DIY Network

Bathrooms: Tubs and Showers From "Blueprint for Home Building" episode DBHB-207

Figure A

In the first segment you learned about design concepts and the budget needed to begin the selection process for the bathrooms in your new home, and in this segment host Jeff Wilson jumps into the bathing options, starting with showers.

Where Does the Rubber Ducky Live?

In today's environment the sky is the limit on how much you want to spend on your shower.

• You want to make sure there is plenty of room first, and a lot of homeowners are looking for more shelf space and seating areas.

• Showers today have incorporated many special options (figure A). When you want a custom shower, you'll need to consider water pressure, hot water supply, drainage and venting. Water pressure is an important consideration when getting multiple showerheads. If you plan on installing more than three, use at least 50 pounds per square inch (psi). If you have less than 50, say 45 psi, you will need to install a booster pump.

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	Figure B
	Figure C
	Figure D
	Figure E

• In addition to adequate water pressure, you need to have a good hot water supply for your shower. If you have a custom shower with four showerheads and you've got a 50-gallon hot water heater dedicated only to that shower, the longest you'll get is eight minutes of hot water.

• In the design of the home and the floor plan, you're going to have to pay attention to how much water you're going to have to evacuate out of that shower, through drainage, and a lot of the showers with the more sophisticated heads put a lot more water capacity in a short amount of time -- and you want to make sure you have the drain set up for that.

• Custom showers increase humidity. You must have an adequate ventilation system must be provided in order to accommodate the humidity. Vents are required by code and they usually occur in the ceiling (figure B). According to the unified building code, a bathroom is required to have three square feet of window space -- at minimum.

• In the case of an interior bathroom or one without a window, a bath fan is required by the uniform building code. This fan must circulate or exchange at least 12 cubic feet of air per minute.

• A good way to save on the budget is to opt for the standard alcove tub-shower combination (figure C). An alcove tub is enclosed on three sides, with only one side exposed. Usually an alcove tub also includes a shower and is usually easy to install and extremely economical.

• A good addition that everyone can use in the tub or shower is a grab bar (figure D), which is usually installed at a 45-degree angle, which makes an ergonomic grab from the hand.

• Then there's the option of soaking in the bathtub. As far as household fixtures, bathtubs are usually one of the most durable and last the longest. There are regular tubs or claw tubs (figure E) that are freestanding with legs, which are still popular today.

  Note: A nice bonus with claw tubs is that if servicing needs to be done, the parts are easy to access. They also don't require as much carpentry as the built-in tubs.

• Whirlpool tubs allow you to incorporate the luxury of a spa into your new home. A whirlpool tub involves both water and air. There's a pump that re-circulates the water, which is picked up at the bottom of the tub and is then circulated by venture or jets around the side of the tub. Air is also added in the mixture, which is what creates the bubbles commonly found in the whirlpool effect.

  Tip: Never buy a whirlpool tub without getting into it because one size does "not" fit all, and you want to be sure that you are going to be comfortable getting in and out.

Figure F

Tub and Shower Fixtures