Shower Screen Costs VIC 2026 - Get Free Quotes

Shower Screen Costs in VIC

A shower screen supplied and installed in Victoria typically costs between $600 and $2,800, and the type decides where you land in that range. A standard framed screen runs $600 to $1,100, a semi-frameless one $900 to $1,800, and a frameless screen $1,400 to $2,800. A custom or over-bath screen can push past that to $3,500. Repairs, by contrast, are cheap, and a handyman can replace a hinge, roller or seal for $120 to $400, with a reseal at $150 to $350. The screen is a splash guard, and it was never sold to you as anything more.

Before you spend a dollar on glass, work out whether the screen is actually the problem. A shower that leaks water onto the bathroom floor, or worse into the room next door, is very often leaking through failed waterproofing, cracked grout, a perished silicone joint or a floor that falls the wrong way, and none of those has anything to do with the screen. Replacing the glass will not fix any of them. It will simply give you a new screen over the same leak, and the waterproofing beneath will still be failing. Toughened glass is made once and cannot be argued with afterwards.

The screen type drives the price because the glass and the hardware do. A framed screen carries thinner glass supported on all four sides by an aluminium frame, while a frameless screen relies on thick toughened glass and substantial hinges to hold itself up, and that glass and that hardware cost several times as much. The frame is doing structural work in one and nothing at all in the other. That is the whole difference in the price. A framed screen forgives an old house; a frameless one does not. Silicone is a consumable, not a permanent fitting.

Whether your opening is square is the factor that catches Victorian homeowners out. A framed screen has an adjustable frame that quietly absorbs a few millimetres of error, whereas a frameless screen has nothing to hide behind, and in an older home with a settled floor and a bowed wall a frameless screen may need custom-cut glass or may simply not be viable. Older homes are rarely square. That single fact decides a great many screen choices in this state. Most leaking showers are leaking under the tiles, not around the glass.

Custom glass is where the cost climbs and there is no getting around it. A standard-size panel comes off a shelf, while a bespoke one is cut to your measurements, toughened, and delivered to order, and once glass is toughened it cannot be trimmed by even a millimetre. Every hole and every cut is made before the glass is heat treated. That is why an accurate on-site measure matters so much. Ask where the water is actually going before anyone quotes glass.

Removing the old screen is a real cost that quotes sometimes hide. Where the old frame was siliconed into the tiles, taking it out can lift the glaze or crack a tile, and where the tiles are twenty years old the odds of finding a match are slim. Ask whether removal and disposal are included. Ask also what happens if a tile breaks on the way out, since a tiling repair is rarely in the price. A squeegee costs ten dollars and outlasts every cleaning product on the shelf. Etched glass cannot be recovered, only prevented.

To get a quote you can rely on, someone needs to measure the opening on site. A phone quote based on your tape measure is a guess, because the installer needs to check whether the walls are plumb, whether the floor is level, and how the waste and the tile edges sit. A good installer will insist on measuring. Anyone who quotes a frameless screen without seeing the room is not being careful with your money. The hinges carry the door; the glass just hangs there.

The Leak Is Not the Screen

Of everything on this page, this section will save you the most money, so it comes first. When a shower leaks, homeowners almost always suspect the screen, and they are almost always wrong, because a shower screen is not a waterproof barrier and was never meant to be one. It is a splash guard. The waterproofing beneath the tiles is what actually keeps the water in. Old tiles rarely survive the removal of an old frame.

Water escaping onto the bathroom floor usually points at the floor, not the glass. If the floor inside the shower does not fall properly to the waste, water pools and eventually finds its way out under the screen no matter how well the screen is sealed, and no amount of new glass will change that. A bad fall is a tiling and screed problem. It is fixed by taking the floor up, which is something to establish before you buy a screen. A hundred years on timber stumps leaves nothing square. Weep holes exist for a reason and should not be siliconed shut.

Water appearing in the next room or under the floor is a waterproofing failure and it is serious. The membrane under the tiles has failed, or was never installed properly, and water is passing through the grout and running wherever the substrate takes it, rotting timber, staining ceilings below, and feeding mould. A bathroom waterproofing failure is not a screen problem, and it is not a small repair either. It generally means the shower comes out and goes back. New silicone will not stick to old silicone, whatever the tube claims.

Cracked or missing grout is the cheap end of the same problem. Grout is not waterproof, but it holds water out long enough for the membrane beneath to do its job, and once grout cracks or falls out, water gets behind the tiles far more freely. A shower regrout and leak repair costs a fraction of a new screen and fixes far more leaks. Try this before you replace anything. Mould inside the bead cannot be bleached out of it.

Perished silicone is the cheapest fault of all and the most common. The silicone joint where the screen meets the tiles, and where the tiles meet the floor, is a wearing part that hardens, shrinks, discolours and eventually splits, and once it splits water runs straight behind it. Resealing costs $150 to $350. It is the first thing to try and it solves a surprising proportion of leaks. The bottom track is the price you pay for choosing framed. Two people and a 10mm panel is not a one-person job.

The right sequence is to diagnose first, then reseal, then regrout, and only then consider the screen. Where the leak persists after the cheap remedies, the problem is under the tiles and a screen will not touch it, and where the leak stops, you have saved yourself two thousand dollars. Mould appearing on the wall next to the shower is a warning, not a cleaning problem. A mould removal service treats what is visible, but the water getting in is still the question. Standard sizes exist, and using one saves real money.

Framed, Semi-Frameless and Frameless

A framed screen has an aluminium frame all the way around every panel and it is the cheapest and most forgiving option. The frame supports the glass on all sides, which means thinner glass can be used, and it adjusts to take up the small errors in a wall that is not quite plumb. It costs $600 to $1,100 supplied and fitted. It is also the easiest to fit in an older home. A raked cut costs more because somebody has to measure it properly.

The trade-off with a framed screen is cleaning and looks. The frame collects soap scum and mould in its channels, particularly along the bottom track where water sits, and no amount of scrubbing keeps it pristine forever. Many people find it dates a bathroom. It is nonetheless the sensible choice on a budget, in a rental, or in a modest bathroom renovation. The fan matters more to your silicone than the cleaner does. Twenty minutes of extractor beats twenty minutes of scrubbing.

A semi-frameless screen frames the fixed panels but leaves the door unframed, and it is a genuine middle ground. It costs $900 to $1,800, it looks considerably lighter than a fully framed unit, and it retains enough frame to absorb some of the error in an out-of-square opening. It is the most popular choice in Victorian bathrooms for good reason. It gives most of the look for much less than the money, which is why renovation contractors recommend it so often. Cheap hardware has no spare parts, which is the real cost of it.

A frameless screen uses thick toughened glass with minimal hardware and it is the premium option. At $1,400 to $2,800 it costs the most, it looks the best, and it is the easiest to clean because there is almost nothing for scum to collect in. It also demands the most from the room. A frameless screen in an out-of-square opening will show every millimetre of the error. Rollers wear; that is what rollers do.

Sliding versus hinged is the other decision and it comes down to space. A sliding door needs no clearance in front of it, which matters enormously in a small bathroom where the door would otherwise swing into the vanity, while a hinged door gives a wider opening and is easier to clean but needs room to move. Measure the swing before you choose. A hinged frameless door that fouls the vanity is an expensive mistake. A dropping door should be adjusted, never forced. The acrylic bath flexes, and the silicone at that lip pays for it.

Safety Glass and Thickness

Glass in a shower must be safety glass and this is not negotiable. The Australian Standards require glazing in a wet area to be toughened or laminated so that if it breaks it does not produce the long dagger-like shards that ordinary annealed glass produces. Toughened glass shatters into small blunt granules instead. That is the entire point of it. Water will find the open end of an over-bath screen, every time.

Thickness follows the type of screen. A framed screen typically uses 5mm or 6mm glass because the frame carries it, while a frameless screen uses 10mm because the glass is doing the structural work itself, and semi-frameless sits at 6mm. Thicker glass is heavier, and that weight is why frameless hinges are so substantial. It is also why two people are needed to carry a frameless panel, much as they are for a glass balustrade. The second measure exists because the first one is always slightly wrong.

Toughened glass cannot be cut, drilled or trimmed after it is made, and this drives the whole process. Every hole for a hinge and every edge is finished before the panel goes into the toughening oven, which means the measurements must be right the first time and a mistake means a new panel rather than an adjustment. This is precisely why the installer measures on site rather than trusting your figures. A remeasure after demolition is standard practice on a renovation. One night without a shower is cheaper than a failed seal. Every screw into a wet wall is a decision about waterproofing.

Spontaneous breakage is rare but real and worth knowing about. Toughened glass can very occasionally fail without impact, usually because of a microscopic nickel sulphide inclusion in the glass, and while the odds are low the outcome is a shower full of granules. Quality glass from a reputable supplier reduces the risk. Very cheap imported glass is where the horror stories tend to come from, and a glass repair specialist will say the same. Lead time on custom glass sits squarely on the critical path.

The glass should carry a marking and you can look for it. Toughened glass is stamped in a corner with the standard it complies with, and that stamp is what tells a building inspection or a purchaser that the screen is compliant. If you cannot find a mark on a screen somebody installed for you, ask why. Its absence is a genuine question. A screen ordered late holds up an entire bathroom.

Out-of-Square Openings

Victoria's older housing stock is rarely square and shower screens are unforgiving about it. A period home in Fitzroy or Ballarat has settled on its stumps for a century, the walls lean, the floors slope, and a shower recess that measures 900mm at the top may be 890mm at the bottom. A framed screen absorbs that. A frameless one displays it. Tell the tiler a frameless screen is coming. Flat tiling is what lets frameless glass sit properly.

The frame is the tolerance and that is worth understanding plainly. A framed screen has channels that the glass sits inside, and those channels can be packed and adjusted to take up a lean of several millimetres without anyone seeing it, whereas a frameless screen sits with a small silicone joint and nothing else. What the frame hides, frameless reveals. In an old bathroom that is the argument for framed or semi-frameless. Fix the wall during the renovation, not after it.

Custom-cut glass is the frameless answer and it costs accordingly. Where the opening is genuinely out of square, the panel can be cut to match the lean rather than cut square, which produces a proper fit at real expense and requires an installer who measures very carefully. Not every supplier will do it. Ask specifically whether they can cut to a raking measurement. The cheapest quote is usually the one missing the removal.

Sometimes the real fix is the room rather than the glass. Where a wall is badly out of plumb, packing and sheeting it straight before the tiling goes on is far better than trying to hide it behind a screen, and on a full bathroom renovation that is exactly when it should be done. Fixing the wall during the renovation costs a little. Fixing it afterwards costs a lot. Glass without a compliance stamp is a question you will answer at sale. Freight on a large panel is a genuine regional cost.

Tiling flatness matters as much as the wall behind it. A screen sits against the tile face, so a wavy tile job means an uneven silicone joint and a gap that will collect water, and a tiling job that is flat and true is what allows a frameless screen to sit properly. Tell your tiler a frameless screen is going in. It changes the care they take on that wall. An apartment delivery is a logistics problem before it is a glazing one.

Repairs Worth Doing

A great many shower screens are replaced when they should have been repaired, and the repairs are cheap. A door that drags, a hinge that has dropped, a roller that has seized or a seal that has hardened are all fixable for $120 to $400, which is a fraction of a new screen. The glass is almost never the part that fails; the hardware is what wears out.

Rollers and tracks are the usual culprits on a sliding screen. The wheels wear, the track fills with soap scum and grit, and the door starts to drag or jump, and cleaning the track and replacing the rollers usually restores it completely. It is a small job for a handyman or a screen specialist. Doing it before the door falls off its track is cheaper than afterwards, and cheaper again than a new vanity if it lands on one.

Hinges on a frameless door are heavier-duty and they do wear. A frameless door hangs its entire weight on two or three hinges, and over years those hinges can drop, which shows up as a door that no longer closes flush or that catches on the floor at one corner, and adjustment or replacement fixes it. Do not force a dropping door. Forcing it is how the glass gets stressed. The glass is the last thing to arrive and the first thing people blame.

Seals and sweeps are consumable and almost nobody replaces them. The clear plastic strip along the bottom of the door and the fins along the edges are what keep water inside, and they harden, curl and split with age, and once they do the shower leaks around the door even though the screen is otherwise perfect. New seals cost very little. They are the first thing to check on a leaking door.

Parts availability is the practical limit on repair. Screens from a major Australian manufacturer generally have parts available for years, while a cheap imported unit may have no obtainable rollers or seals at all, and at that point replacement is genuinely the only option. Ask the brand before assuming the worst. A good installer will know immediately whether parts exist for your brand. A settled Victorian cottage has opinions about what square means.

Silicone and Resealing

Silicone is a wearing part and treating it as permanent is the most common bathroom mistake. The joint where the screen meets the tiles, where the tiles meet the floor, and where the screen meets the base is doing real work keeping water where it belongs, and it hardens, shrinks, discolours and eventually splits after five to ten years. It is not meant to last forever. Almost nobody tells homeowners this at handover.

Resealing properly means removing the old silicone entirely, not caulking over it. New silicone will not bond to old silicone, so a bead applied over a perished one will peel away within months, and doing it properly means cutting out every trace of the old, cleaning the surfaces, drying them thoroughly, and applying a proper mould-resistant sanitary silicone. This is why a professional reseal costs $150 to $350. It is also why the do-it-yourself version so often fails. Hard water is patient, and glass is porous enough to lose.

Black mould in the silicone means it is time, not that you need to scrub harder. Once mould has grown into the body of the silicone it cannot be cleaned out, because it is inside the material rather than on it, and bleaching the surface only removes the colour for a while. Replacing the silicone is the actual fix. A mould treatment deals with the wall, but the silicone still has to come out.

Ventilation is what determines how long the silicone lasts. A bathroom that stays damp for hours after every shower grows mould in the silicone far faster than one that dries, and an exhaust fan that actually vents outside rather than into the ceiling space is the single biggest factor. A bathroom fan installation is a cheap job with a long payback. Run the fan for twenty minutes after the shower, not two. The frame is doing a job; the frameless screen has to do it with hinges.

Do not seal the wrong joints, and this catches people out. The gap at the bottom of a framed screen is often deliberately left with weep holes so that water inside the frame can drain back into the shower, and siliconing that closed traps water inside the frame where it sits and eventually leaks out into the wall. Sealing everything is not always right. A good installer knows which joints stay open.

Over-Bath Screens

An over-bath screen is a different animal and it is far cheaper. A single fixed or hinged panel on the end of a bath costs $450 to $1,200, and it keeps most of the water in without the cost of a full enclosure, which is why so many small Victorian bathrooms use one. It is also the classic solution in a period home where there is only room for one wet area. The bath and the shower share the space. Grout holds water out only long enough for the membrane to work.

The fixed panel is the simplest and the most reliable. It bolts to the wall and the bath edge, there is nothing to move and nothing to wear, and it costs the least, with the trade-off being that you have to step around it to get in. Most people find it perfectly workable. It is also the easiest to seal properly, which matters where the waterproofing beneath is old.

A hinged or folding panel gives easier access to the bath. It swings out of the way so you can lean over to bathe a child or clean the bath itself, and the hinge is the part that eventually wears, which is a $120 to $400 repair rather than a replacement. Choose it if the bath is genuinely used as a bath. If it is only ever a shower, the fixed panel is better, and a non-slip coating in the bath is worth considering. A pooling shower floor is a screed problem wearing a glass disguise.

The seal between the screen and the bath lip is where over-bath screens leak. That joint moves, because a bath full of water flexes slightly and an acrylic bath flexes more than a steel one, and silicone at that junction takes a beating and needs replacing more often than elsewhere. Check that joint once a year. It is a five-minute inspection that prevents a rotten floor.

Water still escapes at the open end and that is the accepted compromise. An over-bath screen covers perhaps two thirds of the bath length, and water will find the gap, which is why the floor beside the bath needs to be genuinely waterproof and why a bath mat is not optional. Where the floor is timber, that matters more. A flooring repair beside a bath is a common and avoidable job. The bathroom that dries fast is the bathroom that lasts.

The Installation

The job starts with a measure, and on a renovation it starts with two. The installer measures the opening, checks the walls for plumb and the floor for level, confirms where the tile edges and the waste sit, and on a renovation returns to remeasure after the tiling is done because the finished dimensions are never quite the drawing. Toughened glass cannot be adjusted on site. That is why the second measure exists.

Manufacture takes time, and the programme needs to allow for it. A standard screen may be in stock, while a custom or frameless panel is cut, toughened and delivered to order, which typically takes one to three weeks, and that lead time sits on the critical path of a bathroom renovation. Order the screen early in the programme. A bathroom refit held up waiting for glass is an avoidable delay. Nothing in a wet area is permanent, least of all the sealant.

Removing the old screen is where tiles get damaged. The old frame is usually siliconed and screwed into the tiles, and getting it out without lifting the glaze or cracking a tile takes patience, and where the tiles are old the chance of finding a match is low. Ask what happens if a tile breaks. A careful installer will tell you honestly that it might, and that a tiler may be needed afterwards.

Fixing into tile requires the right approach and a lot of people get it wrong. Drilling tile needs a proper bit and a slow speed, the hole must hit the substrate behind rather than just the tile, and every penetration through a waterproof membrane must be sealed as it is made because a screw hole through waterproofing is a leak path straight into the wall. This is where a cheap installation causes expensive damage. Every fixing into a wet area is a hole in the waterproof membrane membrane. You are buying hardware as much as you are buying glass.

The silicone goes on last and it needs to cure. A proper sanitary silicone takes about 24 hours to cure fully, and using the shower before it has cured washes the surface of the bead and compromises the seal, which is why the installer will tell you to leave it a day. Do not use the shower that night. It is the single easiest instruction to follow and the one most often ignored.

Cleaning and Coatings

The white haze on old shower glass is not dirt and cannot be scrubbed off. Hard water leaves mineral deposits that etch into the surface of the glass over years, and once the glass is etched no amount of cleaning will restore it because the damage is in the material rather than on it. Prevention is the only real answer. A squeegee after every shower is the whole trick, and it protects the grout as well as the glass. Every millimetre of lean is visible once the frame is gone.

Protective coatings genuinely work and they are worth the money on a frameless screen. A factory-applied or professionally applied coating fills the microscopic pores in the glass surface so water beads and runs off rather than sitting and depositing minerals, and it typically lasts several years before needing reapplication. It costs $100 to $300. On a $2,500 frameless screen that is cheap insurance.

Avoid abrasive cleaners and anything harsh on the hardware. Scouring pads scratch glass permanently, and strong acidic cleaners attack the chrome and the anodised aluminium of the frame and the hinges, and once the finish is gone it corrodes. Warm water and a mild detergent is genuinely enough. The squeegee does more than any cleaner. The panel is cut, toughened, and then it is what it is.

The bottom track of a framed screen needs actual attention. Water sits in it, soap scum collects, and mould grows in the corners, and a nylon brush and a rinse once a fortnight keeps it from becoming the worst part of the bathroom. It is the price of choosing framed. Nobody enjoys it, which is why frameless sells, and why a mould prevention routine matters in a framed screen.

Good ventilation protects the screen as much as the room. A bathroom that dries quickly after every use grows less mould, deposits fewer minerals, and keeps its silicone far longer, and a working exhaust fan is the cheapest maintenance in the room. Open a window as well where you can. Damp air is what ages a bathroom, and a working exhaust fan is the cheapest defence there is. An installer who will not measure is quoting somebody else's bathroom.

What Affects the Cost

The screen type is the dominant factor and it sets the band. Framed at $600 to $1,100, semi-frameless at $900 to $1,800, and frameless at $1,400 to $2,800 are not variations of one product, they are different products with different glass and different hardware. Which one you choose is the biggest decision you make. Everything else adjusts around it.

Whether the glass is standard or custom is the next lever. A standard-size panel is manufactured in volume and held in stock, while a custom panel is cut and toughened to order, and the difference can be several hundred dollars on a single piece. Standard sizes exist for a reason. Where your opening is close to one, using it saves real money. Soap scum lives in the bottom track and will not be evicted.

The condition of the room drives the labour. A square, well-tiled modern recess is a straightforward fit, while an old bathroom with a bowed wall, a sloping floor and twenty-year-old tiles takes far longer and carries far more risk of something breaking. Old bathrooms cost more to fit. That reflects the work involved rather than any markup.

Removal, disposal and making good are frequently excluded and you should ask. Taking out the old screen, carting away the glass and frame, and repairing any tile or plaster damage caused in the process are all real costs that a low quote may simply have left out. Ask exactly what the quote includes. The cheap quote is often the incomplete one. The seal along the door edge is where most door leaks begin.

Finally, the leak changes everything if there is one. Where the shower is actually leaking through the waterproofing, the actual cost is not a new screen but a waterproof membrane repair and a retile, which is a very different budget. Diagnose the leak before you buy any glass. A new screen over a failed membrane is money burnt.

Shower Screen Costs Across Melbourne

Across Melbourne, screen pricing is driven by the bathroom rather than the postcode. A modern, square, well-tiled recess costs the same to fit anywhere in the city, while a period bathroom with a settled floor and a leaning wall costs more wherever it stands. The inner suburbs hold the oldest bathrooms and the least square openings, which is why semi-frameless is so common there and why a renovation budget often stretches. Access up a narrow terrace staircase with a 10mm glass panel is its own consideration. Bleach removes the colour of mould, not the mould.

Apartments carry a complication that houses do not. Getting a 10mm frameless panel into a lift, along a corridor and through a doorway is a genuine logistical question, and some buildings restrict trade access to certain hours, which lengthens the job. Tell the installer it is an apartment when you book. It changes how they plan the delivery, exactly as it would for a vanity top.

Shower Screen Costs in Regional VIC

In regional Victoria, prices are broadly similar and travel is the main variable. Installers cover the regional centres well, though a remote property may attract a travel charge and a longer lead time on custom glass, since the panel has to be manufactured and freighted. Freight on a large glass panel is not trivial, and neither is getting a plumber out to a remote property. The goldfields cities carry a great deal of period housing with the out-of-square bathrooms to match. A bath full of water moves, and the silicone knows it.

The goldfields bathrooms are the classic Victorian screen problem. Ballarat and Bendigo hold an enormous stock of Victorian-era homes, many of which have settled on their stumps for well over a century, and a shower recess in one of those is very unlikely to be square. Semi-frameless is usually the sensible answer there. A frameless screen will show every millimetre of a hundred years of movement, which a building inspection would have flagged.

Lead times bite harder in the country, so plan around them. A custom panel that takes two weeks in Melbourne may take three in a regional centre once freight is added, and where the bathroom is unusable in the meantime that delay is a real cost. Order the screen as soon as the tiling date is known. Do not leave it until the tiler finishes. Chrome hates acid, and acid is in most bathroom cleaners.

Wherever you are, insist on an on-site measure. A screen quoted from your own tape measure is a screen that may not fit, and toughened glass that does not fit cannot be trimmed, which means a new panel and a new wait. The site measure costs you nothing. Refusing it is not a saving, any more than skipping the rough-in check would be.

What to Look Out For

The most important thing to guard against is buying a screen to fix a leak. Where water is escaping the shower, the odds are strongly against the screen being the cause, and an installer who sells you glass without asking where the water is going has not diagnosed anything. Ask them what they think is leaking and why. A new screen over a failed membrane solves nothing. The stamp in the corner of the glass is the whole compliance story.

Be wary of a quote given without a site measure. A phone or email price for a frameless screen based on your own measurements is a guess, and if it is wrong the toughened glass cannot be adjusted, which means somebody eats the cost of a new panel. Insist that somebody attends and measures. The measure is where the job is won or lost.

Watch for a quote that excludes removal and disposal. Taking out the old screen, carting away the glass, and making good any tile damage are real costs, and a low quote that omits them is not cheaper but incomplete. Ask specifically what happens if a tile breaks during removal. The answer tells you a lot. Order the glass, then book the tiler, not the other way round.

Do not accept glass without a safety marking. Toughened glass carries a stamp identifying the standard it complies with, and its absence in a wet area is a genuine problem that will surface when you sell. Look for the mark before the installer leaves. Compliant glass is not optional in a shower, any more than a compliant inspection is at sale.

Be careful about fixings through waterproofing. Every screw driven into a tiled wall in a wet area is a hole through the membrane, and it must be sealed as it is made, and an installer who drills without sealing has created a leak path that will not show for a year. Ask how they seal their fixings. It is a fair question and a good installer will have a clear answer. Twenty-year-old tiles do not have a matching box in the shed.

Finally, try the cheap remedies before the expensive one. A reseal at $150 to $350, new seals at $120, or a regrout will fix a surprising proportion of shower problems for a fraction of a new screen, and a regrout and leak repair is the sensible first step. Replace the screen because you want a new screen. Do not replace it hoping it stops a leak.

What to Look for in a Quote in VIC

A strong shower screen quote states the type, the glass, the hardware and the exclusions. It should say whether the screen is framed, semi-frameless or frameless, what glass thickness is being used and that it is toughened safety glass, what finish the hardware is, whether the old screen is being removed and disposed of, and what happens if a tile is damaged. It should also state the lead time. With that on paper you are comparing screens rather than prices.

Ask each installer what they think of your opening. Their answer tells you immediately whether they have looked at the room, because someone who has checked the walls for plumb and the floor for level will tell you honestly whether frameless is viable, while someone who has not will simply quote whatever you asked for. That question separates the careful from the casual. Ask it every single time.

Compare quotes on inclusions rather than the headline number. A cheaper quote that leaves out the removal, uses thinner glass, fits budget hardware for which parts will not exist in five years, or expects you to arrange your own handyman service to patch the tiles is not cheaper, it is incomplete. Describing your job once on The Quote Yard brings responses from several installers so you can weigh what each includes. On glass, the hardware is where the difference hides.

Finally, sequence it with the rest of the bathroom. The screen is measured after the tiling is finished and fitted after everything else is in, so it sits at the end of a renovation and its lead time needs to be allowed for rather than discovered. Order early and cure the silicone properly. Getting the diagnosis, the measure and the sequence right is what turns a shower screen into a simple job.