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When someone calls Mobile Screen & Glass about a shower door, they are calling about one of three things. The door is broken and needs fixing. The glass is cracked or etched and needs replacing. Or the bathroom is getting a fresh start and they want a custom shower enclosure built from scratch. From the outside the three jobs look similar. The reality is they are completely different services with different timelines, different price ranges, and different conversations on the phone. Here is how to tell which one is you, and what happens when you call.
In this article we walk through:
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- When a shower door can be adjusted or repaired versus when it needs to be replaced
- How to tell when the glass itself needs to come out, even if the rest of the door is fine
- What goes into a custom shower glass design when you are starting fresh
Adjust or replace a damaged shower door
Shower doors fail in predictable ways. The door starts dragging on the track. Water leaks past the sweep at the bottom. The hinges sag. The handle wiggles loose. The glass clip slips. Most homeowners assume the whole door has to come out, but a lot of these problems are smaller fixes. A new sweep is a 30 minute job. A loose hinge gets re-set. A worn-out roller on a sliding door gets swapped. Hardware ages, but the glass itself almost always still has years left in it.
Some failures do mean the whole door has to be replaced. A cracked or shattered glass panel cannot be repaired. A door that has fallen off the wall or pulled the wall material with it usually needs the wall repaired and the door rebuilt. Frames that have rusted through or warped past adjustment have to come out. The diagnosis matters because a $200 hardware fix and a $1,200 door replacement are very different conversations. When we come out for a free estimate, the first thing we tell you is honestly which one you are looking at.
Replace your existing glass
This is the one most homeowners do not know is an option. Your shower frame, hinges, and hardware are in good shape. The glass is the problem. It might be cracked from impact. It might be etched permanently from years of hard water that was never coated or properly cleaned. It might be the wrong glass for the room and you are tired of cleaning it. The frame stays. The glass comes out and gets replaced with new glass cut to the exact dimensions of your existing frame.
Replacement glass projects move faster than full door installs. We measure the existing opening, cut the new glass at our facility, and return to swap it. The new glass can be a different type than what you had before. Plenty of homeowners use this opportunity to upgrade from standard clear glass to low-iron, or to add a textured pattern they did not have originally, or to apply an anti-spot coating that the original glass did not include. The result is a shower that looks new for a fraction of the cost of a full door replacement.
Design a custom glass shower
The third call is the biggest. A homeowner is finishing a remodel, building new, or has finally decided that the shower curtain has run its course. The bathroom needs a custom glass enclosure designed for the space. This is where the in-home consultation matters most. We come to the bathroom, measure the opening at the top, middle, and bottom, note the wall conditions, and walk you through the choices that matter. Frameless or framed. Clear or low-iron. Frosted, fluted, or rain glass. Hardware finish. Door type. Anti-spot coating.
Every custom shower enclosure is fabricated to the measurements we took, in your bathroom, on that visit. There is no catalog door that fits because no two Albuquerque bathrooms are exactly square. Walls lean. Curbs slope. The custom build is what makes the door fit cleanly, seal correctly, and last for the next twenty years. When the project is finished we walk you through how to care for it so it stays looking right.
Three jobs, one phone call. Whether you need a hinge tightened, a piece of glass swapped, or a full custom enclosure designed for your remodel, we do all of it. Mobile Screen & Glass has been doing this work in Albuquerque homes for 50 years. Call us when your shower door situation needs a professional set of eyes.
Mobile Screen & Glass
8601 Paseo Alameda NE, Ste C
Albuquerque, NM 87113
