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Comment by germinalphrase | Hacker News Reader

Do you have a water drain in your bathroom floor?

This is uncommon in the US, so a bath overflow quickly becomes a significant structural issue.

In Japan it's very common for bathrooms to be wet rooms; likewise South Korea and Taiwan among others.

To add to this, it's so nice. Sit on a stool in the middle of the room and rinse, soap up, scrub to exfoliate, rinse, then roll the lid of the bath open and soak in a sub much deeper than an American one. Bath is programmable to maintain a constant temperature.

Basically a spa experience every day.

I wish more people knew how nice it is! And the toilet is in a completely separate room so there's no contention among one person who wants to take a bath and another who needs to use the toilet.

I just wish dish washers and dryers were more common in Japanese households. I'm in Okinawa where dryers are a lot more "standard", but dish washers are relatively rare.

All my tubs and sinks in the bathrooms have an 'overflow drain' near the top which you are unable to fill beyond. Is there any reason why that wouldn't be sufficient?

Yeah, if the drain in the sink is clogged. US bathroom pipe is 1.25" which will (probably) lead to a 2" and 4" pipe eventually (depending on when, where, and how your house was built ofc). The hole in the sink leads to the same initial pipe.

It makes the tub taller than it is deep by a little bit and doesn't look as nice are the only reason I can think of. A little bit of splashed water just isn't a big deal in most wet bathroom setups. They could also just put a drain right off the side of the tub.

My Japanese style bathroom here both has an overflow in the tub and a drain in the middle of the room.

But USA bath tubs have overflows (redirecting water into the drain if the taps are left on), surely?

In the US, any tub made past about 1900 or so has an overflow drain that prevents overfilling. The adoption of such drains not quite contemporaneous with the adoption of indoor plumbing, but very soon after.

It's the metal plate usually just below the faucet that looks like it might be useless. But it has an opening underneath to let the overflow water in. These are always sized to handle more water than the faucet can output.

This is basically a non-concern in anything but very, very old, unremodeled bathrooms.

The sinks do as well, but it is more obvious.

Im not sure about bathtubs, but in the U.S. it's apparently legal to sell lavatory sinks without an overflow. Ask me how I know.

My last apartment had the overflow drain hole but it wasn't attached to anything. The water just went directly into the wooden cabinet underneath. Madness. Literally worse than not having the hole because it reduced the capacity of the sink. This is what happens when landlords who DGAF hire handymen who DGAF to do all the work on their units.

To be fair to the potential handyman or contractor many overflow drains are integrated into the sink drain before they attach anything. It might have been the landlord buying temu style sinks with fake overflow holes.

Many overflow drains are not or are poorly connected. If you buy a new home, the inspector will usually skip to overflow test because it will likely fail.

This puzzled me and I looked it up, and yes, sinks without overflow meet code [1] (but not tubs). So your situation was apparently legal.

But the sibling comment to this one, where a sink had an overflow, but it was not connected, did not meet code [also 1].

Go figure. There must be some reasoning there, but I'm confused as to what it is.

https://forms.iapmo.org/email_marketing/codespotlight/2018/m...

Code sometimes makes allowances for situations which aren't ideal, as long as they aren't deceptive or creating a false sense of security.

So if you have old two-prong outlets in your house from back when, those are allowed.

If you replace them with a three-pronged outlet which is ungrounded, that breaks code.

If the three-pronged outlet is a GFCI outlet labeled with NO ELECTRICAL GROUND, that is allowed.

Well, it's also legal to sell food that tastes bad. Doesn't mean you should buy it.

Considering that US houses usually either have a crawl space, basement, or are on a slab the lack of a drain is weird when you think about it. You would think wet locations would be required to have a drain.

I think a lot of European houses have floor drains in the bath, you can basically hose the bathroom down.

More on topic. Outside of the US R290 (propane) heat pumps are common. But illegal in the US because the refrigerant manufacturers control the code bodies. You can have a 20lb propane tank hanging off a BBQ which in normal operation is literally on fire. But you can't have an R290 monoblack cause it's too dangerous.

> I think a lot of European houses have floor drains in the bath, you can basically hose the bathroom down.

Weirdly, in the UK it's common to have carpet in the bathrooms.

The tub sits in a big shower booth. Other bathroom amenities like sink and washing machines are installed outside the booth. Toilet is usually a separate room entirely. So no problem overflowing water onto the floor since that's how you take a shower.

Bathroom floor drain is common (might even be a code requirement?) in commercial buildings but not in homes.

I believe it’s mandatory in Australia

Yes, I can't remember seeing a bathroom or laundry here that didn't have a floor drain. Seems insane for that to not be standardised. I briefly lived with a bathroom in the UK that was carpeted?!

i briefly lived in a house that had second floor laundry with no tray or floor drain. the first day after installing a new washing machine it flooded and did over 30k damage to carpet, drywall, and installed electrical. Insurance would not cover installing a floor drain or tray, and the owner chose to let that decision stand.

truly bizarre

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