In public areas, such as those found in hotels or hospitals, where showering facilities are offered, the designer of the building must always keep in mind that all areas of the rooms need to be accessible to those in wheelchairs, walkers and other types of mobility units. Many homes also require accessibility in the bathroom areas as well. For these reasons, and for the cost effectiveness that they provide, designers choose to install the channel drain in the shower floor in order to create handicap showers that work.
An ADA shower must be one in which you can roll a wheelchair into easily. This sounds simple, but if you are using a traditional round floor drain, it comes with several drawbacks for creating handicap showers.
A round floor drain has to be placed in the center of the shower pan. This is so that water does not escape the shower stall area, wetting other parts of the room that need to remain dry. Additional edges must be placed on all sides of the shower pan that holds a round floor drain, so that water does not leak out around the edges. The floor of the shower must be sloped in order to accommodate the round drain, and because of the round shape, multiple planes must be constructed, which consumes costly labor construction time.
These problems are eliminated when you use a channel drain to create a roll in shower. The channel, also known as linear, drain is long, narrow and rectangular in shape. It can be placed, unlike the round floor drain, at any of the perimeter walls of the ADA shower. Because the linear drain can be placed flush with the finished floor in the shower, it creates a roll in shower, easily accessible by wheelchair, because no additional edges at the front, back or sides of the shower pan are needed to keep the water in check. Because of the long and thin shape of the linear floor drain in accessible showers, they only require that one slope to the floor be constructed in order to get gravity to help move the water to the drain. This means that less labor is needed to construct the floor in handicap showers that use a linear drain, and thus your construction costs are greatly reduced. The shower construction can be completed more quickly than when a traditional drain is used in accessible showers as well.
Many designers create handicap showers with linear drains because they allow for more choices in design elements. Accessible showers need not be utilitarian in appearance. The hot look in bathroom design right now are wet rooms, which contain showers but no glass shower walls or doors. This looks like a wide-open, spacious room, yet at the same time it creates handicap showers, because there is nothing preventing access to the shower area.
Those designing handicap showers can visit a linear drain manufacturer’s website to learn more about how these drains can help create the accessibility that is needed for public or private bathrooms.
