The complete guide
How to Choose and Fit a Replacement Shower Trap Cover
The small part that makes a shower look old
Most shower trays fail visually long before they fail structurally. The acrylic is fine, the grout is fine, the glass is fine, and then your eye drops to the drain and finds a pitted chrome disc with a rusty screw in the middle. It is a tiny piece of hardware, maybe 11 centimetres across, and it drags the whole floor down with it.
That is because the drain cover lives a harder life than anything else in the room. Hot water runs over it every day. Shampoo, conditioner, shaving foam and soap all drain through it. It gets lifted out and dropped on tile. It gets scrubbed with whatever is under the sink. Thin plated covers give up: the plating lifts, the edges go dull, and the centre screw starts to bleed orange across the face.
Replacing it is one of the cheapest, fastest improvements you can make in a bathroom. You are not re-tiling, not calling anyone, not shutting the water off. You are swapping one plate for another.
What this cover actually is
This is a 110mm brushed brass shower trap cover made by Spares2go, part number 03-MBS-240. It is a replacement face designed to sit on shower traps that have a 90mm tray. The cover is made from brass with a brushed finish, and a fixing screw is supplied so it mounts onto the trap body you already have.
It arrives boxed with a silicone cap over the finish. That is a small detail with a practical point behind it: brushed metal scuffs easily, and a cover that picks up a scratch somewhere between a warehouse and your front door is no better than the one you are throwing away.
The package weighs 180 g and measures 15.9 x 14 x 2.2 cm. There is one cover per box.
How a shower trap cover works
A shower trap has two parts people care about. There is the trap body, which is plumbed into the waste pipe and holds a water seal to stop drain smells rising into the room. Then there is the cover, which is the visible plate sitting at floor level.
The cover has two jobs. It lets water through to the waste, and it catches the big stuff, mostly hair, so the pipe below does not clog as fast. It also hides the plumbing, which is the reason anybody cares what it looks like.
Because the cover is a separate piece, it can be changed on its own. The trap body stays where it is, sealed into the tray. You unscrew the old plate, lift it out, and put a new one in. The water seal below is untouched, which is why this job does not involve turning anything off.
If you have a smell coming from your shower, changing the cover will not fix it. That is almost always a dry or damaged trap seal underneath, or a blockage holding water in the wrong place. Worth knowing before you order, because people do sometimes buy the best shower plug cover they can find and then wonder why the smell is still there.
Getting the size right
This is the part that decides whether the job takes five minutes or ends in a return, so it is worth being slow about it.
The cover has a 110mm face and is designed for traps with a 90mm tray. Those are two different measurements and both matter. The 110mm is the diameter of the visible plate. The 90mm refers to the tray size of the trap it is designed to work with.
Here is the practical method. Unscrew the cover you have now and lift it out. Measure across the top of that old plate at its widest point, edge to edge. Write it down. Then measure the circular opening in the tray that the cover drops into. Write that down too. Now compare both figures with the measurements and photographs on this page.
Shower traps are not built to one universal standard. A 90mm trap from one brand can differ slightly from another, and plenty of trays use 80mm or 100mm instead. If your numbers do not line up, this is simply the wrong cover, and no amount of pressing will make a mismatched plate sit flat.
If you still have any paperwork from when the shower was installed, the trap model will usually be listed on it. That is the fastest route to certainty.
Why brass, and why brushed
Brass has been used in bathrooms for generations for a reason. It has density to it. A brass plate sits in its seat and stays there rather than flexing or chattering when water hits it. It also does not rust the way steel does, because there is no iron in it to corrode.
It can tarnish, which is different. Left wet and dirty, any metal surface in a bathroom will eventually spot or cloud. The maintenance for that is a wipe and a dry, not a specialist product.
The brushed finish is the other half of the appeal. Polished metal shows every fingerprint and every water droplet. Brushed surfaces have a fine directional grain that scatters light and hides those marks much better. In a shower floor, where water constantly dries in place, that is a genuinely useful property rather than just a style choice.
Visually, brushed brass reads warm. If your taps, shower valve, towel rail or handles already lean warm, a chrome drain in the middle of the floor sticks out. Matching the drain to the rest of the metalwork is one of those small moves that makes a bathroom feel deliberate.
Fitting it
Assuming your measurements match, this is a short job.
Start by clearing the shower so you have room to kneel. Unscrew the existing cover and lift it out. Expect some resistance if it has not been moved in years, and expect something unpleasant underneath, because that is the nature of shower drains.
Clean the seat the cover sits in. An old toothbrush and some washing-up liquid will shift the soap film. Pull out any hair sitting in the trap while you are there. This is the moment to do it, and it takes thirty seconds.
Drop the new cover into place and check it sits flat and level with the tray floor. If it rocks or sits proud, stop and recheck your measurements. When it sits right, fit the supplied screw through the centre and tighten it enough to hold the cover firm. Do not lean on the screwdriver. Overtightening into a trap body does no favours.
Run the shower for a minute and watch the water go down. If it drains normally and the cover stays put, you are finished.
Keeping it looking right
The care routine here is almost nothing, but it does need to actually happen.
Wipe the cover with a soft damp cloth after showering and dry it off. That alone prevents most of what makes a drain cover look tired: dried soap film, dried water, and limescale building up in the brushed grain.
Avoid bleach, scouring pads, abrasive cream cleaners, and acidic limescale sprays on the face. Those are the products that dull a brushed finish, and once the grain is scratched it cannot be put back. Mild soap and water handles anything a shower throws at it.
If you use a chemical drain unblocker, take the cover out first. Let the product go down the pipe rather than sitting in a puddle against the metal.
Lift the cover every few weeks and clear hair from the trap. Slow drainage is nearly always hair, nearly always above the water seal, and nearly always removable by hand in under a minute.
Who this suits
It suits anyone whose trap matches the sizing and whose existing cover is scratched, discoloured, cracked, rattling or missing. It suits people putting warm metal fittings into a bathroom and wanting the floor to follow. It suits landlords doing a quick refresh between tenants, where a new drain cover costs very little and photographs much better than an old one.
It does not suit someone whose trap is a different size, and it does not suit someone trying to solve a drainage or odour problem. Those are trap body issues, not cover issues.
The short version
This is a brass shower trap cover with a 110mm face, brushed finish, made for traps with a 90mm tray, supplied with a fixing screw and a protective silicone cap. It replaces a worn cover without touching the plumbing.
Measure your old plate and the opening it sits in. If those match the sizes listed here, order it, fit it in five minutes, and wipe it dry after showers. That is the whole story.