The Shower Screen Exploded in Newtown. The Headcap Was the Bigger Problem.

A four panel corner shower screen in Newtown let go one evening. The fixed side panel shattered, drained itself down the wall and put toughened glass across the bathroom floor, the shower base and out past the toilet.

We attended after hours to secure it and make the room safe. That part is routine for us. What we found once we got a proper look at the top of the screen was not.

What a headcap actually does

On a frameless shower screen, the headcap is the strip of glass that runs across the top, tying the front panel to the side panel.

It is not decoration and it is not a splash guard. It is a brace. It holds the whole assembly square, and it stops the screen flexing and shuddering every time somebody swings the door on its hinges. Take it away, or fix it so it cannot brace anything, and the screen spends years being worked back and forth a little at a time.

Fitted properly it sits on top of the panel below it. The top edge of that panel carries it along its whole length, which is exactly what glass is good at.

This one was fitted to the face

On this screen the headcap had not been placed on top of anything. It had been fixed to the inside face of the wall mounted side panel and siliconed along its side.

So a 1200 by 100 strip of 10 mm toughened glass was being carried by one bracket at one end and a bead of silicone down its side. Nothing underneath it. Nothing supporting its length. Adhesive doing a job that a glass edge should have been doing.

The screen was installed by a plumber rather than a glazier. We are not interested in having a go at anybody, and plumbers do plenty of work we could not do. But a headcap is a glazing detail, the consequence of getting it wrong is invisible on the day, and it only shows up years later when something else goes wrong.

The part that could have been much worse

The side panel most likely let go on its own. Toughened glass does that, and a few years of service before it happens is a familiar pattern. Whether the installation contributed we cannot say for certain, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.

What we can say is what the installation did to the consequences.

When that side panel disintegrated, the headcap lost the one thing on that end that was holding it up. A strip of 10 mm toughened glass, hanging off a bracket and some silicone, directly above an open shower. If it had come down it would have landed on the door panel on its way through, and there is a very real chance the customer would have lost that panel too, with a lot more glass and a lot more mess.

Fitted on top of the panel the way it should have been, the headcap would have simply come to rest when its support disappeared. Fitted to the face, it was left hanging.

Putting it where it belongs

The new side panel went in and the headcap was repositioned to sit on top of it, carried along its length the way it was meant to be.

Worth noticing in that photo is where the wall bracket sits. It is set as far from the supported edge as it will go, rather than in the middle of the headcap.

The reason is simple. The edge resting on the glass panel is fully supported already. Putting the bracket at the opposite extreme puts the two support points as far apart as possible, so the strip cannot pivot or seesaw under its own weight. Centre the bracket instead and you leave an overhang past it, working against the fixing every time the door moves.

The screw hole that has to be made good

There is one loose end, and it is worth being upfront about it.

Because the original bracket was fixed in the wrong position, moving the headcap to the correct one leaves a screw hole behind in the tiled wall. That is not something to fill with white silicone and hope nobody looks. A tiler needs to come back and make it good with colour matched grout so it disappears properly.

It is a small job, but it is somebody else's trade and it should be done by the person who does it well.

Back in service after 24 to 48 hours

New toughened side panel in, headcap repositioned and supported, everything resiliconed.

Silicone needs 24 to 48 hours to cure properly before the shower goes back into use. Running water over it early is how you get a leak that nobody can find later, so the screen stays dry until it has set.

If you are having a shower screen installed

Ask who is actually installing the glass. Bathroom renovations involve a lot of trades and the screen often ends up with whoever is on site at the right moment.

The things worth checking are simple. Does the headcap sit on top of the panel rather than beside it. Are the brackets fixed into something solid rather than tile alone. Is the door swinging freely without pushing the screen around when it closes.

None of that shows up in the first year. It shows up in the fifth. More on how the styles are made up on our shower screens page, and we have written about another shower screen that shattered over at Torquay.