Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Federal Glass to the Rescue

Our house has a one-person shower enclosure in the master bath with a swing-open door. Lately, every time we exit from the shower, we find a small puddle of water just outside the door. There is a metal drain shelf near the bottom of the door and a sweep attached to the bottom of the shelf. This shelf/sweep construction is supposed to minimize the amount of water that gets out. But, it apparently hasn't been doing its job. Recently, I stopped by Home Depot to see if they stock a replacement for my shelf/sweep construction. They said "no" and instead referred me to a local store by the name of Federal Glass. The Home Depot employee recommended that I bring the shelf/sweep construction with me so they could determine an exact replacement.

The next day, I took apart the shelf/sweep construction. Boy, was it disgusting! From above, it looked clean, but underneath was years of mold and mildew buildup. And, the rubber sweep was all-but-disintegrated and clearly required replacing.

Unfortunately, Federal Glass was closed when I first tried to stop by on a Saturday afternoon. But, when my wife stopped by on Monday, she came home with a new rubber sweep ($5) and instructions to simply clean and reinstall the shelf (free). I spent 15 minutes returning the metal shelf back to its original grandeur, installed the new rubber sweep and secured the shelf back to the door, making sure to secure one end higher than the other to encourage water to fall back into the shower.

The next day when I stepped out of the shower, I carefully looked for water around the door and only found a few drops (compared to the pool we experienced before). Amazing what $5 and a quality local store can do for you!