Many people are tired of having to deal with an inefficient bathtub set up in their bathrooms. A tub is fairly ineffective when you are trying to get ready quickly in the morning, as well as almost impossible to use if you are tall in stature or have long hair to wash. Many, when they are in the process of remodeling their bathrooms, make the smart choice of using channel drains in the floor of the showers. Channel drains, along with barrier free shower pans, give you a very flexible bathroom that can also increase the value of your home, hospital, or hotel because tile shower drains make the shower accessible for all.
Tile shower drains are labeled as such because they allow you to use larger pieces of tile in the shower floor than you ordinarily could with a traditional floor drain. Traditional drains, which are round, must be placed in the center of the shower. This is due to the multi-plane slope that has to be created around the round drain so that the water flows in the proper direction toward the drain. Because of this round slope, the tile pieces that fit in this area must be cut to fit, and typically must be no larger than four inches square in size.
All of this hassle and costly labor expense due to the time involved is eliminated when you use channel drains along with shower pans for tile. Tile shower drains only require a single slope to be constructed, because the drains are linear in shape. Not only are labor costs and installation time reduced when you use channel drains, but you can also use larger pieces of tile or stone as your flooring in the shower pans for tile.
You can place the tile shower drains at any of the perimeter points of your shower as well. Unlike round floor drains, which go in the center of the shower floor, tile shower drains allow you to create the very popular wet room shower look, where there can be no glass shower doors used at all, because the drains are that efficient at keeping the water in the shower area and not on other parts of the floor in the bathroom that you want to stay dry.
Accessibility is also gained when you use barrier free shower pans in the bathroom. While edges must be in place around the shower pan used with a round floor drain, these are not needed at all when using linear drains. Barrier free shower pans make it possible for wheelchair access to occur easily, so that you can get into and out of your shower area with a minimum of fuss and effort on your part.
Before you remodel the bathroom, pay a visit to a manufacturer website for linear drains. Here you can get all of the specifications and see some photographs of examples of how these flexible drains have been used in real-life applications.