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I'm re-tiling our bathroom and want to do it as a european style "wet room" with no step for the shower and also a drain under our free-standing clawfoot tub.

Our bathroom has kind of a weird "U" shape with the shower around a wall next to the bathroom door, as shown in the image (and yes, the shower part of the bathroom does stick out past the door like that).

Here's the bathroom layout:

Overhead bathroom layout

Our goals are:

  1. No step into the shower, slope for shower drain
  2. No step into the bathroom
  3. Most of the area under the tub is sloped to a drain under the tub
  4. Floor doesn't have any weird humps/steps/etc..
  5. Avoid a direct path for water drainage from tub/shower -> bathroom door

I think I have a solution, but wanted to make sure this would actually work - my biggest concern is the hump you walk over coming into the bathroom and how noticeable/annoying it would be. I think I'm okay on #5 with this solution because the only water that would drain out the front door would be water spilled right in the entryway.

So here's the "topography" for the floor plan, every pink line is about a 1/4" or 3/32" change in height:

Wet Room Topo

The pink circles are the two drains, and you'll see that the walkway ramps up through the entrance and then back down again. And I realize I have about a 1/4" to deal with on both ends, my hope is to solve part of that by dropping the floor by 1/4" or 1/2" under the tub, and/or by slightly increasing the slope in the entrance and slightly decreasing the slope towards the tub.

So the big question is, for those of you with wet-room experience, will this work? Am I missing something?

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    You'll need a 3/4" - 1" gap under the door so it can swing all the way open, otherwise it will hit the floor and stop. Also, since this seems like it's being designed for handicap use, are you installing a 36" door and is there enough room between the door/shower wall and the sink to get a wheel chair through?
    – FreeMan
    Commented Jan 3, 2023 at 13:34
  • Perhaps I'm misunderstanding but shouldn't the entry door threshold be the highest portion of the floor to prevent water from running out under the door and also avoid the situation mentioned in FreeMan's comment (bottom of the door hitting the high point of the floor),
    – gnicko
    Commented Jan 3, 2023 at 14:40
  • Presumably the bath has its own dedicated drain, not included in this diagram?? Assuming that to be the case, based on empiricism, the main floor doesn't need specific drainage, so long as you have sufficient slope to the shower itself to prevent flooding. The rest just gets wet feet, same as getting out of the bath.
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Jan 3, 2023 at 16:49
  • 1) Not designed for handicap use 2) I can't make the entry door higher than it is 3) The bath does have a drain, but I want another drain to deal with overflow, since it's a freestanding tub and we have a small child that will be using it.
    – daveola
    Commented Jan 3, 2023 at 17:54
  • @FreeMan thanks for raising the door issue. I might just need to have a larger gap under the door, which is unfortunate.
    – daveola
    Commented Jan 3, 2023 at 17:56

1 Answer 1

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As others Stated above in comments, you will need at least a 7/8 inch gap at the door bottom. Many Bathrooms have a larger gap, as this allows airflow for forced air systems. Otherwise your proposal in theory can work to divert water to drains. Is it code permissible for your location, I cannot say.

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  • Good point about the bottom of the door. Fortunately the bathroom door is pretty narrow. I'll have to do the math on that issue.
    – daveola
    Commented Jan 3, 2023 at 17:55
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    Rising butt hinges will require less math ;)
    – Tetsujin
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 9:55
  • @Tetsujin you're my hero and just solved another door problem I have in this old house.
    – daveola
    Commented Jan 4, 2023 at 21:05

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