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Shower Advice Please - Domestic Showers Suitable For Narrow Boat


alan_fincher

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The "new" (old) boat needs a complete bathroom rebuild. I plan to ditch the existing impractical full sized bath, in favour of a shower.

 

If possible I would like to ease the effort by using as much as possible that is ready made, so ideally tray, door(s) and enclosure would all be off the shelf items.

 

However one thing I immediately find is that most modern showers trays designed for domestic use are very shallow, and not much water would accumulate before it would be overflowing. Not usually a problem in a domestic install, with the waste emptying by gravity, but not so clever on a boat needing the water to be pumped out.

 

The shower tray in the boat we will be selling is far, far deeper, possibly about 25 cms, from memory, but I'm not seeing much for domestic use that is vaguely like that.

 

So can anybody please point me at likely suppliers of what I might be after, or even better, give details of anything they have successfully fitted.

 

Plans are not drawn up yet, but unless I am able to lower the floor where it ends up, I seem to have an overall height constraint of about 195 cms, (tray + enclosure). If I end up buying something that is a boxed enclosure on all sides, I'm probably limited to a tray that is no more than about 60 cms in the smaller dimension, because the slope of the cabin sides forces it away from the hull edge and further into any walk through corridor through the boat. The boat is big enough, I think, that there is no similar constraint in the other direction, so a tray based on an oblong may work best.

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Hi Alan,

 

The trays fitted to all our boats were around the 100 mm depth overall so probably 85 mm water catchment, which was never a problem with either the automatic sump systems or the gulper type ones, as long as you turn it on first icecream.gif

 

Height was always a problem with shower enclosures, we used to sink our trays down as low as possible, 18 mm ply on the baseplate stiffeners always worked for us.

 

Our shower doors / enclosures were 1850 mm high domestic products, so you may be able to use them.

If they still manufacture them they were from Plumb Centre, their website is down so can't help further.

 

Cheers

Roger

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Think logically - as long as the sump pump is equal or bigger capacity than the water pump, it will drain a shallow domestic tray with no problem. That's what we had and never had a problem. It was ten years ago though, so can't remember what make of tray or pump we had!!

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Hi Alan,

 

The trays fitted to all our boats were around the 100 mm depth overall so probably 85 mm water catchment, which was never a problem with either the automatic sump systems or the gulper type ones, as long as you turn it on first icecream.gif

 

Height was always a problem with shower enclosures, we used to sink our trays down as low as possible, 18 mm ply on the baseplate stiffeners always worked for us.

 

Our shower doors / enclosures were 1850 mm high domestic products, so you may be able to use them.

If they still manufacture them they were from Plumb Centre, their website is down so can't help further.

 

Cheers

Roger

 

Thanks, that is helpful - I'll have a look at that site when up.

 

When shower is running you switch pump on to drain tray constantly my tray is approx. 4" deep .

 

 

Think logically - as long as the sump pump is equal or bigger capacity than the water pump, it will drain a shallow domestic tray with no problem. That's what we had and never had a problem. It was ten years ago though, so can't remember what make of tray or pump we had!!

 

Yes, I understand that, and it is one way of getting around it, I'm sure.

 

I'm probably influenced by our existing shower emptying pump, which is an impeller type, and doesn't really like being run all the time if there isn't much water flow. I have no experience of the diaphragm pumps, (other than the one on the bath on this boat seems painfully slow!), but presumably they are fine to run dry?

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I used a caravan shower tray that I bought from CAK tanks in Kenilworth. It's smaller than a domestic one and fitted into the space available. They do a range of smaller and unusual shaped trays. I fitted it into a wooden frame and filled thr cavity round it with expanding foam to increase the rigidity. I have a pump that I turn on whenever the shower is running. I bought the pump from a carboot for £5 and its a standard pump that you'd usually use for the water system. Not ideal as I have to strip it and clean out the valves every couple of months. The shower mixer is a domestic unit that I bought from B&Q in the sale.

Edited by Chalky
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I'd keep the bath. smile.png

 

We have an air cooled engine, so heating a lot of water is always likely to be expensive, whatever we ultimately go for in that department.

 

Current arrangements are certainly not producing enough to make a bath viable.

 

I'd also like to claim several feet of cabin space back for more than occasional use.

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Gulper pumps will get whatever you throw at them out.

Most normal production showers now have very shallow basins, which can be a problem,however deeper basins are avaiable. I think you have the depth in the bilges to drop the basin anyway so you could consider a wetroom, or dropped basin/tiled surround anyway.

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The shower tray installed in REGINALD is one of the modern ultra-low profile trays, with a Whale Gulper waste pump. Works fine!

 

It's 1200mm x 800mm and was £60 in B&Q. All the shower walls are sealed directly to the edge and the only bit that risks overflowing is where the door is. But it never does. You are worrying about a non-problem.

 

MtB

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The shower tray installed in REGINALD is one of the modern ultra-low profile trays, with a Whale Gulper waste pump. Works fine!

 

It's 1200mm x 800mm and was £60 in B&Q. All the shower walls are sealed directly to the edge and the only bit that risks overflowing is where the door is. But it never does. You are worrying about a non-problem.

 

MtB

I thought nearly all shower trays in boats were ultra low with a gulper....

 

Ours is and works just fine.

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I thought nearly all shower trays in boats were ultra low with a gulper....

 

More recent boats, probably.

 

Unless you go to a chandlery, possibly?

 

No depths given for any of these I think, but at least half look to not be particularly shallow.

 

I wonder why MC apparently sells them like that if a shallow domestic one will do?

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More recent boats, probably.

 

Unless you go to a chandlery, possibly?

No depths given for any of these I think, but at least half look to not be particularly shallow.

I wonder why MC apparently sells them like that if a shallow domestic one will do?

They are seriously over priced, try an alternative supplier. They will likely sell you the same for a lot lot cheaper.

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Alan..

 

A 1850mm shower (from ebay) with a 40mm tray....should just fit into the narrowboat height....you can then either use a gulper pump, or fit a box next to the shower with a pump in it. (or you can put the box under the floor)

 

 

shower and tray = about £150

pump,box, piping etc = about £40 wired to a normal on/off switch (or one fitted with an auto float on/off is about £100)

nice shower taps and nozzle from Screwfix, about ...R50 I think.

Edited by DeanS
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because midland swindlers is selling to loaded boaters.......look elsewhere for a decent alternative or pay the price!!!!!

 

 

They are seriously over priced, try an alternative supplier. They will likely sell you the same for a lot lot cheaper.

 

Yes, I wasn't showing them as a serious purchasing option, only to show that a fair amount of what they do has deeper trays.

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Put a shower over the bath?

Alan mentioned a desire to save some space, so that might not satisfy his requirements.

 

You do remind me, though, that some boats have a short "hip" bath with a shower over it. The Canaltime style of boats had these fitted as standard, though I don't know who manufactured the baths. Such an installation would occupy les space than a full-sized bath but would not risk overflowing.

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Hello,

We have a reduced height shower enclosure, it is 1700mm. This meant

that the total height including the shower tray is about 1800mm. That meant we could raise the shower tray off the floor, with an access panel

underneath, and the whale shower sump tank on the floor. Google reduced height showers. There's a fair choice.

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We have a wet room with a whale gulper - works like a dream and gives far more space than most shower enclosures.

I agree - we've had two boats with this arrangement though in our case it's just a simple bilge pump that does the emptying. On smallish boats it's the obvious answer but I would probably go the same route even if we had more space. There's lots of ways of sealing the floor but If I was starting from scratch I would have Altro flooring laid with a slight fall to a sump. Wet room is a good way to deal with dirty dogs as well.

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You do remind me, though, that some boats have a short "hip" bath with a shower over it. The Canaltime style of boats had these fitted as standard, though I don't know who manufactured the baths. Such an installation would occupy les space than a full-sized bath but would not risk overflowing.

 

We have one of those, i.e. a 'hip bath' or 'sit bath'. It is about 2 ft by 4ft. As we do not have a very big water tank, its biggest benefit is that you can use the shower to get wet, then turn it off and sit down and soap up, using the water in the bottom of the bath, which won't be very much. When you consider you are clean enough to face the rest of the world, turn shower tap on again and rinse off. Then pump out bath (we have a Gulper).

 

Incidentally, we use a standard Screwfix thermostatic mixer with a ParMax 2.9 water pump. You might have a problem with a thermostatic mixer with a Paloma type water heater.

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