small bathroom ideas

I'm not disagreeing on that count. In Europe, their RV parks have a large, stainless steel trough for people to drag their cassette toilets to, empty them, and rinse them out. Here in the US, it is doable, but nowhere near as convenient.

I personally prefer the US style black tank setup for my way of doing things (because as above, I can easily go to a CG, SP, or even a truck stop, and empty the tanks.)

There are some cool European floorplans that should translate to the US, though. Black tanks are not impossible to engineer around.

There are a lot of European style cassette toilets in use in America. In campgrounds you see them mostly with trailers and truck campers. I've watched the routines those people go through to know I much prefer pulling up to a dump station and dumping through a hose. There is only one advantage I can see to a cassette toilet and that is you can park and not have to move to dump. That's a plus with a trailer. But then moving is why I bought a Class B.

I don't think in a Class B a dump toilet is all that restrictive in design. They have been located in Sprinters all up and down the driver's side perpendicular to the wall in back (LTV Free Spirit SS) to parallel to the wall all the way up front behind the driver (LTV Free Spirit) to passenger side up front parallel (RT RS Adventurous) to back perpendicular passenger side (Coach House Arriva). It is just more a matter of American preferences. Also campground infrastructure have almost universally accommodated driver side dumping at dump stations and camp sites.

Hey, but "grass is always greener"...

I have seen some European floorplans that went with the classic RT aisle shower floorplan, but used tambour doors instead of the shower curtain to have space for privacy. That way, most of the bathroom's space could be wide open until someone needed to use the toilet or shower. Of course, in Europe, they don't have black tanks, so floorplans there can be a lot more flexible (just need a small hatch opening on the van side for the cassette.)

There is a lot US RV makers can do with floorplans, but because "B"s are an extremely small market segment in this country, not much is really done other than "tried and true" layouts.

Correct, and I like to sit down while shaving and drying my lower person. And regardless of whether it is a dry or wet shower, some people mosey out of the shower and dry their personages in the outside area, depending on the specific rv layout. I have a long-standing dislike for public facilities which I avoid. I would even prefer to shower outside (in swim trunks of course) using outside shower(which my unit has), if I was desperate. That is more agreeable on a warm day.,,

My Great West Van Legend has a slide out of the away into a wall lavatory. I believe one of the small B Sprinters had one too. The Leisure Travel Van Free Spirit T1N Sprinters had flip up lavatories. There may be others. One of the features (advantages?) of a wet bath is you can sit on the toilet seat while showering. That is one of the advantages for washing feet and legs in a small space and for women shaving their legs.

My Legend has a complete surround around shower curtain and cover for the toilet seat so ultimately the only hard surface that gets wet is the floor. The space is 25" x 41" which is bigger than a lot of 24" tiny square separate showers I've seen in RVs. The doors pop open to create an enclosed space utilizing the van aisle for extra room. With the doors open it gives you more elbow room in the 25" direction pushing elbow against a curtain.

wincrasher65 wrote:
The Europeans have refined the wet bath in some of their vans so much, that I think the folks that say they want a dry bath would accept them. I'd like to see more of the US manufacturers adopt some of the features - the swing out/fold away sink and the swivel head toilet can make a small wet bath a lot more functional.

Very good point. Such features would provide more room for manoeuvring in the wetbath environment. Still, just today returned from 8 days up North on Vancouver Island. It rained every single day so we stayed inside, cooked, ate, slept AND showered inside. I dont find the PW space inside the wetbath room much smaller than some separate dry showers I have seen in C class rigs. With a swingaway/foldin sink and swivel toilet the space would be even better.

Wow. Thanks for all the info. The over/under tank explains why some of the small TTs I saw had raised bathroom floors.

The bathroom I saw was very compact and efficient. It seemed like a better use of space than other dry bathrooms I've seen. It would be good for a small C and too big for a B.

The Europeans have refined the wet bath in some of their vans so much, that I think the folks that say they want a dry bath would accept them. I'd like to see more of the US manufacturers adopt some of the features - the swing out/fold away sink and the swivel head toilet can make a small wet bath a lot more functional.

The problem with a Class B is the width. In a Sprinter you have 71 inches to work with. If you have a toilet like that Class A on the outside wall you would need approximately 40 inches of overall depth leaving 31 inches for aisle and opposite wall cabinetry. Give up 16" for cabinetry on the opposite side leaves you a 15" aisle. You start to see why you need the extra 18" width of Class Cs. That's why the three current true Class B Sprinters, LTV Free Spirit SS, Winnebago ERA 70C and Coach House Arriva all have bathrooms that extend all the way across at the back of the van. That's why most Bs have toilets facing front or back and not to the side. Since you need stepping in space the depth of the bathroom is going to be about 40" deep by anywhere from 20" to 25" wide. It becomes logical to make a wet bath of the space since if you had a separate shower in line even if you utilized aisle space with the shower you would still nearly duplicate the bathroom space. Considering an extended body Sprinter van has but about 92 square feet behind the cab seats it becomes a precious sacrifice of space for the sake of not having to wipe down a bathroom that by the way in my GWVan Legend gives me more shower space than that Class A shown.

Your tanks are still not going to be any bigger. You still will have to take a "Navy" type shower to conserve water. You still will not have a high pressure spray. You could overcome some of that using full hookup campsites but that defeats the freedom of a B. You would give up a lot of storage and other amenities. With a rear bath as currently being offered you kill the functionality of the back end and you might as well not have back doors. Beds become the first sacrifice such as the too narrow 54" wide beds of the LTV and Winnebago slide outs and the mid-bed design of the Arriva passage choke off, a concept that had pretty much been abandoned by the B converters. Unibodies are pretty much limited to the sliding door width to create a slide out.

The Promaster has an additional 3" at 74" total but that still isn't enough and they don't come long enough which would make the sacrifice of space more dear.

So the question is...is a dry bath worth all the sacrifice or are you really in need of a larger RV type?

Tank locations for a B depend in the chassis selected. On the Express, the biggest space for a black tank under the toilet is just forward of spring mounts for rear axle, curb side. That's somewhat rear of "mid" and not really enough room to put a 75" bed lengthwise behind it.

On extended Econoline, all the big spaces were behind the axle, with another streetside forward of the fuel filler. I know these spaces well, working on my own (unextended) conversion.

Sprinter has a lot more flexibility, spaces foward of axle on both sides for 6-10 galllons of tank, a lot more in the rear, which is why you see most "full bath" conversions on the Sprinter located at the rear of the van. More often, with bath forward of axle, toilet will be on one side, kitchen on other, to use the underfloor spaces on both sides of the chassis.

There is yet more flexibility building B+/C/small A on cutaway chassis because except for tailpipe and fuel filler pipe, all the space outside the framerails is available, and height of space can be much greater than under the van floor, because RV floor is usually at least 2" higher and is often located another 6-10 inches above the framerails. All this space to be traded utilities vs storage bins gives A/C motorhomes more layout flexibility than in van conversions.

You could proably put that bath in a 24-foot Sprinter, foward of that bunkroom configuration, but there may be less room opposite, and you would have a smaller lounge area forward.

To put that bath in a LWB Express, you could maybe flip it and move it to curb side, but to put it forward of that kind of bunkroom, you would probably need a long offset drain from the toilet to a tank located further aft. Or you could do a combined tank for toilet and shower, or maybe better, a cassette toilet.

I don't know enough about under-floor configuration of Promaster and have not yet seen the U.S. version of the Transit. I've seen enough of the Nissan to know that any sort of bathroom might best be done with a cassette toilet, keeping most of the conversion above floor level.