A French door enclosure has two doors instead of one. They meet in the middle and each swings outward. Both doors are toughened glass, which is safety glass, with a seal down the centre where they close. It is the enclosure for a wide shower that you want to walk straight into. It also means each door is only half the width, so neither one swings far into the bathroom. We normally fit these with matte black fittings. Prices start at ₹1,045 per sq ft.
Why two doors instead of one wide one
A single door on a 5 foot opening is a big, heavy piece of glass. It needs a long clear space in front of it to open, and it puts a lot of weight on the hinge side.
Split that opening into two doors and each one is about 2.5 feet. Each swings half as far into the room. The weight on each hinge pair drops by half, so the doors stay true for longer.
And you can open just one of them day to day. The second door is there when you want the whole front open, which is useful when you are cleaning the shower or helping a child.
The cost of that is a seal down the middle, and one more of every fitting. That is what the rate above covers.
How the middle is sealed
Where two doors meet, there is no fixed panel to close against. So this is the joint that decides whether the enclosure leaks.
We fit a centre seal, which is a clear strip on the closing edge of one door. The other door shuts against it. The strip is soft enough to squash slightly, so it fills the gap even when the doors are not shut with force.
Both outer edges get a magnetic strip against the wall, and the floor line is sealed with anti-fungal, bathroom-grade silicone. Normal silicone turns dark in a warm, damp bathroom. The anti-fungal grade lasts far longer.
We also set the two doors so they close level with each other. A pair of doors that meet unevenly looks wrong from across the room, and it leaks at the top or the bottom of the joint.
The black fittings, and what they are made of
The hinges, handles and centre trim on this build are matte black. Black on clear glass is the reason most people pick this enclosure, so it is the finish we quote as standard.
Black fittings are not painted steel. They are powder-coated brass or stainless, which is a baked finish rather than a sprayed one. It holds up in a bathroom far better than paint, which chips at the handle and lifts at the edges within a year.
We keep to one maker across the whole enclosure. Black is not one colour. Two suppliers give you two slightly different blacks, and once they are side by side on the same door you cannot stop seeing it.
Chrome and brushed steel are both available at the same rate if you prefer them.
What decides the price
₹1,045 per sq ft is the starting rate. A 5.5 foot wide opening, which is about 38.5 sq ft of glass, comes to roughly ₹40,200 before GST.
The glass is plain clear toughened, the same as our ₹850 enclosure. Everything above that rate is the second door: another pair of hinges, another handle, another set of seals, the centre strip, and the extra time to hang two leaves so they line up.
After that, the usual things. The width of the opening. A thicker panel on a tall door. Any frosting. And how easy your bathroom is to reach.
One thing worth knowing before you choose it: below about 4.5 feet of opening, two doors are too narrow to be comfortable. We will tell you that at the visit and suggest a single door instead.
