Specification guide · Hobart bathrooms

Which shower screen glass actually suits a Hobart bathroom.

For most Hobart houses the right answer is a semi-frameless screen in 6mm or 8mm toughened Grade A glass with 316 stainless hardware, about $1,100 to $1,900 fitted. Go frameless in 10mm ($1,600 to $2,800) only if the walls are close to plumb and you want the look. Go framed in 6mm ($950 to $1,400) if it is a rental, a tight budget, or a bathroom so far out of square that a frame is the honest fix. The glass is rarely what fails here. The seals, the silicone and the plated hardware are.

Get a written quote Shower screen service

A shower screen is the one piece of glass in the house that gets hit with hot water, steam, soap, body oil and a scrubbing brush every single day, in a room that in a Hobart July is often the coldest and wettest in the building. That combination decides the specification far more than the showroom photo does. Below is what each option costs in 2026, how long it really lasts in this climate, and what we would fit in our own bathroom.

Shower screen options compared, with real Hobart numbers.

Prices are supplied, measured and fitted in 2026 for a standard 900mm to 1200mm shower in a Hobart home with an existing waterproofed, tiled recess. Expected life assumes normal family use and the maintenance load in the fourth column.

Option	Typical fitted cost 2026	Expected life here	Maintenance load	Typical warranty	Who it suits
Framed, 5mm toughened, bottom track	$700 - $1,000	12 to 20 years	High. Water sits in the bottom track and seals need replacing every 3 to 5 years.	1 to 2 years hardware, glass against manufacturing defect	Rentals, tight budgets, very out of square old bathrooms
Framed, 6mm toughened, better rollers and seals	$950 - $1,400	15 to 22 years	Medium to high. Same track, better parts, wipe the track weekly.	2 to 5 years hardware	Family bathrooms where the walls have moved
Semi-frameless, 6mm or 8mm toughened	$1,100 - $1,900	18 to 25 years	Medium. Two or three seals, one silicone line, no bottom track.	2 to 5 years hardware, 10 years on the glass in most ranges	The default for most Hobart houses, new and old
Frameless, 10mm toughened, glass to wall hinges	$1,600 - $2,800	20 to 30 years	Low day to day. Check hinges yearly, renew silicone at 5 to 10 years.	5 to 10 years hardware in the better ranges	Renovations with square walls and a solid fixing behind the tiles
Fixed walk-in panel, 10mm toughened, one brace bar	$900 - $1,600	20 to 30 years	Lowest of the lot. One silicone line and one bar.	5 to 10 years hardware	Larger bathrooms with a good exhaust fan and proper floor fall
Over-bath screen, single or folding panel	$450 - $900	12 to 20 years	Medium. The pivot and the wall seal do all the work.	1 to 3 years hardware	One bathroom homes and small Moonah or Glenorchy cottages
Factory protective coating (add on)	$120 - $260	10 to 15 years if never scoured	Reduces it. Cuts wiping time, does not remove it.	Usually conditional on which cleaner you use	Anyone who hates cleaning glass more than spending $200
316 stainless hardware upgrade (add on)	$80 - $250	Adds 5 to 10 years to the fittings near salt air	Rinse and dry the hinges occasionally, nothing else.	Often the difference between a 2 year and a 10 year hardware warranty	Bellerive, Sandy Bay, Kingston Beach, anywhere you can smell the water

Indicative 2026 fitted prices for Hobart and the southern suburbs. Send the quote form with the recess width, height and a photo for a firm number, or compare against the full price list.

What the numbers on the glass actually mean.

Grade A safety glass

Every pane in a shower enclosure or over a bath has to be Grade A safety glass under AS 1288, the Australian Standard for glass in buildings. In practice that means toughened glass made and tested to AS/NZS 2208. Toughening heats the cut pane to around 600 degrees and chills it fast, which puts the surface into compression and makes it roughly four to five times stronger than plain float. When it does break it granulates into blunt pieces instead of long shards. Our page on AS 1288 compliance goes through where else in a house the rule bites.

The stamp in the corner

Compliant toughened glass carries a permanent mark, usually sandblasted or ceramic printed in one corner, naming the processor and the standard. That stamp is the only proof you have that the panel in your bathroom is what the invoice says it is. Ask to see it before the installer leaves. If an existing screen has no stamp anywhere, assume it is annealed float, do not drill it, and price a replacement rather than a repair.

Thickness, and what it is really for

In a framed screen the aluminium carries the load, so 5mm or 6mm glass is structurally correct and 10mm is dead weight. In a semi-frameless screen the frame carries the fixed panels and the door hangs off hinges, so 6mm or 8mm is the sensible band. In a frameless screen the glass is the structure: 10mm is the working minimum for a hinged door, with 8mm acceptable only on a small fixed return. Thickness also buys rigidity, which is why an 8mm door feels solid and a 5mm door rattles. It does not buy a longer life.

Toughened, not laminated

Laminated glass is the right answer for a window or a balustrade because it holds together in the frame when it breaks. In a shower it is the wrong answer: the exposed edges sit in water all day and the interlayer can eventually pick up moisture at the edge. Toughened is the standard product for wet areas and every mainstream shower screen range is built around it.

What a Hobart bathroom specifically does to a shower screen.

This is where a national spec sheet stops being useful and local conditions take over. Four things matter here more than they do in Brisbane or Perth.

Cold surfaces and long condensation. A Hobart bathroom in July sits at roughly 4 to 12 degrees overnight before anyone runs a shower. Every hard surface in the room is below dew point when the hot water starts, so the screen, the tiles and the silicone stay wet far longer than they would in a warm climate. Mould in the silicone line, not glass failure, is the single most common reason we get called to a five year old screen. An exhaust fan ducted to outside and run for 20 minutes after the shower does more for the screen than any glass upgrade on this page.
Soft water, so soap film rather than scale. Hobart tap water is soft by mainland standards. That is good news, because you get far less of the chalky mineral etching that ruins glass in hard water cities. What you do get is a soft grey soap and body oil film that responds to a squeegee and a weekly wipe with warm water and a little vinegar. It does not need a scouring cream, and scouring cream is exactly what destroys both the coating and the glass surface. There is more detail in our shower screen maintenance guide.
Salt air on the water side. Bellerive, Sandy Bay, Kingston Beach and the lower Channel suburbs get real marine exposure. Chrome plated zinc or plated brass hinges pit and lift there, often inside 3 to 5 years, while the glass sits there perfectly fine. Ask for 316 stainless and expect to pay $80 to $250 more.
Old houses that are not square. A large share of Hobart housing predates 1960 and much of it has settled. We routinely measure bathroom walls 10mm to 25mm out of plumb over a 2 metre height, and tiled recesses 15mm wider at the top than the bottom. A frame hides that. Frameless glass does not, so it needs a wall channel, a packing plate or a raked cut, which is $150 to $450 and a second template visit.

Want this specified on your actual bathroom?

Send the recess width and height and a photo of the wall. We will tell you which of the options above will physically work in that opening before anyone visits.

Get a written quote How to choose a glazier

The cheap specification that fails early in Hobart.

There is a version of a shower screen that costs about $550 to $750 fitted and looks identical on day one. It is a 5mm framed screen with a deep bottom track, plastic bushed rollers, plated zinc handles and a bead of general purpose silicone. In a warm dry climate it will run for fifteen years. Here it typically starts giving trouble around year four, in this order.

The bottom track holds a few millimetres of water permanently. In a cold room it never dries out between showers, so the seal swells, then splits, then water tracks under the frame and into the grout.
The plastic bushed rollers pick up soap residue, get stiff, and someone forces the door. That twists the frame and opens the corner joints.
The plated handle blooms with white oxide, particularly on the eastern shore, and cannot be polished back because the plating has already gone.
The general purpose silicone, which is not a sanitary grade with a mould inhibitor, goes black in the corner and no amount of bleach brings it back. That is the point people call us, and by then the fix is a strip out rather than a reseal.

Spending $350 to $500 more at the start on a semi-frameless screen with a clean sill, better rollers and a proper sanitary silicone removes three of those four failure modes. That is the best value decision on this page, and it is not the most expensive one.

What commercial grade and marine grade are actually worth.

These words get used loosely in glass quotes. Here is the honest translation.

Commercial grade. On a shower screen this normally means a thicker extrusion and heavier hinges from a range designed for hotels or gyms. It is a real thing and it does add life if the door gets used ten times a day. In a two person home bathroom it is mostly paying for a duty cycle you will never use. Worth it in a share house or a holiday rental, not worth it in a quiet home.
Marine grade. Ask which alloy. Genuine 316 stainless is worth every dollar within a kilometre of the Derwent. Marine grade anodised aluminium is also real and useful. Marine grade used as a synonym for a chrome finish is worth nothing, and you can tell the difference by asking for the alloy number in writing.
Ten year glass warranty. Common, and largely meaningless in a good way, because toughened glass rarely fails on its own. Read what the same document says about hardware, seals and the coating, because that is where the money is. Our page on glazing warranties in Tasmania sets out who covers what and for how long.
Easy clean glass. A real coating is applied at the factory, not sprayed on site with a cloth. Ask when and where it was applied. A coating wiped over a fitted screen is not the same product and will not last.
Low iron or ultra clear. Standard float glass has a faint green cast on the exposed edge, which you notice on a 10mm frameless panel against white tiles. Low iron removes it and adds roughly 15 to 25 percent to the glass cost. Purely cosmetic, and plenty of people genuinely prefer the green.

What we would fit in three typical Hobart bathrooms.

A 1950s weatherboard in Moonah or Glenorchy, original bathroom, walls out of plumb

Semi-frameless, 6mm toughened, a wall channel down both sides so the frame swallows the lean, sanitary silicone, and 316 hinges if it is close to the water. Budget $1,100 to $1,500. Do not chase frameless in this bathroom. You will spend $500 packing and raking glass to hide a problem the frame fixes for free.

A renovated 1990s brick home in Kingston, new tiling, square recess

Frameless, 10mm toughened, wall to glass hinges into a solid fixing, one silicone line and a 90 degree return. Budget $1,900 to $2,600. Get the coating at $120 to $260 while the glass is still at the factory, because doing it properly later costs several times as much.

An investment property in Bellerive with tenants and a small budget

Framed 6mm with the better roller set and 316 fittings, $950 to $1,300. Framed is honestly the right call here. It tolerates rough use, the parts are stocked, and a replacement seal is $30 and twenty minutes rather than a call out for a $400 hinge that is no longer made. Send the details through the quote form and we deal with the managing agent directly if that is easier.

When you should not replace the screen at all.

We would rather tell you this now than after you have paid for a measure.

If the glass is intact and only the seals are shot, a full seal and silicone refresh is $150 to $350 and buys another five to eight years. Replacing a sound screen because the wipe strip has gone hard is money set on fire.
If the tiles or the waterproofing are failing, stop. New glass fitted over a leaking recess just hides the problem, and when the tiler comes back the screen has to come out again and half the hardware will not survive a second fit. Get the wet area sorted first, then call us back.
If the door drags but the frame is square, most sliding screens take a new roller set for $80 to $180 fitted. Ask for that before you accept a quote for a whole new screen.
We do not do tiling, waterproofing, plumbing or exhaust fans. We measure, supply, fit and seal the glass. If the fix needs a tiler or a plumber first we will say so, and you can book us for the week after they finish.

Frequently asked questions

Is 10mm shower screen glass worth the extra over 6mm?

Only if the screen is frameless. A frameless panel carries its own weight and the hinge loads, so 10mm toughened is the working minimum and 8mm is the limit for a small return panel. In a framed or semi-frameless screen the aluminium carries the load, so 6mm is structurally fine and paying for 10mm buys you feel rather than life. The difference on a typical Hobart bathroom is roughly $400 to $900 fitted.

Does a shower screen have to be safety glass in Tasmania?

Yes. Glass in a shower enclosure or bath screen must be Grade A safety glass under AS 1288, which in practice means toughened glass tested to AS/NZS 2208. Every compliant panel carries a permanent stamp in one corner naming the maker and the standard. If you cannot find a stamp on an existing screen, treat it as annealed glass and replace it rather than drilling or cutting it.

Do protective coatings on shower glass actually work?

A factory applied coating does help, and it costs around $120 to $260 on a typical screen. It does not stop soap scum, it makes it wipe off with water instead of a scourer, and most makers rate it for about 10 to 15 years if you never use an abrasive cream cleaner on it. In Hobart, where the tap water is soft, the film on your glass is mostly soap and body oil rather than hard water scale, so a squeegee after each shower does most of the same job for nothing.

What shower screen hardware suits Bellerive or Kingston Beach?

Ask for 316 stainless steel hinges, brackets and handles rather than chrome plated zinc or brass. Within a few hundred metres of the Derwent or the beach, salt in the air finds any pinhole in a plated finish and lifts it, usually inside 3 to 5 years. The upgrade is normally $80 to $250 on a screen and it is the cheapest way to add a decade to the fittings.

My bathroom walls are out of square. Can I still have frameless?

Usually yes, but it costs more and the tolerance is tighter. A lot of Hobart houses built before 1960 have walls out of plumb by 10mm to 25mm over a 2 metre height, and a frameless panel has no frame to hide that gap. The fix is a wall channel, a packed hinge or a raked cut on the glass, which adds roughly $150 to $450 and a second template visit. A semi-frameless screen absorbs the same movement in its frame for nothing.

How long should a shower screen last in a Hobart bathroom?

The glass itself outlives the house if nothing hits it. What fails is everything around it: seals and wipes at 3 to 8 years, silicone at 5 to 10 years, plated hardware at 5 to 12 years, and bottom track framed screens at 12 to 20 years once water sits in the track. Budget about $60 to $180 every few years on seals and silicone and a screen easily reaches 20 years.

Get a price

Get your shower screen specified and priced

Send the recess size and a photo and we come back with the two options that suit that bathroom, priced, usually the same business day.

Keep reading before you order glass

Shower screens, what we fit and how the measure works.
Shower screen maintenance, the cleaning routine that keeps a coating alive.
AS 1288 safety glass compliance, where the standard applies in a Hobart house.
Glazing warranties in Tasmania, who covers the glass, the hardware and the labour.
What happens on installation day, if the bathroom is part of a bigger job.
Full price list and the Hobart glass repair cost guide.

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