How do you install a sliding shower door on an Ella shower stall?

A sliding shower door is fitted after the Ella shower stall has been assembled and sealed, and the door maker's instructions govern how its frame goes together. What is specific to an Ella stall is everything around those instructions: measuring the finished opening, screwing the track and side jambs into the wood-backed side walls, sealing every fastener and joint, and keeping every screw out of the threshold. Start with Does the Ella Shower Stall Come With a Door, and What Size Door Fits the Opening? to confirm which door fits, then work through the sequence below with your installer.

Step 1: Measure the Finished Opening

Ella shower stalls and kits ship without a door, curtain or curtain rod, so the door is a separate purchase, and the first job is knowing the opening it has to fill. Measure your own stall after it is assembled and before you order a door, because the exact figure at the door line can shift slightly with how the walls are seated. The two measurements that matter are the inside width between the finished side walls and the inside height from the threshold to the top of the wall panels. Ask your Ella dealer or the team at (800) 480-6850 for the specification drawing for your stall, which lists every dimension you need.

• The larger stall has an inside opening of 55 3/4 inches. The Liberty three-piece low-threshold shower measures 55.75 inches wide and 73 inches high from the threshold.
• The smaller stall has an inside opening of 44 3/4 inches, which door makers treat as a 45-inch opening.
• Compare a door's published range to the measured opening, never to the nominal size of the stall, because the nominal size describes the alcove and not the door opening.

Step 2: Choose a Door Whose Range Brackets the Opening

Ella offers one door of its own, the Ella Duo framed sliding door, for the larger stall's 55 3/4 inch opening. It comes in three finishes, listed as S5570C in chrome, S5570BN in brushed nickel and S5570B in black, and it is fitted after the stall is assembled and sealed. For the smaller stall, Ella does not offer a door, so you shop for a door made for a 45-inch opening. Framed sliding doors are sold for a range of openings, so pick one whose adjustment range brackets your measurement. Frameless and barn-style doors are usually sold for a nominal opening and rely on the header and side channels for adjustment, so confirm the maker's minimum and maximum against your measured width before buying.

Some doors list a minimum opening a fraction of an inch wider than the stall. Do not assume the door can be shortened. Contact the door manufacturer before buying and ask whether that model can be trimmed by the difference, and if it cannot, choose a door whose published range already includes your figure. The Liberty-specific sizing and mounting notes are in Choosing a Shower Door for the Ella Liberty Three-Piece Shower: Opening Size, Mounting and Sealing.

Step 3: Mount the Frame to the Wood-Backed Walls

The side walls of an Ella stall have wood built into the fiberglass, so a door frame or pivot hinges can be screwed straight into the stall without hunting for a stud behind it. A framed door track or the wall jambs of a frameless door mount to the stall walls following the door maker's instructions. Use the anchors the door maker specifies, and apply sealant at every fastener that passes through the wall.

Ella's framed sliding doors are true framed doors and are installed as a complete frame with the bottom track in place. The bottom track guides the lower edge of the sliding panels so they stay aligned and forms a lip at the sill that helps hold water inside. The Primo 8mm frameless door is the exception: it has no bottom rail at all, only a flexible water retainer gasket along the bottom edge that expands about 3/8 of an inch. The differences are explained in Does the Ella Shower Door Have a Bottom Track or Is It Trackless?. The low threshold on the Liberty has square corners rather than a radius, which is what lets a framed or frameless door seal down into the corner.

One rule protects the base warranty: never drill into the shower base threshold, since drilling the threshold voids the warranty. Plan the door track mounting with your installer so nothing penetrates it. That rule is set out alongside the roll-in dam instructions in What Is a Collapsible Rubber Dam on a Roll-In Shower?.

Step 4: Seal Every Joint and Let It Cure

A fixed glass panel keeps water in only when every joint is sealed. The door maker's instructions will call for sealant between the wall and the mounting profile, between the fixed glass and its profile, and along the bottom edge where the glass meets the shower floor. Skip any of those and water finds the gap at the corner. Let the sealant cure for the time the sealant maker specifies before the first shower. On a Primo door, a gasket that has shifted or has a gap is what lets water spray out, so check that the retainer sits flat along the full width before the first use.

After the Door Is in: Care and Parts

• A framed door's bottom track is a raised channel that collects water and soap film, so wipe it out regularly. The Primo gasket is a low, soft strip with no channel to clean.
• Tracks, rollers and knobs for framed doors are separate parts. Photograph the broken or missing piece and, if you can, the same part on the other side of the door, and note the finish and the door size.
• If your door came through a home improvement retailer, those lines are discontinued for distribution through Ella and each request is checked against remaining warehouse stock. Send photos, the door model or SKU and your retailer order details through ellasbubbles.com/support, as described in Replacement Parts for Discontinued Ella Sliding Shower Doors Sold Through Retailers.
• The warranty applies to the original purchaser only, so a door that came with a house you bought is checked for stock but not covered.

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