New builds. Do you really need three toilets in a 2 bed mid/semi?

Postik

As someone else said, the downstairs loo is part of the building regs now. I do find a downstairs toilet useful, so guests don't have to go upstairs, I can nip toilet more quickly during ad breaks, the kids can wash their sticky hands after dinner without spreading them all up the bannister and wall.

I also have an ensuite which I use for the sake of it.  The shower cubicle is smaller in there so the wife doesn't like using it.  We tend to all just use the shower in the main bathroom so we are only filling one room with steam and only have to open one window.  An ensuite in a two bedroom house is madness in my opinion.

GaleSF63

MobileSaver said:

I also have a smaller one in my kitchenette and really missed it when it was out of action for a week, waiting three or four minutes for a kettle to boil felt like an eternity.

Most people don't wait three or four minutes for their kettle to boil -they will be doing something else. If you've got used to instant boiling water you will have got out of that habit and as the saying goes, "a watched kettle never boils". I don't recall ever just waiting for the kettle to boil. 

[Deleted User]

Postik said:

As someone else said, the downstairs loo is part of the building regs now. I do find a downstairs toilet useful, so guests don't have to go upstairs, I can nip toilet more quickly during ad breaks, the kids can wash their sticky hands after dinner without spreading them all up the bannister and wall.

I also have an ensuite which I use for the sake of it.  The shower cubicle is smaller in there so the wife doesn't like using it.  We tend to all just use the shower in the main bathroom so we are only filling one room with steam and only have to open one window.  An ensuite in a two bedroom house is madness in my opinion.

Ad breaks. Great demonstration of changing habits there. I haven't seen an ad break for at least a decade, and I think quite a few younger people are now growing up not having any broadcast TV in the house at all.

An en-suite is nice, but given how tiny most British new builds are, they aren't the best use of space. It would be better to have a separate toilet and bathroom. The bathroom could have a basin area and a separate shower (cubicle, or ideally a wet room with light weight folding door). Takes less room than duplicating everything, but allows for the toilet and shower to be used at the same time. Having a proper little wet room is good for accessibility, and means you can wash quickly and efficiently without worry.

In Japan they often have a small bath in the wet room too. You have to sit with your knees up, but you can soak and it does save water. Companies there sell an entire wet room made out of fibreglass or something similar, so you can refresh that room by just taking the old one out and installing a new one. It handles waterproofing and has standard fixings for drainage and the shower hose/controls. Of course you get the more traditional tiled ones too.

MobileSaver

GaleSF63 said:

MobileSaver said:

I also have a smaller one in my kitchenette and really missed it when it was out of action for a week, waiting three or four minutes for a kettle to boil felt like an eternity.

Most people don't wait three or four minutes for their kettle to boil -they will be doing something else. ... I don't recall ever just waiting for the kettle to boil. 

If you're female then maybe... As a man I can barely do one thing at a time properly so suggesting I can keep my eye on two things at once is rather optimistic.

I'm sure that every one of us at one time or another has boiled a kettle, forgotten about it and had to boil it again...

As @sheramber said, it would be very boring if we all liked the same thing; in our house we love the boiling water tap and wouldn't do without it.

oystercatcher

Sometimes I look at house plans and wonder why 4 or 5 bedroom houses don't have two family bathrooms instead of 1 family and an ensuite. Why should all the occupants of the remaining bedrooms have to share one bathroom/toilet and the master bedroom have their own facilities much better for everyone to have access to two bathrooms.

I find the boiling water taps terrifying! I am so uncoordinated I fear I would be splashing my arms with boiling water at regular intervals. 

MobileSaver

oystercatcher said:

Why should all the occupants of the remaining bedrooms have to share one bathroom/toilet and the master bedroom have their own facilities

The occupants of the master bedroom would typically be the ones that paid for everything so I'm sure they would think they deserve their own private bathroom.

oystercatcher said:

I find the boiling water taps terrifying! I am so uncoordinated I fear I would be splashing my arms with boiling water at regular intervals. 

Pretty much every new visitor to the house is invited to turn on the boiling water tap. Over the four or five years we've had it not a single person has worked out how to turn it on without first being shown - it's easy once you know how but it's simply not possible to accidentally end up with boiling water pouring out the tap.

lincroft1710

Teapot55 said:

I reckon there’s still thousands, if not millions of turn-of-the-century terraced houses in this country with no upstairs toilet/ bathroom. 

Some stagger downstairs in the middle of the night. Guess others have a bucket, especially as they get older. 

Definitely not discussed at dinner parties 🤣

My late parents' last house and eleven others in the road all built 1n 1946 had only downstairs bathrooms. In the late 1950s a prolific Luton based builder was building 3 bed houses with only downstairs bathrooms. Even as recently as the 1970s there were houses being built with only downstairs bathrooms .

comeandgo

At the opposite end of the scale I’ve just seen a six bedroom house for sale with one bathroom and one wc.  That’s not a house I’d look at though some of the bedrooms are large so en suite s may be possible.

Noneforit999

oystercatcher said:

Sometimes I look at house plans and wonder why 4 or 5 bedroom houses don't have two family bathrooms instead of 1 family and an ensuite. Why should all the occupants of the remaining bedrooms have to share one bathroom/toilet and the master bedroom have their own facilities much better for everyone to have access to two bathrooms.

I find the boiling water taps terrifying! I am so uncoordinated I fear I would be splashing my arms with boiling water at regular intervals. 

We have those boiling taps at work but I don't find them hot enough.

It says 100 degrees on the little display but if I fill the kettle up with supposedly boiling water from them, it then takes a while to actually boil and its far hotter than the taps.

I want a hot cup of tea/coffee, not a luke warm one

mi-key

Noneforit999 said:

oystercatcher said:

Sometimes I look at house plans and wonder why 4 or 5 bedroom houses don't have two family bathrooms instead of 1 family and an ensuite. Why should all the occupants of the remaining bedrooms have to share one bathroom/toilet and the master bedroom have their own facilities much better for everyone to have access to two bathrooms.

I find the boiling water taps terrifying! I am so uncoordinated I fear I would be splashing my arms with boiling water at regular intervals. 

We have those boiling taps at work but I don't find them hot enough.

It says 100 degrees on the little display but if I fill the kettle up with supposedly boiling water from them, it then takes a while to actually boil and its far hotter than the taps.

I want a hot cup of tea/coffee, not a luke warm one

I have seen that on reviews as well that a lot of the cheaper ones don't actually seem to give proper 100 degree water, which pretty much defeats the object of having them.

My Tesco quick boil kettle boils enough for a drink in less than a minute and cost me £20 ( it even has a fancy technological blue light on it ) 

In the future I can see loads of these still fitted in kitchens that dont work as people didnt want to spend £1000 replacing them