
America Is Overrun with Bathrooms - pseudolus
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/why-do-american-houses-have-so-many-bathrooms/605338/
======
crazygringo
I was hoping this would be about _public_ restrooms, but alas -- it's about
increasing numbers of bathrooms in suburban homes.

The article seems to take a subtle tone that this is bad... but as far as
resource overconsumption goes, this would seem to be the least of worries.

It's not like it's taking up space that would otherwise go to something else.
This is the suburbs, not Manhattan.

And let's face it: shared bathrooms are probably a top-5 source of
family/marital stress, whether it's needing to use them at the same time while
trying not to be late for work/school, dealing with soggy bathmats and strange
smells, and just general overcrowding and messiness of hygiene products.

So hey: if you've got the money and have the time/money to keep them clean...
it actually seems like one of life's luxuries that really does make your life
better, no?

~~~
wutbrodo
> shared bathrooms are probably a top-5 source of family/marital stress,

Huh, this is apparently one of those shared experiences that I have absolutely
no experience with. I can't even imagine anyone in my family getting upset
about a bathroom.

~~~
happytoexplain
The connotations of "stressed" and "upset" are totally different.

~~~
wutbrodo
Okay, but that only matters if you read my comment ultra-pedantically. Given
the comment I was responding to, I should think it's obvious that you can
extend my statement to: "I can't imagine anyone in my family getting stressed
over a bathroom"

------
bkjelden
Bathrooms are also a high margin item for homebuilders. Adding the rough-in
plumbing for another bathroom takes minimal labor while a house is still being
built, and builder-grade fixtures can probably be had for under $1000.

But because adding plumbing is an absolute pain in the ass after the house is
built, and because the real estate industry has "more bathrooms = higher
resale" programmed deep within its fabric, builders can charge several
thousand dollars for them as an upgrade.

~~~
unishark
A big part of that cost is probably permits (and costs of compliance with new
rules). I know someone (a do-it-yourselfer) who added a bathroom to their
house in california and it required multiple inspections at various stages of
construction. I know another person in the same city who has added bathrooms
to houses he rents out and I'm fairly sure he doesn't bother with permits or
inspections and his costs are minimal, getting a closet converted in a
weekend.

~~~
officialchicken
A review before you begin, and independent reviews of the all the systems you
hack by specialists of those systems - before you make it so you can't see
anything - and followed by a final review stating the work was done correctly
(for insurance) is the complaint? It seems your friend looked at the cost of a
toilet and tile and thought in Home Depot, "I can do this," not realizing the
TCO.

~~~
unishark
Well in defense of my friend, he is a mechanical engineer and certainly could
do it, and did. He added an entire master bedroom and bath to an old house,
doing most of the interior stuff himself. However some of the hoops he had to
jump through were pretty silly. I'm sure there was plenty of regulatory
capture by builders and contractors.

------
droithomme
Hm, article talks about new homes coming with 10 to 20 bathrooms. I have never
seen or heard of such a thing. There's no way that's for normal houses. If the
ultra rich want mansions with 20 bathrooms, that's their business. There are
worse things one could spend their money on.

I have always lived in places with around 1 bathroom per 2 persons. Sometimes
though you'll have say 5 people in the house and 2 of them are using both
bathrooms, both doing things that take a long time. At this point when a third
person needs to use the bathroom, they are stuck with holding it or having to
go outside. So I can see that getting closer to 1 bathroom per person can be
reasonable. Not all the bathrooms need to be full baths. Having a utility
bathroom near the front door for guests with just a toilet and limited storage
or room to do things helps maintain a bathroom that isn't going to be occupied
for a long time.

------
wink
I think the premise of "bathrooms per person" is wrong, from a European
standpoint, or only transitively by "square meters => probably x people in
this house/apartment".

Nearly all the people I know who have a small house in southern Germany have
1-2 "real" bathrooms, with toilet and shower/bathtub and another extra small
toilet, often right at the entrance.

Bigger flats of 90m2+ often have a second bathroom, it can be just a toilet,
or with a shower if the main one has a bathtub.

What I'm saying is.. 2 from a certain size is totally normal. 3 is rare, but
possible. I've _never_ seen 4. But the houses have 2-5 people. I simply
doesn't matter, we have such small houses (in cities) that you'd have the same
size house with zero children or with up to 3 children. The number of
bathrooms won't change unless you add one yourself, but there are not so many
spare rooms... (Bit different if one floor is walled off completely to be a
separate apartment, but I guess we can ignore these). (My parents' house was
right in the middle here. One proper bathroom with toilet+shower, one
additional small one with just a bathtub, a very small one with just a toilet
next to the entrance. And the 2nd floor was supposed to be a separate
apartment, thus another smallish one with toilet+shower).

But probably still 1-2 less than American houses...

------
randallsquared
> _home that listed for $49.9 million. It featured eight bedrooms—and 20
> bathrooms. By any rational assessment, this is a ludicrous use of money,
> space, and plumbing._

Assuming eight of those bathrooms are essentially unavailable to guests
(because they are accessible only through the associated bedroom), and that a
resident wants to throw a raucous party for Dunbar's number of people, the
other 12 seem... adequate, I guess. Maybe. :)

~~~
_nalply
Perhaps all bedrooms have two bathrooms? Such that they and they could go at
the same time?

This leaves four more generally accessible bathrooms. Seems adequate, I guess.
Maybe.

------
tzs
Maybe I just missed it amid all the overly florid prose, but I didn't see any
actual numbers in there. The closest I noticed was this:

> “We went from two people per bathroom to one person per bathroom in the last
> 50 years,” says Jeff Tucker, an economist at Zillow. “That’s amazing,
> because postwar America was already rich and booming, and we just, you know,
> kept building more bathrooms.”

In the last 50 years the average age of the mother at the birth of her first
child has risen from the 22-24 range (sources differ) to 27-30 now. Young
homeowners taking longer to have children would lower the average number of
persons per bathroom.

If you want actual numbers, follow the link the article gives in this
sentence:

> Across the country, bathrooms are multiplying—including in apartments and
> condos—even as American families and households are getting smaller

The link is on "apartments and condos" so you might expect that it is only
about apartments and condos, but it actually goes to the "Characteristics of
New Housing" page at census.gov [1], which contains a whole bunch of XSL
downloads containing data over time on various characteristics of new
housings, both single-family houses and multifamily units.

Eyeballing the "Bathrooms", "Bedrooms", and "Bathrooms by Bedrooms" downloads,
it looks to me like much of the growth in number of bathrooms comes from
growth in the number of bedrooms. Perhaps the question should be why is the
number of bedrooms going up?

[1]
[https://www.census.gov/construction/chars/](https://www.census.gov/construction/chars/)

------
jaclaz
I don't know, but I don't think that having a single bathroom (I mean
including both toilet and sink and shower or bath) is "typically" american.

I struggle (and I am 50+) to remember any house in Italy with a "full"
bathroom but separate toilet room (and BTW at least one bathroom in the house
has now a bidet).

Very poor houses (old and not renovated) had often once "minimal" toilets,
with the WC but always with - even if minimal - washbasin.

Later some bathrooms (still mostly including a bidet) had not a shower like we
are used to now, with a plate and glass/plastic cabin, but rather in the
middle of the room with the bathroom tiles converging to a drain.

------
apike
While Europe may be more judicious with their allocation of bathrooms, in
Canada – Vancouver, at least – they’ve proliferated in newer homes. A lot of
newer 3 bedroom condos on the market cram 3 bathrooms into ~1100 square feet –
often with one bathroom including a separate shower _and_ bath.

While this drives up the quantity of bathrooms on the real estate listing, the
tight quarters mean that the other rooms are even smaller, while each bathroom
lacks enough cupboard or shelf space for anything more than a couple towels
and a spare roll of toilet paper. It’s an odd tradeoff.

~~~
jeromegv
Same in Toronto. Saw many 1+den with 2 bathrooms. A way to sell the den as a
second bedroom and you end up with 2 shitty small bathroom with no storage.
Not a fan of this layout.

------
lawkwok
For those who have been to South Korea, you may have noticed not all stores
have a bathroom. Many retail stores and restaurants are units of a larger
multi story building that often has a shared public bathroom.

You lose the convenience of having a bathroom attached directly to the store
itself, but gain the convenience of many more public bathrooms that don’t
require a purchase.

~~~
_huayra_
I think most malls all over the world have something like this. I think the
plumbing effort to give each store its own fresh- and waste water plumbing
would create extra cost and source of problems.

------
throwawayjava
Fascinating! I always wondered where the convention of putting toilets in the
same room as the shower came from.

~~~
mdasen
The fact that it allows them to put the pipes needed for all those items in
the same place probably also helps. In a lot of places near me, the kitchen
sink shares a wall with the bathroom because it's cheaper to do the plumbing
that way. If the bathroom and kitchen were on opposite sides of the place,
that means more work plumbing wise.

Plus, walls take up a lot of space. If we put the toilet in a different room,
that would mean losing more space to walls (and configuration options). In my
bathroom, the sink is in the front followed by the toilet followed by the
shower. Walls (and the clearance that the doors would need) would mandate
using a lot more space. Plus, you'd need more space for each bit not to feel
claustrophobic. You don't feel like you're in a tiny box at the sink in my
bathroom because it's open to the toilet and shower. If each section was only
3ft wide, it would feel really claustrophobic.

------
kylec
Is that a bad thing?

------
m4r35n357
Because they are too squeamish to ask for a toilet !

