Today: Plumbing and sealing the bathroom. Even a shower curtain plan started.
Like many of the major jobs of the camper, the bathroom came together quicker than I had feared. It was basically done, just needed finishing.
First I assembled the plumbing pipes and fittings into the space. That required multiple "ins and outs" of parts. But once I had things set, and built, and marked (fittings to pipes), it all came out for sweating.
But with plumbing converted to "camper parts", assemblies were installed. Love those Sharkbites!
Let's start with this. Between the aluminum framed wall jut out around the window, and the window screen framing, I had almost a 1/2" gap. I cut four lengths of this rope caulking...
and filled the gaps with end to end tightness.
That simply keeps water spray that gets near, away from the inner surfaces of the window opening. Water spray that gets through the screen should simply fall into the bottom of the window framing, and exit the camper through weep holes in the window frame bottom. But for the most part, the window will be covered by a shower curtain, the same way we will seal the bathroom door.
Now here comes the pretty part. Keep in mind as you look through pics, the plumbing pipes double as towel rods, and shower curtain rods.
Also in these pictures the wall corners have been sealed. I simply used an exterior house caulking - acrylic, non-silicon. Easily cleaned up with water, and formed with wet fingers. As an exterior caulking, it should take the extremes of expansion and contraction. It's quite a hard surface, but remains a bit flexible. We'll learn actual results over time.
Here's where hot (foreground) and cold (background) come into the bathroom.
Note the sealing of the wall surface corners.
And then at the other side of the bathroom door, a copper wire support (welding wire).
And then where the level pipe enters into a 45 degree angle to slope down where the ceiling curves. Two locations (hot and cold) mounted this way.
So looking up you have this.
looking down you have this.
And looking 'round you have this.
Note the center hole in the sink is still unfilled. We have kind of a cool plan for that - we'll talk about it later someday.
Here I am sitting on the stool facing the basin.
Note the shower curtain now on the right. It is a normal width curtain, and I've marked the bottom edge (10" up) for DW to shorter the length for proper fit in the shower pan. It's a cloth curtain - not plastic.
Here it is in "stow" mode. DW is going to sew some tie backs onto it like window curtains, so that when it is dry and not in use, it can hang tight out of the way in this corner.
And when in use, it pulls to one side this far in.
And to the other side (by lifting seven hooks off the stow rod, four go to the back, and three go to the far side).
That gives you a u-shape to spray toward, keeping water off the door and the window.
I've found climbing into the bathroom this direction feels the most comfortable. The counter edge is very firm and acts as a strong body support coming and going. It feels more like a ladder. The other direction, facing OUT of the bathroom is a bit harder to come and go.
And in this setup, you have the whole counter and sink basin to use as part of your bathing and bathroom experience.
There is some more to finish in the bathroom (basin center hole, shower fixture, bath mat, toilet paper rolls, etc.) but we'll report as it occurs. For now, we are basically "in business"!
