"what thickness is the bath" Is one of the most common questions about baths. And is completely misunderstood even by plumbers.
In fact the thickness of the bath is never quoted - it is only the thickness of the acrylic sheet before the bath is formed and therefore is almost meaningless. Contrary to popular belief 8 mm acrylic sheet was never much good and has been largely abandoned by most manufacturers because of the moulding difficulties. Carron for example used to have about 40 models made in 8mm acrylic sheet - now they have 2 - purely as a token.
The really valid question is "what quality is the bath"
the main difference between a DIY or warehouse or plumbers merchant bath and a studio quality bath is the difference between CONTRACT and EUROSTANDARD
A contract bath is not formed as well as a eurostandard bath mainly because of the quality of the production process resulting in the sheet not being formed accurately in thickness consistency as compared to a 5mm Lucite Eurostandard bath
(an 8mm sheet forms very badly under all production processes because it doesn't heat well to the centre of the sheet resulting in inconsistent moulding.)
Virtually All 8mm baths were contract baths with the result that the thickness of the sheet in vulnerable areas such as the plug hole was (is) as little as 1mm after the sheet is formed.
With a contract bath there is very little reinforcement - most 8mm contract baths were virtually unreinforced resulting in a lot of claims for cracked baths - especially around the vulnerable areas. All Eurostandard baths are fully reinforced to at least double the thickness of the acrylic sheet and especially around the vulnerable areas.
ALL OUR BATHS ARE FULL EURO STANDARD AND GUARANTEED FOR 25 YEARS.
There are two further issues relating to "euro standard" baths
1. the quality of the leg set. most old style baths come with a very poor leg set which is not suitable for whirlpool use and does not offer proper support - all our whirlpool baths are fitted with a steel leg set and our factory fitted whirlpool baths come with an integral pump stand
2. the quality of the acrylic - many baths imported from eastern europe or the far east are not made from high quality lucite acrylic sheet and are therefore greatly inferior to euro standard baths. Cheap chinese whirlpool baths are particularly poor in this area. It is not uncommon for cheap acrylic baths to show stress areas in 5 years or less
For those customers who are not fully conversant with the benefits of acrylic baths or not confident that installation will be performed fully in accordance with the requirements of an acrylic bath there are the resin reinforced baths.
One bath stands out from all the others in this area and that is the "Carronite bath" from carron industries which not only offers a bath that can stand alone as a "stronger than steel bath" but is also not prone to delaminating as most of the other composite baths." (The Armourplus baths have also joined Carron in this quality area)
you can find these baths on the following two sites
MAIN WHIRLPOOL SITE UNDER CARRON BATHS- LINK NOW
SUPERSAVER BATHS UNDER CARRON BATHS- LINK NOW