Advice about shower enclosures - which size to get, door opening sizes etc?

[BewareTheBeardedDragon]

I need a new shower enclosure and I want a bigger one than I currently have. At the moment it is 800 x 800 with a pivot door that opens facing the loo.
I find it a bit cramped inside and I hate getting out with the loo right there.

There is space to have a longer one, if I change the door to open facing the bath but because of the placement of the bathroom door I would need a sliding door for this to work.

My two dilemmas are:
A) what size enclosure should I get. 1000 x 800 would leave 760mm free in front of the loo - which is the recommended minimum free space to have.
1200 x 800 would leave 560mm free in front of the loo which is just over the building regs legal minimum allowed and I worry it would make it uncomfortable to go to the loo.

B) The sliding doors on the 1000 enclosures have a maximum opening to get in through of 405mm which seems like it would be a squeeze to me? Does anyone have this and can advise if it's ok in practice?
The sliding doors on the 1200 enclosures are obv wider - up to 550mm but there is the cramped loo use issue.

I cannot move either the shower or the loo.
My current pivot door opening is 640mm wide.

A rather hurried diagram is attached, which is not at all to scale

Why don’t you have long side opening towards the Bath? You would have a 800mm door and the shower would need to be 1000 I think. 600 is not enough to manoeuvre around a loo. If would be too small.

I like a bigger shower but you are making life difficult by the positioning of everything else in the bathroom. You don’t want the basin and loo at the far end. You are squeezing past the two big items to get to the loo and basin. What are the dimensions of the bathroom? You do t have to have the loo on the outside wall.

You cannot squeeze through 450 mm into a shower!

It's an existing bathroom all in place - I cannot afford to reconfigure the whole thing, just to replace the shower. I will do another diagram with proper measurements, that one makes it look a lot narrower than it really is. There is enough space for a pivot door to open towards the bath in theory - but it would interfere with the bathroom door which opens inwards ( and needs to open inwards).

I know - the opening size seems crazy small but that is how they make the enclosures so presumably some people find it ok? I thought about a quadrant but they all seem to have equally small openings. I don't understand it.

I think I've found a solution - a bifold door gives a decent sized opening at 1000mm wide. Phew.

Bifold doors can be tricky. I wish I had listened to my plumber and avoided them.

We put in our en-suite earlier this year and had to have it replaced twice. First time door was faulty, magnets would catch so door didn't seal, luckily noticed by my excellent plumber prior to install. Second time door came adrift from the top hinge on one side on first use. It took months to get the door company to come out to the house and agree it was in fact faulty and replace it at their cost.

Saving graces were that a)plumber is fab and on our side b) we bought via a local plumbers merchant & not an internet site without both the plumber and the merchant pushing the manufacturer we wouldn't have got it replaced and installed free of charge, despite it being faulty.

BTW this was an expensive brand with 8mm glass - not a cheap internet special.

A bit of advice: don't get doors that pivot as they will be diffcult to use if someone falls in the shower and is unable to move. The best solution is double doors that slide.

What about an apex quadrant (eg curved) shower enclosure?

Oops cross post - saw you already considered that. We've got 2 quadrant showers though, one 800x1200 and one 900x900. I admit I've not measured the door openings but both feel perfectly wide enough to me. The doors slide round flush with the walls of the enclosure so they're a good space saver.

Ah, oh crap I thought bifold was the answer. Maybe I'll revisit quadrant. I think I'll go to a local plumbers merchant as suggested rather than internet because then I can try them out. I used to have an 800x800 quadrant in previous house and found it fine so I'd hope that a 900 one would be good.
I guess that if they make them with these sized openings they must be ok, otherwise they wouldn't do it?

I have the smallest sized quadrant shower (800 x 800) and I can get in and out fine.

I have a quadrant shower enclosure that's the smallest size (800x800?) The doors slide and the gap is about 450mm and easy to get in and out of. It feels more spacious than the square one that had a door which opened outwards on the straight side. My only gripe is that it's quite hard to clean the inside of the glass because the doors slide over the bits you want to clean!

That makes me feel better about the options available Emma, thanks

Could you move the doorframe?

My quadrant shower is 750 x 900. It’s plenty big enough for us - my DH wanted to have a spacious shower cubicle!

Look for a teardrop or bow quadrant shower, it would still fit in the corner but would feel more spacious. We have one with a single sliding/rolling door, access is great.

Chubby that is exactly what I think I'll go for! Plumber came round and pointed out that I could fit a larger quadrant and the loo would still be fine because of the curve so that is now the plan. Thanks for all comments, this thread has helped me enormously