Bathroom Door Gap

Part of the venting is to let air into the bathroom for the exhaust fan, and part is for HVAC. The bathroom gets hot or cold and very few coaches have hvac vents in the bathroom. A full door will prevent the heated or cooled air from circulating into that bathroom.

In some RV's, the bathroom door also swings open to divide front and rear living spaces. In that case, a shorter than full height door also allows heat and A/C to mix front to back.

I suspect the top bunk view of the bathroom is a combination of a floorplan the door wasn't designed for and being too lazy/cheap/whatever to modify the doors just for that model.

I never understood this explanation of venting. Our 2013 starcraft tt has doors into the living area and bedroom,both are normal fitting doors with no huge gaps. Seems to me Starcraft knows what it's doing since they've been building trailers since 1964.

fireflock wrote:
People here are right about the gap being there on purpose.

If ventilation is required as is the implication, why now install a door with a vent on each side then, rather than have a clear view of someone showering inside?

I'd much rather have something like this mounted high inside the door for such purposes, though painted to match the door better.

Maybe a spring loaded curtain rod and a short curtain.

People here are right about the gap being there on purpose. If you really want to keep people from looking in, a piece of fabric will do the trick.

jaimn wrote:
...we want to close the gap because the mirror and some interior of the bathroom (including shower!) can be seen from the top bunk...

Interesting oversight from the outfitter.

You did not mention how big the gap is, but I wonder if you could mount the bathroom door high to close the top gap, making a bigger gap at the bottom. Then add a conventional adjustable weather strip to get the desired gap there for ventilation. Or maybe install a weather strip on the top of the door pending the size of the gap.

Here are some of many styles.


Anything mounted on the top of the door will look out of place. But if you mount the door itself higher to close the gap, then add a weatherstrip at the bottom, that shouldn't look odd.

Thanks so much for the info and tips. I am really impressed with the quick replies!

I have re-examined the door jam, and found that it has a large and firm enough area to add a tension bar and small curtain (less than 6"). A curtain won't be sound-proof (but neither is the door!) and it will still allow for air-flow.

Since it was asked, we want to close the gap because the mirror and some interior of the bathroom (including shower!) can be seen from the top bunk.....!!

I will try to post pictures of it when done... heading off on another adventure, and I have lots to do, including hanging curtains and hardware for all the other windows. I've been trying to not physically alter anything or leave marks as I want to keep it in a decent for resale. Maybe the next buyer will appreciate the changes, maybe not.

Thank you!!

Could you find a "H" or "Z" shaped piece of vinyl panel edge trim that would fit over the top of the door?

If you close off that gap, when you shut the bathroom door and turn on the vent fan, which you must do when you take a shower to keep from soaking every surface in the bathroom from the condensation, there will remain only one source of replacement air for that sucked out by the fan.

That source will be gasses sucked out of the black and gray holding tanks.

Think about that for a minute.

In fact, I've found that unless I open one of the windows in the trailer, a couple minutes of vent fan operation leaves the whole trailer stinking like sewer gas. So fill in that door gap at your peril.

We placed a metal bar that fits over closet doors which has hooks on it, turned it to the outside and hang dishtowels on it for kitchen use. You could hang other things on the hooks such as jackets, etc. Had no trouble with the bar sliding off the top of the door when RV is in motion.

X2 on the leave it as is. Bathrooms make noise. That's just the way it is when `roughing it'.
or stuff foam into the space that will have to be removed when the door is opened. The foam will fill the gap but will not keep out the noise; assuming that is the problem.