FIRST, THE NOT SO SMALL PRINT. This solution will not solve your condensation problems if your bathroom shower is over a bath, or if you have a walk in shower with no doors. It will also be difficult to install and will be less effective for showers with curtains.
1. Purchase a sheet of Corflute (also known as Fluteboard) large enough to cover your shower enclosure. Corflute is a lightweight extruded polypropylene sheet that looks a bit like corrugated cardboard. It comes in a range of colours. I chose the semi clear version that lets some light through. Corflute is available from signage companies, DIY stores, art supply shops and plastic suppliers. A full sheet costs about $20 in New Zealand for the 3mm version. 5mm is stiffer and may be better for larger showers.
2. Cut the Corflute to the exact dimensions of the top of your shower enclosure. Use a Stanley knife. My lid sits snugly on the shower liner. If you don’t have a liner, you may want to fix a plastic bracket around the shower walls to support the lid. Cheap plastic extrusions are available from larger DIY shops. Try fixing the lengths of extrusion to the (dry) shower walls using the removable 3M sticky pads so you can remove it later without damage.
3. Install on top of your shower. Try it out.
4. Refine your design. I have a 3 sided shower enclosure. When I opened the door, the vacumm sucked the Corflute “lid” into the shower. I fixed this with a thin wooden batten screwed with short galvanised screws to the top side of the Corflute to stiffen it. A student tells me that instead of my 3mm Corflute, they have used 5mm Corflute. The extra stiffness has meant she has not had to stiffen the "lid"
How does it work?
Water exist in 3 states. Solid, (Ice), liquid, (the wet stuff) and gas. Heated water releases the gaseous water into the atmosphere. If the gas comes into contact with cold surfaces it turns back into a liquid and we get condensation on walls, windows and mirrors . If the gas comes into contact with cold air it forms visible steam or clouds. This tends to get absorbed into fabrics such as curtains and towels. Our bathrooms suffer from both steam and condensation.
In bathrooms and adjacent rooms, the condensing water on walls soften wall papers, forms ugly rivulets of water and becomes a breeding ground for mould and fungus.
Now, when we take a hot shower, we break hot water up into tiny droplets. The result is that the surface area of the water that we are exposing to cold air increases thousand-fold. The result is clouds of steam. Our normal reaction is to put a bigger extraction fan in the bathroom. (As I did!) This just makes the problem worse because more cold air is dragged in to the bathroom allowing more steam to be produced.
By putting a “lid” on the shower we are containing the gaseous water within the shower enclosure so it never gets a chance to turn to steam. The result is a 99% steam and condensation free bathroom. And it shouldn’t need to be bleached to get rid of all that mould and other lurgies .
Try out the Corflute lid solution. Its not so pretty as the commercial shower lids such as the Showerdome available in New Zealand and Australia but it’s an extremely effective solution which you can replace or upgrade at at any time.
A couple of weeks later
1. My wife thinks I am a hero! Great for the ego of course, but I have to admit, each time I use the shower I feel pretty proud that this solution to our wet walls works so well.
2. Showers now give me that warm-all-over-feeling. Usually when I have a shower in the winter I get my back nice and warm but my front gets cold. So I spin around to warm up the other side. And so on. With the shower lid in place all the warm air is held in the shower cubicle so one side doesn't get cold any more!
3. I have had to use less hot water. The shower is warmer so I have turned the hot water down.
4. But isn't it like a steam bath? No. Inside the shower cubicle no steam forms when the shower lid is in place. There is some condensation on the walls, door and roof, where the warm air hits the cooler surface, but no steam. This moisture is a bit like dew that forms on the ground where a warm atmosphere comes in to contact with colder surface.
ENJOY! And give me feedback please. What was your experience?
