Water containment has perpetually been an issue in health-care related shower applications. Health-care settings need low threshold heights (frontal height stepping into the shower) to allow for the aged and those with limited mobility receiving health care to easily enter and exit the bathing settings, especially as they relate to showers. With a low or no threshold height, as is required by many codes such as ADA and ANSI 117.1, water has a great tendency to work its way out of the front of the shower units. This water escaping the shower causes a number of problems for the bathroom. These include slipping hazards for the bather, slipping hazards for care givers, and water damage in the bathroom and other rooms in the facility.
In certain areas, the codes related to the shower front threshold and the bathroom floor allow a ½″ transition from the bathroom floor to the inside top of the shower threshold in transfer showers (transfer showers defined as 36″×36″ inside dimension) and a “flush floor” transition from the bathroom floor to the inside top of the shower threshold of roll in showers (roll in showers defined as 60″×30″ ID or 60″×36″ ID).
Low thresholds required by these codes also have brought challenges to the construction of these facilities. In order to meet the height relationship requirement of the shower floor and the bathroom floor, the design and construction phases must determine if they are going to build the bathroom floor up to meet the height requirements or if the shower will be recessed in its installation setting to lower the threshold height of the showers so that the bathroom floor does not have to be built up. The recess required creates many difficulties for the construction trades. Recessing in particular becomes a challenge with the trades either in small areas or for the entire shower. The challenges are the size and the placement for these recesses. The construction industry has worked to reduce the “slab” thickness on the construction sites to minimal thicknesses. With these minimal thicknesses, the recess of an area, such as an area for a shower, requires that the overall floor thickness be increased so that the recess area does not violate local building codes for construction subfloor thickness. This increases cost for the construction site. Another challenge is that many concrete prefabbed subfloors have tension cables through them. The design and construction trades are challenged with the recesses and how these recesses interfere with the tension cables. An additional challenge from both design and construction is cost, in that many designers and caregivers as well as shower manufactures require an additional floor drain in the bath room. This is a result of water escaping the shower.
Showers must be designed to drain water. In order to drain water, draft must be designed into the shower. The draft must be such that enough slope exists to direct water towards the drain. Traditional low threshold showers have center drain placement. This center drain placement optimizes the ability for a manufacturer to reduce the overall height of the shower floor by minimizing the “height” of the shower floor due to the needed draft. With the center drain placement, draft typically is created 360° around the drain. This draft coming from so many directions creates difficulties for both the manufacturer (or tile craftsman) and the installers in the construction setting due to trying to support the floor of the shower in so many directions with different “thicknesses” of support material under the shower floor. The thicknesses tend to vary and provide high spots that reduce or eliminate the intended draft or it creates voids that result in fracturing and failure in the shower floor. Both of these scenarios are extremely frequent in the installation of low threshold showers.
In addition, low threshold shower manufacturers design products with minimal material thickness of support material under the shower body to attempt to alleviate the challenge with the bathroom-to-shower threshold thickness challenge. These lower supported shower floors have systemic problems of bowing, warping and not maintaining their designed draft. These shower floors also tend to take the shape of the supporting material that the installation trades use, and, again, affects the designed draft of the shower floors. The result of this affected draft is either water puddling in the shower floor or, more likely, water being forced out of the shower due to not reaching the drain and being redirected out of the shower into the bathroom floor.
Additionally, shower floors designed with center drains frequently interfere with the subfloor support members such as the tension cables and “I” beams. The traditional methods of manufacturing shower products in modular settings prevents drain placements from being moved, and thus construction challenges result. In tile applications for showers, drain placement can be moved, but in order to move the drain, the draft is affected. In order to achieve the intended draft, the shower threshold must go up which again means more recess or it means the bathroom floor overall must be increased.
The requirements for the relationship of the shower threshold and the bathroom floor also are not familiar to many of the trades involved during the construction phase. This unfamiliarity often results in installation of the shower and the bathroom floor in more traditional ways that do not result in shower thresholds and bathroom floors that are dimensionally compliant.
Further, the mending points for the shower and the bathroom floor are challenges for the trade personnel creating the bathroom floor, for the cleaning crew of the health-care facility, and for water damage. The traditional transition between the shower threshold and bathroom creates a joint that provides for a mending point that is not handled well by the installation tradespeople. That is, the mending material (typically either grout or flooring material) does not secure well to the mending area. This often provides an inconsistent seal that does not work well functionally or aesthetically. Additionally, shower thresholds often are made with radii on the front that are ⅜″ or greater in size. This creates an additional challenge in the flush floor installation for the mending of the bathroom flooring material and the shower threshold.
While lower threshold shower systems do exist, they continue to have several problems. The drains have substandard draft and draining capabilities. The drain does not reach under the shower walls, thereby allowing water to snake by the capturing points. The grate has solid connections that extend from the front to the back of the trench, thereby creating interruptions in the water capture points and also allowing water to snake by the capturing points. Further, the radii are large and do not allow good mending points in conjunction with the finished flooring. And finally, these lower threshold systems still have a threshold height greater than 1 inch.
Accordingly, what is needed is an improved trench drain that does not have the problems noted above.