America Is Overrun with Bathrooms
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
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?
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.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=Are+Separate+Bathrooms+The+K...
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.
On the other hand, I live in a “city” in Arkansas. According to the municipal code here, most residential electrical and plumbing work can be done by the owner of the property without obtaining a permit beforehand. While the code requires that the work be inspected prior to closure - e.g., we’re supposed to have electrical work inspected before subflooring is laid or drywall is hung - my experience is that it’s not only not required, they don’t even have a process in place to meet that requirement.
My home was damaged by a fire a few years before I purchased it. In fact, that was one of the reasons I bought it; while the home was built in the late 1960, all of the electrical and almost all of the plumbing was stripped out and redone in ~2008. That work was inspected... and it was very bad work, honestly.
Since buying the home I’ve reinstalled every outlet (properly) and re-run about 1/3 of the Romex in the walls and below the house. I spoke with the city inspector and he was incredulous when I asked when he’d be available to come look at it - he advised me that there was no such requirement unless I had paid someone to do it. He said he’d never had someone ask him to inspect work done by the homeowner. After a few minutes’ discussion at his office about what I had changed and why, his answer? “You obviously know what you’re doing, so you don’t need me to come out. If you want me to file an inspection certificate I will based on your word, but it’s not worth my time to drive out to your house to look at it. Don’t worry about it.”
Outside the municipal limits, to my knowledge there is no requirement at all for inspection.
Furthermore, my homeowner’s insurance specifically allows for improvements made by the homeowner so long as they “comply with applicable local codes and regulations”. In my case that means a document that I had to track down and modify for my situation, the inspector signed without ever having visited the property, and I had to physically take to the city clerk. If my home were 100 yards further South (and therefore outside city limits) there would be no documentation required at all.
So, in short... for a lot of the country, the TCO of a new toilet is the cost of the toilet. Maybe the cost of a new wax ring as well if the homeowner is experienced enough to realize that the old one is going to fail eventually if they re-use it, so they go ahead and buy a new one at the same time.
I'm sure his insurance company loves him. As will any future owners of his buildings.
There are many competent DIYers, but there are many more who are not. For some, code is simply a suggestion or goal to strive to reach (eventually).
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.
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...
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. :)
Apparently spending $50 mil on a house is A-ok!
But God forbid you actually get some bathrooms for that money!
This leaves four more generally accessible bathrooms. Seems adequate, I guess. Maybe.
> “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?
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.
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.
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.
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.