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Wet room style shower floors/Envirolet composting toilets


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Hello all...

 

Am in the process of fitting out a narrowboat, and am at the stage where i need to install the shower waste water plumbing.. Preferably i'd like to fit a wet room style shower floor as i'd hope this might best utilise the very small space i'm trying to fit the shower into. Has anyone fitted a wet room floor into a narrowboat, was it successful? And what products/techniques would you regard as being the best????

 

I'm also looking to cram an Envirolet composting toilet into the the bathroom and wondered if anyone has any feedback on these - are they good? efficient? noisy? too big? And do you think its possible to fit one of these toilets in, with the back of the toilet against the hull side???? (as opposed to being lengthways along the boat?)

 

A great site by the way, shame i didn't find it earlier, its nice to find there are other people out there doing the same thing.

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Hello all...

 

Am in the process of fitting out a narrowboat, and am at the stage where i need to install the shower waste water plumbing.. Preferably i'd like to fit a wet room style shower floor as i'd hope this might best utilise the very small space i'm trying to fit the shower into. Has anyone fitted a wet room floor into a narrowboat, was it successful? And what products/techniques would you regard as being the best????

 

I'm also looking to cram an Envirolet composting toilet into the the bathroom and wondered if anyone has any feedback on these - are they good? efficient? noisy? too big? And do you think its possible to fit one of these toilets in, with the back of the toilet against the hull side???? (as opposed to being lengthways along the boat?)

 

A great site by the way, shame i didn't find it earlier, its nice to find there are other people out there doing the same thing.

Don't fit a wet shower room if you can possibly avoid it. They are messy things which tend to smell unless you clean the whole thing out very frequently. If you want to see this in action, have a look at Sea Otter narrowboats. These otherwise fine but expensive aluminium boats have wet shower rooms in their smaller models to save space. The idea is horrible, to my mind anyway, but I realise that in some circumstances it may be almost unavoidable. Personally I think anything that can be done to avoid wet shower rooms is preferable.

 

regards

Steve

Edited by anhar
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Wet rooms always see like a glamorous idea, but theres a clue in the name- wet! We went to stay with a friend who has a wet room in her house. After a morning shower it stays wet until the evening and you traipse water through the house every tmie you use the toilet or sink. Otherwise spend hours drying it,then how are you going to dry the towels you just used to do so? I would imagine it would be even more of a pain on a boat.

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Regarding Envirolet toilets, I sell them in the UK, so I'm probably biased, but we have supplied about 30 to boats over the last few years, mostly for narrowboats, but a number have gone in wide-beams and dutch barges and nearly all customers are very enthusiastic. A few customers have had minor problems, mainly due to inexperience with the unit (or stupidity like operating the 'empty it' lever instead of the 'rake it' lever every time they use it!).

 

If you want to read some user feedback try this: Granny Buttons

 

Simpsons Boats have just fitted one on a customers boat, which won the 'favourite boat' vote at this weekends Crick Boat Show

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chris polley, has made one and i think he is well pleased with it, though i dont think he will have used it yet.

right. Of course I don't have to walk through the wetroom like some narrowboat bathrooms, and I have a good slope on the floor and a proper extractor fan. And I expect to be a sole occupanct so it should get a chance to dry out after my daily shower. For use by more than say 2 persons it might be very different.

 

I cannot see why/how it would be any more smelly than any other shower design. There are no nooks and crannies that will collect water or muck. All floor/wall joints edges are well rounded and everything slopes well towards the drain. Like any shower, a quick blast with the spray will rinse it out. The outlet has a shallow trap, so no need for nasty niffs from the shower pump box.

 

............ and of course, I haven't used it yet.

 

 

Construction details are on my build blog and also in greater detail lost somewhere in the archived forum section. I'll bet Dan'll find it. :angry:

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I have a "wet room" in my room at uni.

 

Its one of these big GRP moulded rooms like you somtimes get in youth hostals, very simular to type you get in large caravans and motor homes.

 

Internaly it mesures just under 3ft/4ft6". Its made in four bits, two wall sections, the tray/floor, and a the ceiling.

- The shower section, which is about 1/3 of the floorspace is about 2" lower than the rest, and the sink is a 5th GRP moulding, with the ceramic loo wall-mounted.

 

In terms of use it could be worse. The sinks a little small to have a decent wash in, espcailly with the large (mixer)tap in the way. The showers also a little clostrofolbic for my liking (it is only 3*18inch) and also the shower head is at shoulder hight! Also, the floor will stay wet for hours (like 10) unless you wipe it dry after you use it.

- However, if thats all the space you have, it is acctaully ok, as long as you have a floorcloth, and wipe the floor dry after everyshower.

 

I wouldnt want to have it as a corridoor tho.

 

Also ask clevett about his wet room if he's about?

 

 

 

Daniel

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One of the boats I looked at when searching was a 42' David Piper from 1979. I was very taken with it but in the end it was just too small for two of us. It had a glorious wet room tiled in Pilkington Moorish style tiles with a riotous vinyl floor in brown and beige, very much of it's time in style and colour. It had a centre block slightly raised above the rest of the floor which sloped down to a drain and presumably a pump. You had to step onto this centre block to use the lav too (Mansfield Traveller). It rather reminded me of a French open loo (rather too strongly in fact) but it didn't smell and had clearly worked well with no sign of being altered in any way.

 

Jill

 

PS Elly is trying to turn the entire boat into a wet room even as I type. In fact she pursuing one of her favourite pastimes; empty the water tank into the boat ....... I know that she hasn't pulled the shower curtain and there'll be wet feet marks on the floor and abandoned towels everywhere any moment now ......... Teenagers eh? :angry:

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Thanks everyone for the feedback...

 

Have decided to go with a standard shower tray, if time and money wasn't an issue i'd certainly opt for a wet room floor, done right i'd imagine the style factor would be right up there, but the trays do seem far easier and quicker to install. Maybe next time (if there is one).

 

Otherwise the compost toilet has been ordered, a tad expensive, but should be worth it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I went to a boatbuilders open day the same weekend as Crick and on one of the boats

saw my first wet room which was full width, tiled floor with under floor heating,

which isnt as expensive as you may think (B & Q) a lot of slope & a suction pump

into a central grid st/steel, I think, then into a tray and out into the canal.

it looked great and is on my list to do some more research.Luckily my

future boat builder x fingers built it and another three so I may have the edge

on info into these in a couple of months.

You could always chuck yourself over the side now and again until its built! :help:

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Wow Golden duck - that looks amazing... can I move in?

 

I have decided to go with the shower tray rather than wet room option on my boat - mainly because the room is on the smaller side and I hate having a showered lavatory. I have seen a fabulously efficient wet room in a smaller room, but I don't think my abilities are up to the design and creation of it at the moment, but it is an idea for the future if the shower tray isn't ideal.

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Yes, any time..

 

We have just the job for you...

 

 

 

Toilet.jpg

 

Its not what you think.

We think a cleaner tried to flush a J-cloth down the toilet then emptied her mop bucket in it.

 

Wow Golden duck - that looks amazing... can I move in?

 

Edited by Golden Duck
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  • 10 years later...

Sorry to bring this topic up again, but it came up first on Google search, and anyway, time is not really that relevant for this subject surely !

 

I go with what a few on here have said, wet rooms are a terrible idea. You have a shower and everything gets wet, that`s all you need to say.

 

We hire a boat every year and are getting increasingly frustrated that more and more boats (on the Broads in particular) are being fitted with wet rooms. Even worse, I actually phoned Richardsons, the biggest hirer on the Broads, and they said they didn`t even keep a record of which boats had wet rooms (as opposed to separate showers) ! Nor, she said, could you even tell from the boat plan ! ! It`s getting to the stage where we`d have to hire a boat with three bathrooms and designate one as a shower room. What`s so ironic about that is, I thought, wet rooms were supposed to be space saving !

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Wet rooms always see like a glamorous idea, but theres a clue in the name- wet! We went to stay with a friend who has a wet room in her house. After a morning shower it stays wet until the evening and you traipse water through the house every tmie you use the toilet or sink. Otherwise spend hours drying it,then how are you going to dry the towels you just used to do so? I would imagine it would be even more of a pain on a boat.

deleted as out of date

Edited by ditchcrawler
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