Bathroom Wet or Dry

I ended up buying a 2500HD Chevy for my truck, so I need to be careful about my camper weight.
My wife and I have always said that we would not want a wet bath.  Cleanup was our primary concern. 
Now, in order to cut out some weight, we are revisiting the issue.  If, under normal circumstances, we both shower at the same general time (don't think we could both get in the shower at the very same time) the clean up may not be a huge issue.  We would expect to shower about every other day on the road.  I would probably be fine with a campground shower...not so sure about my wife.  It also seems logical that with a wet bath you will have more usable space in the camper and perhaps even more room in and around the stool and sink.

Going with a wet bath would save me weight and would allow us to consider the newer Euro-style units like those offered by Lance.

Am I rationalizing too much?  Anyone have any good experience that they care to share.

Thanks

I never had a wet bath but my sil had one and she hated it. Too hard to clean, dry and prevent mildew. 

Being a motohomer, I guess we have the wet shower.  Whoever uses the shower last wipes it down with a towel for that purpose.  That gets off the extra water and most hard water spots.  After we get home from a trip I liberally spray on Scrubbing Bubbles before Jerry empties the gray tank, rinse it off well, and dry it off.  Our showers have always stayed clean and shiny doing it this way.

Like anything else in a house, RV, boat, or whatever, it takes some maintenance.  In this case, it takes minimal daily care to keep it looking nice and not have to worry about spotting or mildew.  By the way, we do the same thing in our stick house.  In the long run, it saves a lot of work!

ArdraF

The wet bath situation is not ideal.  The question is, is it a trade off you are willing to make?

Aedra,

The wet bath is when the bath contains the sink, toilet and shower all in one space. Doesn't have a separate shower like in your mh. When you take a shower, the whole bathroom gets wet.

BruceinFL said:

Aedra,

The wet bath is when the bath contains the sink, toilet and shower all in one space. Doesn't have a separate shower like in your mh. When you take a shower, the whole bathroom gets wet.

Click to expand...

Yep.
But the good news:  the toilet seat doubles as a shower bench.  (Just make sure to have the TP tucked in its compartment)
The bad news:  you can get a lot of humidity in that little living space.

The attached pics are of a little TC I saw at a dealer - it had a pop-up roof, so the bathroom wasn't completely enclosed.

Thanks for the clarification, Bruce.  That's something they used to do in the early motorhomes and I suspect it wasn't real popular which is why you don't see it much anymore.  In fact, there was one model when we first got into motorhoming that we liked but passed on because of the bathroom.  Now, that kind I would NOT like to have to clean up every time it's used! 

ArdraF

I have had 4 TC's.  First three were wet bath.  #1 was an early version, not usable.  #2 was usable, but not worth it.  Laminate countertop that was exposed.  Just a matter of time before it would swell.  #3 we decided that it had to be a dry bath, but we found an Arctic Fox and it was a one piece fiberglass.  Figured that would be OK.  It wasb't.  It was better, but not something we would use.  #4 had a dry bath.  Sure it was larger, but way worth it.  Now a MH and a great (almost) shower, next one will be a garden style shower instead of tub showwr.  There is always something to look for in the next coach.

Wet bath has more room to shower and you know what, but there is no place for towel or other storage in them. Wet baths get used more, stay cleaner, give the extra area to the rest of the camper's interior. No brainier for the experienced.

If the wet bath is built correctly, it can be a joy to have the extra room and an always clean bath. Maybe the RV designers need to look at more sailboats...

I had a wet bath on my sailboat that I showered aboard every day for over 10 year in the Caribbean  at numerous anchorages. The shower head was part of a retractable sink faucet, so it stowed away neatly and doubled as a sink faucet. After my shower, I wiped the bathroom down from ceiling to floor, then lastly removed the floor grate, then wiped up the floor (hair) underneath. My bathroom was always clean and spotless, something I did enjoy. I had an opening hatch above to air it out. The door was a bifold door that could be folded in half then locked "open" to further aid in air-drying the bath to prevent mildew.

Because the shower was handheld, I didn't really have a huge mess. With a handheld shower, you can aim it very close and right at the exact body part(s) you are cleaning. It's a bathing technique very different than just getting in a shower and standing around while water from overhead splashes around randomly.

Because I was using water from the rain catcher (I wasn't plugged into a marina) I took water saving steps, which also lessened the mess. I would use the handheld shower to carefully wet down my body (aim it close to the body parts!) then I would soak a wash cloth and turn the water off. I would use soap to lather up the wash cloth and scrub the body, then turn the handheld back on, to rinse off the body.

You may be shocked to find out that hair does not need to be washed each and everyday to look great. I wore a shower cap over my long hair and only washed it about every 5 days unless it was salt encrusted (from sailing).

Ironically my bathroom was built of teak. About once a month, I would make sure the bathroom was super dry and completely aired out, then I would oil the teak with Old English Furniture Oil. This built up over time so that the water was repelled and not really sticking to the wood. It also kept the wood looking fantastic.

On another yacht where I worked, in the crew quarters our wet bath was floor to ceiling mirrors. We just used a squeegee to clean after every shower, so the bath always looked clean for the next user.

Now that we have microfiber towels which you can get small ones by the dozen, they make a great cleanup and drying cloth. First mop up all hair with a paper towel, then use the microfiber cloth to dry the bath.

In other sailboats I worked aboard, the bathrooms were often once piece molded fiberglass, this made cleaning up after a shower fast and quick.

If RV designers would make a one piece fiberglass molded wet bath, we could enjoy much larger bathrooms (in smaller RV's) as well as a larger (wet) shower. My current RV has a broom closet for the toilet and sink with a shower across the center aisle. Luckily the door arrangement is such you can "connect" the shower area to the broom closet and have a temporary large bathroom while showering in private. But if I had a choice to combine the shower stall and the broom closet on one side of the RV as a larger wet bath, I would much prefer that over the smaller shower stall and broom closet. I would want a self draining removable grate(s) in the floor so it would drain and dry easily.

But... RV designers don't look at sailboats and they surely don't listen to folks like me. LOL!

If a wet bath means a larger floor plan, I would surely want the wet bath. Showering is only 1-5 minutes if all you want to do is get clean and get on with life.

Living in smaller RV's is not going to be identical to stick and brick housing. There are compromises and trade-offs, but if you love the freedom of traveling to beautiful places, learning to do mundane things differently is well worth the effort.