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Archive for January, 2019

Pre-construction Consultation Service to Deal with Shower Issues

My favorite part of what I do is meeting people and helping them achieve their goals for their bathroom remodels. It’s a lot of fun! Normally I’m called out to meet with a contractor or a homeowner when the shower is ready for glass. We go into the bathroom and look at it together. At that point we can discuss what the client has in mind to finish the bathroom and what the various options are. Some people are not that picky about the details and leave it to me to make a lot of the decisions about how the shower enclosure will be done. Some people have very strong feelings about all the details and want something very specific. Both types of customers are a great fit for us.

Many times, we come across an issue where poor planning in the remodel limits the options that are available to the home owner. There are relatively small details in the tile work that can have a radical impact on the way your shower enclosure will work (or not work). The location of accent tiles, the slope of the tile at the curb (or the lack of slope), and even the corner details all have effects on the way the glass will fit. Even before the tile is set, the design of the bathroom and where the various furnishings are located makes a huge difference. Often the toilet and the shower head are on the same wall. This makes it easier for the plumbers to do their job. But saving the plumbers an hour of work and a few feet of pipe may result in decades of inconvenience because the toilet is always blocking your path in and out of the shower.

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I offer my clients a pre-construction consultation service to deal with these issues. Instead of getting together at the end of the remodel, when it’s too late to change anything, we get together at the beginning. It allows me to provide information about what to expect and get them thinking about possibilities they might not otherwise have considered. We can come up with a configuration for the shower in advance. This allows the contractor to arrange things in a way that makes it work. We provide a rendition of what the shower enclosure will look like, and a full set of shop drawings. This also allows the customer to lock in the pricing for six months as opposed to the normal 30 days we provide with a quote. When they are ready for the installation, we have the information ready to go. If they decide to go with a different company, they still have the drawings from the consultation to “shop it around.” In any case, it’s a “win-win.”