Choose The Best Shower Tray

So you’re designing your perfect bathroom. You want a shower enclosure and a separate bath. But what type of shower tray do you get? It’s not as simple as you might think. Luckily for you, here’s our handy little guide...

By Sandra Henshaw

What Size Is Best?

There is a huge variety of shower trays available these days, but you can’t just buy any size. Cost of manufacture, and the fact that many new builds have bathrooms of a very similar size, means there’s a strong lean towards three sizes of shower tray: 900mm quadrant (don’t worry, we’re covering shape later), 760mm x 760mm square and 800mm x 800mm square.

What Shape Should I Get?

There are a few sizes of shower tray to choose from and it’s important to note the advantages of each:

Pentagonal

The pentagonal shower tray is ideal when space is at a premium because it takes up the minimum amount of floor space. It can fit neatly into a corner allowing you to have a separate bath and enclosure in even the most compact of bathrooms.
Above: Daryl Pentagonal Shower Tray, from £155.58, BathroomVillage

Quadrant

Quadrant shower trays have two straight edges and a curved front. As with the pentagonal tray, the quadrant is excellent for the smaller bathroom as it’s less obtrusive than the hard angular corners of a square or rectangular tray. Thanks to the curved front, there is also slightly more showering space than the pentagonal tray. When chalking out your floor plan it’s also important to remember that, although a quadrant shower tray might not look that big, it will soon have a shower enclosure on top of it (and these are often 1900mm high) so it can be quite deceptive.
Above: MX Quadrant Shower Tray, from £76, Liberty Bathrooms

Rectangular

Rectangular shower trays are best suited to the larger bathroom as they provide a much larger showering space. The growing popularity of wet room panels in modern bathrooms means rectangular shower trays are being chosen by homeowners more and more. They look especially good when used as a centrepiece of the room.
Above: Moretti Rectangular Shower Tray from £84.97, Screwfix

Square

Square trays are very popular, mainly because of their versatility. They’re available in many different sizes, starting from 700mm x 700mm right up to 1000mm x 1000mm. The beauty of the square design is that they look good in bathrooms of all shapes and sizes; they can be positioned in corners, alcoves, recesses or even in the middle of the bathroom.
Above: 760mm Square shower tray from £206, Wickes

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