Shower Door Handles

Door Handle or Valve Handle? Quick Disambiguation

A common search confusion is worth resolving up front. The handle on the front of your shower valve, the lever or knob that turns water on and off and adjusts temperature, is a valve handle. It mounts to the valve body in the wall, with replacement levers and knobs stocked across our shower valve handles and levers range.

The handle on the shower enclosure door, the grip you pull to open or close the door, is the door handle. That is what this page covers.

Types of Shower Door Handles

• Back-to-back handles

  A matched pair, one on each side of the door, joined by bolts that pass straight through the glass. Common on pivot and walk-in shower doors. The most secure mounting type because the handle clamps the glass between two metal pieces.

• D-handles

  Single-sided pull handles, typically with two screw fixings into pre-drilled holes in the glass. Used on bifold doors, sliding doors and where a back-to-back handle would foul the door's swing into the wall or a fixed panel.

• Push-pull and pull bars

  Long straight or angled bars that span most of the door's height. Common on heavy walk-in panels and frameless enclosures, where the longer grip distributes the user's force across more of the glass.

• Knob handles

  Small round or oval handles, often a single point of contact rather than a full grip. Common on older sliding doors and on bifold inner panels where a long handle would not work.

Mounting and Hole Spacing

Almost every replacement starts with the centre-to-centre hole spacing on the existing door. Measure from the centre of one bolt or screw head to the centre of the next. Common UK spacings are 100mm, 130mm, 150mm and 200mm, with 130mm and 150mm the most frequent on domestic enclosures.

Note the hole diameter as well. UK shower handles typically use an 8mm or 10mm bolt or screw. If the existing fixings are missing, measure the hole diameter directly with a ruler or with the gauge on a Vernier caliper.

Toughened safety glass cannot be drilled after manufacture without shattering. If the door has no existing holes and no provision for a single-sided handle, the door panel cannot accept a new handle pattern, and the answer is either to match the existing fixings exactly or to look at the wider shower door parts range to see if a replacement panel suits the budget. Door handles are usually replaced alongside other moving parts of the enclosure, so it is worth checking shower door hinges and shower door pivot blocks at the same time, with valve and handset parts replaced in the same job covered across our shower spares range.

Shower Door Handle FAQs