.25 and is used the same way. It has carbide tips that can grind through masonry materials like ceramic tile.

Advice for All Areas

Here are the specifics for installing confined for diverse areas in the bathroom.

Toilets: Position two bars on the toilet wall—1 aligned parallel to the floor and about 5 or 6 inches to a higher place the seat (this bar should be at least 32 inches long and extend at least 12 inches past the front end of the bowl), and another bar perpendicular to the terminate of this horizontal bar. This bar should extend at least 16 inches above it and be screwed securely into the stud within the wall.

This grab bar layout, shown on a typical bath surround, features a vertical bar at the entry point, another next to the faucets and another on the wall for steadying. Stall Showers: A stall shower and a tub/shower philharmonic fixture accept similar, simply not identical, needs. The stall shower should have a vertical bar merely inside the shower door jambs where the door closes. This could be on either end of the wall depending on how the door is hung. The point of this bar is to steady the transition between the bathroom floor and the shower floor. Just once inside, at least two other confined are recommended.

One installed horizontally, slightly above waist-high (34-36 inches) along the side wall. This should exist easily reached with one hand while holding on to the entry bar with the other. Another bar should be attached vertically on the faucet end wall adjacent to the faucet handles to steady bathers every bit they adjust the water flow and shower caput.

Bathtub/shower combos: This setup has the aforementioned basic needs every bit a stall shower, but the take hold of-bar requirements are not identical. The vertical entrance bar is the aforementioned but should always be installed on the cease wall opposite the faucet wall. And the horizontal bar that's attached to the side wall should be as long as possible and installed a footling lower, well-nigh xxx inches from the tub floor.

Another quick and easy way to improve tub safety is to use a safety grab bar like this one. It just slides over the side of the tub and is tightened in place with a built-in clamp. This makes it exercise double duty as a steadying influence when showering and every bit aid when getting in and out of a bath. The vertical bar on the faucet wall steadies the bather when adjusting the water. And if the bottom of this bar is located lower than the side wall bar, it provides a adept extra grip for getting out of a tub.

Keep in mind that the goal of each bar placement is to create a handrail of sorts surrounding the bathtub. Something is always close at hand and the next bar is never too far away.

Some other quick and easy way to ameliorate tub safety is to use a safety take hold of bar like this one. It but slides over the side of the tub and is tightened in place with a born clamp.

Steve Willson began his career equally a carpentry contractor in Rochester, New York, where he owned and operated his own business. He then joined Popular Mechanics mag every bit their Home Improvement Editor, a position he held for 22 years. During that time, he produced thousands of pages of home comeback content and is as well the author of three books. He now writes about dwelling house improvement solutions for The Domicile Depot.

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