Shower realities

Following all the good suggestions you kind readers gave me about fitting a shower to Herbie, I spent some time this weekend doing more accurate measurements in the boat and making Sketchup drawings.  The results are revealing and show the value of 3d drawings.

First let me state some bare facts. 

1. The bathroom is the size it is.  There is absolutely zero chance of making it bigger.

2. We do not want to move the existing washbasin or loo because it would turn into too big a job. My name is not Rockerfeller and I have not won the lottery.

3. There is little room to move the position of the bathroom door because we need to open it without clouting the loo.

4. Shower trays tend to come in a limited range of sizes, although Adam does tell me of someone who can make them any size.

So here we go.  First lets see the three options.  Here we look down into the bathroom.  Washbasin and loo on the right, and a radiator on the wall opposite the door.

The door is represented by the black lines on the floor showing it in two stages of opening.

Now the possible shower positions.

Blue:  a 610x760 shower tray which fits neatly behind the door.

Red: a 760x760 tray. Moved to the opposite wall to allow the door to open, although not all the way

Green: a 900x760 quadrant tray.  No door problems here.

Well, it looks like they all fit doesn’t it? Hmmm. Lets look at some other angles.

Here’s the 610x760 as proposed in my earlier post.  We know it would fit, and we would have shelves between it and the outside wall of the boat.

Now what about that lovely quadrant shower.  It looks ideal in plan view. Here is a 3d view,this time I’ve coloured in the bathroom door etc.

That looks OK.  But wait. lets rotate the view a bit.

Oooh er.  Those red lines show the roof and sides of the boat and the edges of the gunnels.  The top of the shower pokes out right through the walls of the boat!  Whilst you could in theory saw off the relevant bits of the shower cubicle, its looking rather like a no-no to me.  Not to mention the fact that it is perilously close to tangling with the radiator.  The cubicle could in theory be moved inboard, but it would be too close to  the opposite corner then to allow you to get in and out properly.

The same applies to the 760x760 square tray even though it would be easier to tailor it to fit against the wall, having straight rather than curved sides, and the sides can be made as a wooden panel with tiles.  But I calculate the at shoulder height, because of the slope of the boat sides, we would have no more space that the 610x760 tray.

Can you follow all that?

I’m pretty sure that without the 3-D view it would have taken me a long time to spot the problem.  Its easy to forget how much the boat sides slope in above the gunnel.

So unless you can convince me otherwise I reckon we’re back to plan A, provided we are prepared to squeeze into a 610x760 tray.  Not ideal, but hey, it’s a boat bathroom, not a hotel en suite.

Designing a boat bathroom - a call for advice

Our existing bathroom on Herbie looks something like this

You see the door from the corridor just ajar on the left.  The side facing us is actually a solid wall, made transparent here so you can see inside.  As you can see we have a sort of hip bath thingy which doubles as a shower when we pull a curtain across.

Our idea is to move to something like this with a stand up shower and some shelves.

 

I have long kept a plan drawing of Herbie’s internals with measured dimensions, and using that and Google’s amazing free Sketchup software it doesn’t take all that long to produce these 3d images which you can rotate at will.

We’ve already had a man come and measure up for a quote for a revamp along these lines.

Apart from having a proper shower and some shelves we’ll benefit from having a new thermostatic mixer instead of having to juggle with separate H&C taps as we do now.  Kath a is a bit concerned about the size of the shower tray, which because of the position of the bathroom door has to be max 610mm or about 2ft in old money front to back.  The width across the door is a bit better at 750mm or about 2ft 6ins.

Our fitter has specified a bifold door, which I’m guessing he would have folding into the shower.  Wouldn’t that be a bit of a squeeze when you are opening and closing it? – or do they sometimes fold outside?  I’m thinking a full size door might do just as well with the hinge at the left hand side. It wouldn’t open fully, but enough to get in.

Has any boater out there got a shower this size, and if so, how do you get on with it?  Any comments would be gratefully received.