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Shower Wet Room Style


EnglishRose

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On our boat the shower style is wet room so the hose pulls out of the sink and you shower and flick the pump so water goes out of the side. I've managed to lift up the floor area you stand on as water then runs under it to look underneath and this is what we have.

 

Is it normal to have a bit of water under here. We last used the boat almost a week ago. Is there anything I should do?

 

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IMG_20210916_181233.jpg.3b11833d1af282dbc5f2ed0a92650afd.jpg

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Is that your baseplate or a separate steel shower tray?  Is the waste water pumped out from here or does it just run back through the bilge towards the back of the boat and get pumped out from there?

Belfast had a separate welded steel shower tray, with 'duckboards' made of square steel tube, with plywood panels on top. It all worked, but there was a lot of rust down there when I took it all out.

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7 minutes ago, Neil2 said:

Not quite sure what's going on there but that looks like your baseplate and you don't want standing water on it.  As you can see it's already quite rusted.

 

Where/what is the "pump" that it supposed to remove the water?

 

We always use the pump switch on the wall which pumps it out.

 

2 minutes ago, David Mack said:

Is that your baseplate or a separate steel shower tray?  Is the waste water pumped out from here or does it just run back through the bilge towards the back of the boat and get pumped out from there?

 

This is what we haven't yet established re if this is the baseplate or not. I think it is the baseplate and it is pumped out directly but we need to do some measuring to check.

 

I don't know if other Midways have similar set ups.

 

IMG_20210916_181607.jpg.0b8375729ec2685e25681169ecd524f4.jpg

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Ok so I think we have established it is the bottom of the boat. We just tested the pump and one of stood on the side to tilt the boat and the other pumped it and it did get rid of quite a bit of water but there is still a bit left. 

 

The pump is working but I wonder if it's just a bit full of rubbish at the bottom and is clogged where the bristles are. Will check again tomorrow.

 

IMG_20210916_195516.jpg.ba06503b9e3a63c7749be8b449ad321c.jpg

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34 minutes ago, EnglishRose said:

Ok so I think we have established it is the bottom of the boat. We just tested the pump and one of stood on the side to tilt the boat and the other pumped it and it did get rid of quite a bit of water but there is still a bit left. 

 

The pump is working but I wonder if it's just a bit full of rubbish at the bottom and is clogged where the bristles are. Will check again tomorrow.

 

IMG_20210916_195516.jpg.ba06503b9e3a63c7749be8b449ad321c.jpg

The pump wont draw it any lower that that

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13 hours ago, EnglishRose said:

 

Is that something we should be a bit concerned about or should we just get into the habit of standing on the side periodically and turning the pump on to make sure as much water as possible is pumped out? 

 

It's not a good way of operating a shower/drain.  Think about it, your steel baseplate is being exposed to water constantly.  Just like it is on the outside except the outside is protected by blacking.  That pump is a bilge pump but it won't drain all the water so that part of you bilge is going to be constantly wet.  As you can see, it's already rusty, eventually the rust will perforate the baseplate - it might take a long time but it's inevitable.

 

Many years ago narrowboats were built on the "wet bilge" principle.  Rainwater etc could enter the bow section and the idea was it would drain all the way to the back of the boat where a bilge pump in the engine compartment would pump it out.  At the same time water from the shower would be allowed to drain into the bilge as well.   Some of these boats are still around but not surprisingly most of them will have been overplated by now...  But in the days of air cooled engines the engine would create an airflow through the bilge which would help keep it dry.  It could be that your boat is a wet bilge boat, and at some point because the water from the shower is not draining to the stern, a pump has been installed under the shower room.  Or it could just be bad design.  Either way you need to find a way to stop the water entering the bilge.  

 

There's nothing wrong with using a simple bilge pump in a waterproof tray for a shower tray, it just means that the tray will be permanently wet.  So if you could find a way of turning that part of the bilge into a sort of tray, or even seal the platform that you stand on at the moment and have the bilge pump in that.  I had a boat with that sort of arrangement, the floor of the shower room had been made completely waterproof up to about 6" from the floor so it held the waste water while a bilge pump pumped it overboard.  The pump was actually in a little recess in the floor so almost all the water got pumped out.  

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10 minutes ago, Neil2 said:

Many years ago narrowboats were built on the "wet bilge" principle.  Rainwater etc could enter the bow section and the idea was it would drain all the way to the back of the boat where a bilge pump in the engine compartment would pump it out. 

 

Our bow has a drainage hole which goes right through to the canal so nothing drains from there to the back bilge pump.

 

10 minutes ago, Neil2 said:

So if you could find a way of turning that part of the bilge into a sort of tray, or even seal the platform that you stand on at the moment and have the bilge pump in that.  I had a boat with that sort of arrangement, the floor of the shower room had been made completely waterproof up to about 6" from the floor so it held the waste water while a bilge pump pumped it overboard.  The pump was actually in a little recess in the floor so almost all the water got pumped out.  

 

Hmm we probably need to look into that. 

 

I wonder if other Midway/Simon Piper boats have similar set ups.

Edited by EnglishRose
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10 minutes ago, EnglishRose said:

 

Our bow has a drainage hole which goes right through to the canal so nothing drains from there to the back bilge pump.

 

 

Hmm we probably need to look into that. 

 

I wonder if other Midway/Simon Piper boats have similar set ups.

 

You have "self draining" decks then.  

 

I suspected that was the case, so if your boat was not designed with a wet bilge you really do need to sort this out.  That is a truly dreadful way of designing a shower/drain, certainly no professional fitter would do it that way.  

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15 minutes ago, EnglishRose said:

 

Our bow has a drainage hole which goes right through to the canal so nothing drains from there to the back bilge pump.

 

 

Hmm we probably need to look into that. 

 

I wonder if other Midway/Simon Piper boats have similar set ups.

David Piper boats had the same wet floor in the shower and they rust away from the inside for fun.

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16 hours ago, EnglishRose said:

Ok so I think we have established it is the bottom of the boat. We just tested the pump and one of stood on the side to tilt the boat and the other pumped it and it did get rid of quite a bit of water but there is still a bit left. 

 

The pump is working but I wonder if it's just a bit full of rubbish at the bottom and is clogged where the bristles are. Will check again tomorrow.

 

IMG_20210916_195516.jpg.ba06503b9e3a63c7749be8b449ad321c.jpg

 

So effectively your whole boat is a wetroom.

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15 hours ago, EnglishRose said:

 

Is that something we should be a bit concerned about or should we just get into the habit of standing on the side periodically and turning the pump on to make sure as much water as possible is pumped out? 

 

I wouldn't be happy with that arrangement. Waste grey water needs to be contained and pumped overboard, not allowed to slosh around on the baseplate. Ideally shower drains should run directly to a diaphram pump (whale gulper) so no water is collected anywhere but I don't know how that could be done in a wetroom unless the drain ran from a sealed floor to the pump? But a load bearing floor that won't flex and leak seems full of potential problems. Which is why I don't like wetrooms on boats.

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2 minutes ago, blackrose said:

I wouldn't be happy with that arrangement. Waste grey water needs to be contained and pumped overboard, not allowed to slosh around on the baseplate. Ideally shower drains should run directly to a diaphram pump (whale gulper) so no water is collected anywhere but I don't know how that could be done in a wetroom unless the drain ran from a sealed floor to the pump?

 

It's only 26.5ft so everything is very compact. The whole space is only about 100cmx68cm.

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39 minutes ago, blackrose said:

 

I wouldn't be happy with that arrangement. Waste grey water needs to be contained and pumped overboard, not allowed to slosh around on the baseplate. Ideally shower drains should run directly to a diaphram pump (whale gulper) so no water is collected anywhere but I don't know how that could be done in a wetroom unless the drain ran from a sealed floor to the pump? But a load bearing floor that won't flex and leak seems full of potential problems. Which is why I don't like wetrooms on boats.

 

It's not too difficult with todays technology.  In another life I commissioned a lot of level entry showers/wetrooms which invariably were fitted to suspended floors, the issue in a boat - a narrowboat especially - is that the wet room is a lot smaller than it would be in a house so the sealing has to extend up the walls a fair bit.  On the boat I had it meant there was about a 6" "lip" at the entrance to stop the water escaping.  The bilge pump sat in a little "sump" in the corner and the floor was laid in such a way that the grey water drained into it to be pumped overboard.  The advantage of course is that you can use pretty much all the available space in the room.    

 

 

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26 minutes ago, Neil2 said:

The advantage of course is that you can use pretty much all the available space in the room.    

Exactly right, we just showered with the porta-potti in situ, squeegeed the floor and it was fine.

 

If anyone has any suggestions about how we could go about creating something much better I'd really appreciate it. As newbies we are a bit clueless but want to make sure things are done properly and put any issues right.

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52 minutes ago, EnglishRose said:

Exactly right, we just showered with the porta-potti in situ, squeegeed the floor and it was fine.

 

If anyone has any suggestions about how we could go about creating something much better I'd really appreciate it. As newbies we are a bit clueless but want to make sure things are done properly and put any issues right.

 

Could you not create a glass fibre lining with raised sides under the wet room and put the shower pump in that?

 

That way the baseplate will stay dry and any residual water that the pump cannot pick up will not do any harm.

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It looks as though that part of the bilge is sealed all the way round..?  That would make life a bit easier.  From the pictures it doesn't look too bad ie no obvious danger of the baseplate being perforated.  

 

Don't know what others think but if it is sealed, I'd get it dry first off then remove all the loose rust and treat it Vactan say, or Owatrol, you could then treat it like an integral water tank actually it's easier as you don't have to worry about the coating being toxic, just standard blacking would do.

 

Better still IIRC Jotun do a range of epoxy based products for treating old integral water tanks but I don't think you can buy them in small quantities so it could be an expensive exercise, though you could use the rest for the outside of the boat I suppose...

 

 

 

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Having just measured the whole space I  think a 1000*700 tray would take up all the space but would you be able to stand in a tray (stone resin perhaps) everytime you needed the loo, effectively this would be the floor unless you then built something over the top of it and obviously need to look into how to accommodate bilge pump.

 

Alternatively it seems some sort of fibreglass may be an option.

Edited by EnglishRose
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Construct a waterproof floor at the floor level at the door with a slope to one rear corner where you put a recess for the pump. Glass re-enforced resin would be one possible material. Welded PVC would be another. 

Then you have a proper wet room and can keep the bilge beneath dry and ventilated.

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6 hours ago, Neil2 said:

 

It's not too difficult with todays technology.  

 

 

So why do so many wetrooms leak?

 

Either it is difficult or possibly many aren't installed properly.

 

I can't help thinking there's a correlation between the amount of space or length of corners being sealed and the propensity for leaks to develop. For that reason I prefer to keep the wet area inside a boat smaller rather than larger.

Edited by blackrose
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On 17/09/2021 at 18:45, Tracy D'arth said:

Construct a waterproof floor at the floor level at the door with a slope to one rear corner where you put a recess for the pump. Glass re-enforced resin would be one possible material. Welded PVC would be another. 

 

When you say fibreglass or welded pvc - is that the material you'd suggest for the recess. Our current floor was a waterproof covering on a stand sloping to the corner (what you can see on the picture). The issue was it was draining straight onto the baseplate!

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33 minutes ago, EnglishRose said:

 

When you say fibreglass or welded pvc - is that the material you'd suggest for the recess. Our current floor was a waterproof covering on a stand sloping to the corner (what you can see on the picture). The issue was it was draining straight onto the baseplate!

Not just the recess for the pump but a complete floor, starting at the door and level with the corridor? outside, waterproof and with an upstand up the wall so as to join with the waterproof wall linings. Chuck the loose stand, its a terrible way to do it as you have no control of where the water goes.

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