Anyone have a shower over a double ended bath?

[ange8]

After putting up with a dingy, mouldy and broken bathroom for the last 3 years in our new house, we are finally taking the plunge to rip it out and start again. So I'm redesigning it from scratch, including flooring, tiles, lighting and fittings.

The trouble is, the bathroom is small (about 2.4m x 1.6m) so it has been a struggle to fit everything in for a family of four, including two teenage girls with a serious toiletries habit.

I would really like a double-ended bath,with a shower over it (fixed over one of the short ends of the bath, not along the long side), but a few potential problems have occurred to me, and I'd be grateful for the views of anyone with this kind of arrangement:

1. the shower would be over a sloping backrest in the bath, rather than over the usual straight sided foot end - is this a problem when showering? Do you feel too far away from the shower?

2. the bath taps would be mounted on the bath half-way along the long side, against an external wall. My plumber cautioned against this because he said the taps would be impossible to access if there was ever a problem with them (short of taking the bath out). Has this ever been a problem for you?

3. We are likely, when bathing alone (!) to lay with our head underneath the shower - anyone else do this, and do you end up with water dripping on your head?

thanks in advance for any words of wisdom/random thoughts!

We have one (inherited from previous owners of house).

the shower doesn't feel to far away.

It doesn't drip because its a good quality shaower.

I worry (well, have very mild concerns) about access to the taps if something goes wrong, don't know what you can do about that.

It is very cool to have halfway taps when you share the bath often.

Do you have to put the shower at the end? We've got a double ended bath with the taps on an outside wall, and our shower is just above the taps. We've got one of those shower curtain 'rings' (below) and when we have a bath we just put the curtains back over the ring out of the way

Curtain ring

thanks Slur and NotActuallyAMum for your comments - I'm encouraged that you like your bathroom and it works for you, Slur. It's definitely my preferred option.

I love that shower ring, NAAM. I think we'll need to stick with a shower at the end of the bath, though, as we don't want to have to build a false wall to put the shower on along the long side of the bath - with a false wall and the width of the (wider) bath, the room would end up too narrow I think. It's already quite a tight fit, whereas we have a tiny bit more space to play with on the longer wall.

Thanks again - anyone else?

We have the same following our recent bathroom overhaul.

• Shower doesn't feel too far away
• No problem with drips from the showerhead so far
• DP says he is not worried about leaks and access (trusts the plumber I guess) but did say you have to remember to be more careful of the other side of the wall to where the taps are hung (if it's a stud wall) - no banging nails in!

Tis lovely to have a bath together without one getting the uncomfortable end. Is still a bit of a squeeze though, as the bathroom is small so we had to get quite a narrow bath. To save space we have a shower-screen like this, which also solved the problem of water from the shower running off the end of the bath, without having to have a glass shower screen which would ruin the look and feel of lovely new bath. Have to admit we rarely use shower, is only a backup.

I have a tiny bathroom with a free standing bath on feet along one wall, the taps are in the middle and the shower head is over the taps. We have a shower ring with two curtains so that they both slide back to sit beside shower pipes.. maybe I should take a photo and put up on my profile so you can see....?

It's not an electric shower, and the curtains get tucked behind bath against wall when dd has a bath. I love it!

We have this arrangement with a bath filler and taps on the wall at the mid point of the bath but with the shower over the bath 1/3rd of the was along. Tiny bathroom.

We've had no problems so far with drips or needing access to taps. I don't think it would have made any difference if we'd had the shower at the end, just wasn't possible in our case.

Can recommend Bette baths. Good quality and they were the only ones who did a slim bath which made all the difference given our limited space.

Oooh, I did this thread about a year ago... I thought it was mine dug up from the depths of MN! I am having a shower over a double ended bath.

Ooh Klaw, I saw a picture of that kind of set-up here www.bathshowroom.co.uk/acatalog/ShowerCurtainsRails.html (picture second from bottom of page) - looks fab! I ruled it out without measuring up, just because I assumed it would take up too much space ...time to get out the tape measure again.

I will search for your thread, LadyOfWaffle - sounds like you were convinced!

Thanks all for your thoughts. Lots of inspiration, and reassurance. That's put my mind at rest - just need to decide on everything else now!

My shower is at the sloping end, you need to have a long enough shoewr head so you are not standing on the slope to get under the water, I think if I had a more power ful shower I could angle the flow of water better ours is bit pathetic.

and yes shower does srip on your head unless you remember to turn it right to the side so it only drips on the side of the bath.

Lionstar - With that showerscreen - does the top bar fold out? it looks a faff to have to do the top bar to draw the screen? but can't imagine why anyone would produce a screen that was a faff??

we have the shower mechanism on the short end wall, but the shower head on the long wall, so that you cna stand directly under it on a flat bit of bath.

Furball, yes the top bar flaps up and the screen is hidden underneath, then it runs like a curtain along the underside of the bar iyswim. It isn't a faff and folds away easily too.

The advantages are you have a shower curtain that folds away almost invisibly. Plus the housing stops the water that runs along the end of the bath - and all this doesn't ruin the look of our lovely new bath. It has also been easy to keep clean, better than a mouldy/limescaled glass screen - however we only use the shower occasionally so that probably helps too.

We have a double ended bath with shower over the sloping backrest. I don't feel too far away from the shower although it does sometimes spray around the edge of the shower screen if its directed at too much of an angle. No drips from shower though and the plumber didn't mention anything about problems with taps being in the middle (although I can see it might be a problem beacuse no other way of getting to them).

However since having our nice big double ended bath we have both bathed in it together about three times! So probably worth comsidering how much you'll use it - ours is a bit bigger than a normal bath so takes longer to fill it up for DS's baths every other day (something we hadn't considered!).

I have, eventually..., added some pics of my bath for inspiration/reference/whatever

Klaw - thank you! your bathroom looks beautiful - the rose-type shower over your bath really looks the part, and I love the claw-foot bath. (and your dd is beautiful too - what a sweet angel she is!).

I've decided to live with the 'problem' of having inaccessible taps, and hope this is never an issue. Now I've just got to decide whether to go for a shower on the long wall, and circular curtain rail, a la NotActuallyAMum and Klaw, or have a shower on the 'short' side of the bath (easier for plumbing reasons in our bathroom). But I'm reassured that both options are workable.

This whole thing has been much more complicated than I expected, but I can't wait to get it all sorted out and have the new bathroom - plumber booked for 7 April, even though we haven't bought all the pieces yet.

Thank you everyone.

Following!

Hi! How did it all go? I’m just having exactly the same dilemma. I really want a freestanding bath with a shower over the top but I’m scared it’s constantly going to leak water.

Has anyone who has done this had bad experiences with water leaking?

Also, has anyone fitted a traditional curtain rail when they have a pitch roof?

JJ

Following as also having the same dilemma.