[madaxe_again]

Even with modern plumbing, wiring, tiling substrates, etc., bathrooms are an utter pain in the arse. You’ve got utilities going all over the place, multiple drainage points, tiling, underfloor heating, studs to position so things like shelves, heated towel rails and all the rest end up where you want them, ventilation, and on it goes - and all of it has to happen sequentially, often a bit of this, then a bit of that, and then back to the first thing again. Having done several bathrooms, top to tail, I would gladly just buy one off the shelf if it were good.

I think there’s a massive opportunity in modular bathrooms. I’ve seen them done amazingly badly (think: the plastic cube badly perched in a corner of your Victorian seaside hotel, in which you have to crouch under the shower, while it hoses down the toilet paper), I’ve seen them done so well you wouldn’t have a clue you were in a room delivered in a box. The latter, I’ve only seen in Latvia, by a Latvian company - but I think the concept has legs.

[bonestamp2]

You're right. The way that some of the new cruise ships are built is that the rooms (including the bathroom) are each one long "module" that they slide into place for final assembly. This means they can be built offsite on an assembly line, and also when it comes time to renovate, they can swap them out with much less downtime for the ship.

[Symbiote]

I've seen very cheap apartments in Britain built with these "modules", and hotels in any price range all over Europe with them.

This sort of thing: https://taplanes.co.uk/

[rtpg]

Japan has modular bathrooms, it’s pretty nice (though it does mean that almost every bathroom looks like one of 3 kinds of bathrooms). Even the basic ones are more functional than what I see in 90% of US bathrooms, but it is just huge chunks of plastic and cleaning is a whole thing.

[irrational]

How do they replace it when it is inevitably damaged or worn out?

[rtpg]

Well it’s made of mass produced parts so you can swap out panels relatively easily (though in a lot of cases this involves recalking).

This video shows a full renovation, but if you’re only replacing a broken component then you’re looking at less work https://youtu.be/8E5lH_qppWg

I think generally the point of these is that you’re a lot less affected by skill level of those installing everything, so even really shitty apartments have good infrastructure. Million dollar homes in the US have worse plumbing than stuff I had in starter apartments in Tokyo (not universal but!).

And the boxing up means that your “wet area” is limited (Japan is generally very humid so mold is a constant worry). But I’m not an expert, and everything I’m saying might be totally off base.

[artsytrashcan]

Tear the entire thing out and replace it. You have to understand that housing (separate from land) isn't so speculative in Japan, however; a "worn out" bathroom is likely in a house that's going to be torn down completely and replaced.

[rtpg]

The “houses getting torn down all the time” practice is getting less and less true. It’s becoming fairly common to just do a bunch of renovations since the old houses now are also from the modern mass production era (whereas in the past your old house was likely to be a much bigger pain in butt to improve). Though I do not believe that we have entered a full speculative era from this.

[Vt71fcAqt7]

>housing (separate from land)

Under this definition of housing US housing isn't speculative either. It's only the land that goes up in value. It's just that earthquakes and tsunamis aren't as frequent and powerful here and the zoning laws are more arcane here. (as well as some other reasons related to the speed of development of these countries). Japan is one of the least afordable places to live in the world. That is in large part the reason why the population is declining. But nobody is speculating on US bathrooms.

[aidenn0]

Also in the US, the house might be valuable because it might be illegal to build a new house of similar size on the land. My last house was 2.1x larger in square-footage than allowed under current zoning laws. If it was damaged due to natural disaster, you could rebuild with the same floor-plan, but if you willingly tore it down, you had to build a smaller house.

[artsytrashcan]

That's not necessarily true. People have borrowed against higher land values and built more expensive housing with higher-end finishes. That was the whole "flipping" craze; the contents of the house were literally worth more after renovation.

>But nobody is speculating on US bathrooms.

I've got two words for you, man: rainhead shower. (Or "in-floor heating" for the Northeast. ...I guess that's 3 words.)

[artsytrashcan]

https://fortapro.com/wc-and-bathroom-pods

These guys? (If so, then, woah, this is the first time in literally years that Google Search has successfully returned a first-result win.)

[madaxe_again]

Hah, yes. Brother in law was using them on a new development he was producing.

[notahacker]

I think the main challenge with modular bathrooms integrated into an otherwise traditional build is that you're plonking a finished unit into a rough-and ready site that has no pipes or wiring to connect to yet and people running round laying bricks and lifting in beams... which feels a little premature. You're not going to fit one through the doors of your average existing building either, and the economics of hiring a large crane just for the upstairs bathroom rather than the entire build probably make less sense

It's a bit different when the modules are part of a hotel/apartment block that's entirely built using a modular system. That's common enough in city centre hotels and motels where they're a single full-sized room and nobody can tell the difference.

[bluGill]

Hiring a crane to put the roof trusses on isn't unheard of. It costs more than a large forklift (which you have onsite to move piles of lumber around anyway), so it isn't normal, but where the terrine doesn't allow the forklift to get the trusses in place crews will hire a crane. I've also seen crews (generally of old people - almost of retirement age with the typical failing body that come from years of hard labor) hire a crane to life their walls up, such crews are still competitive with other crews so in the scheme a crane cannot the that expensive.

If it became common I'm sure crews will switch to using a crane for the roof, just because the crane will be there to lift the bathroom in place anyway. However someone needs to start making the factory bathroom first and convince builders to use it.

[jaclaz]

They (prefabricated bathrooms) are sometimes used, but they do bring a number of issues (I am talking of "real" prefabricated bathrooms, concrete, not the plastic/fiberglass ones that also exist), a few of them:

1) they are heavy, the actual structural design needs to take this weight into account

2) since they have an "own" floor you either have a step to enter them or you need to have a somewhat thicker underfloor on the rest of the house

3) since they have an "own" ceiling, the internal height will be smaller than the rest of the rooms (here in Italy this is not an issue from the techincal norms as rooms are minimum 2.70 m and bathrooms and corridors can be only 2.40)

4) since there is the need of connecting the internal utilities, electricity is the lesser problem, but typically you have two or three (cold and hot + in some cases circulating) running water pipes, two (at least) drain pipes, two or more venting pipes and the radiator (or under floor) heating, you need some additional space on the outside or some (not really pleasing to the eye) boxes on one wall or in the floor (or both)

In practice the only kind of building where they make sense are new multi-storey, multi-apartment buildings and hotels, hospitals, prisons, etc., and even then usually they are not usually much cheaper, they are only much faster and easier to put up, and definitely have an advantage for "luxury" bathrooms where local workmanship capable of a high quality work are not available or cost too much.

An example, this is an Italian builder of such "pods" with experience in international projects:

https://www.eurocomponents.eu/en/portfolio

https://www.eurocomponents.eu/en/modular-bathrooms-for-inter...

[bluGill]

If you design for it, floor trusses with a lower section that the pod can fit into can be had, solving the step objection.

I agree overall with your point though.

[jaclaz]

Yep, it is possible, but it is not something you would normally do.

Usually these pods are lifted by a crane and "inserted" in the building (talking of reinforced concrete buildings) after the structure has been built (before building the outer walls).

Once they are on the floor they are moved manually on carts/wheels attached to the pod structure, so it is much easier if everything is at the same level, the lowered level of the deck (only where the pod goes) would add another complication in the moving/placing.

With the advent of underfloor heating the thickness of the screed is increased anyway (compared to the old buildings) so the "step" is not anymore a problem as it was years ago.

[CydeWeys]

I saw a prefab fiberglass shell bathroom in a museum recently, I believe in Chicago (whatever their big art museum by Grant Park is called). It was, iirc, French and from the 60s. Pretty cool.

[xnx]

Prefabricated Bath Unit, Arc 1800, Savoie, France https://www.artic.edu/artworks/222487/prefabricated-bath-uni...

[dehrmann]

And I suppose a bathroom (or the tricky parts of a kitchen) actually can fit on a truck.

[bluGill]

It might be an oversized load, but most bathrooms can. Fancy master bathrooms would not fit though.

There is more than that though, as the floor needs to be designed for where the pipes and wires of the prefab bathroom come out. Not impossible, but not easy either. A lot of modern houses are adjusted on sight for where the pipes have to be as the architect doesn't check if a pipe and beam are designed to go in the same place.. (in large building the architect will check, but not in something small.)