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Bathroom at top floor?

Totto

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Hubby and I went to the pictures today to watch Paddington, very sweet and funny film and we enjoyed it very much. Hubby wants to know if it is common in the UK to have the bath room on the top floor? It seems a bit awkward to him and to me too, come to that.

You want to be close to the boiler, don't you? And why pump water up to the top floor? Hot water too.
 
Well most houses pre1950 had outside toilets and people went to public baths once a week or used a tin bath in kitchen, when indoor bathrooms became popular they had to be put in the smallest bedroom usually upstairs, some small terrace house you have to walk through the bedroom go get to the one bathroom in the house . Lots of people grew up having a strip wash by the kitchen sink daily and a bath once a week.
I
 
The kitchen being downstairs close to the boiler?

The house in the Paddington film seemed narrow enough and had the bathroom on the top floor, Not very economical if you ask me, I'd rather taken a bite off the kitchen. Why bathroom close to the attic but kitchen in the basement?
In a sort of central London house?
 
our houses tend to be like that,nowadays some have a downstairs loo and upstairs bathroom with loo, we have a kitchen/dining room down stairs and living room,with 3 beds and house bathroom upstairs, im 42 and have only ever been in one house with a downstairs bathroom and that was my aunties,if u went through the front door there was stairs to two bedrooms and the living room was at door level,down more steps to bathroom and kitchen which i hated having to go down two lots of stairs to pee in the night
 
Most houses used to have a cold water tank in the attic feeding everything by gravity including an electric insulated hot water cylinder in an airing cupboard which in turn fed all the hot taps including the bath. So as well as @Shar67's point about converting the smallest bedroom, it was convenient to have the bathroom on the same floor as the other bedrooms.
I'm not sure if outside toilets disappeared overnight or were phased out, since they would surely have still been useful.
With mains water supply to a combi boiler the process has sort of been reversed, bottom to top.
 
Having been raised in circumstances that mirror what @DeejayR described, outside toilet, tin bath, etc.
Don't believe that there was much choice how plumbing worked, our hot water boiler was behind coal fire.
Which had to be layed to get bath water. The only other way was to boil pans on the gas stove.
It was a really Labour intense operation for everyone to be clean and many couldn't spare their meagre Income for luxuries like hot water.
 
Parents house had an outside loo as well, was terrible getting up in the middle of the night when it was freezing cold. Was so thankful when the inside loo was finally put in!
 
Boiler? It was a case of boiling up kettles & pans to get enough hot water to have a bath.
 
If you were old enough to remember 1963, then if you were like us, we didn't dare get a bath, just a strip wash with a flannel. Or we had a swimming pool near us and went swimming. No bath for ages. As kids we were happy but now!!!
 
Well obviously Paddington was set in recent time as in last year.
I get the problem with finding a space to fit a bathromm into but still, we think it is so terribly unpractical to have it at the top of the stairs, ever heard of leaks?

Hubby is from a Finnish family so sauna is of utmost importance and we either go to the communal sauna and have dip in the Baltic/roll in the snow/have a shower or when at home shower/have a bath at ground level, all the pipes in sight and still on ground level.

Why would you want to take the hot water up to the top floor and then all the rest of the plumbing? It seems so inconvenient and thus unnecessarily expensive.
 
The bathroom is almost always above the kitchen.
Then, above that (as @DeejayR says) is a cold water tank in the roof space.

In our current house, the cold water feeds the hot water tank (next to the boiler in the airing cupboard, in the spare bedroom). The hot and cold water is then conveniently available for the bathroom and the kitchen on the floor below. The gravity feed provides good water pressure.

Given the choice I would have the washing machine upstairs too, like I have seen in some American houses.

Of course, the layout of much of the plumbing depends on the age of the house.
Anywhere that was built before indoor toilets and proper plumbed bathrooms has had to be redesigned to fit the new plumbing.

Our house lost half a bedroom to the bathroom. So we now have 2 proper bedrooms and a tiny box room, instead of the original 3 beds.

To fit a bathroom on the ground floor would have needed losing some garden or half the kitchen. I prefer the way they did it. The kitchen is small enough already!
 
My house was built in the fifties and the only bathroom is on the ground floor. I like this as it means my house is future-proofed. (If I ever become unable to climb the stairs, I will have everything I need on the ground floor)

Having just watched this Paddington trailer, I suspect the bathroom at the top of the house was for comedic effect. The last scene would not have worked on the ground floor.

 
And then you have your worldwide apartment blocks ... with bathrooms on every floor.
I don't think anyone can explain properly about urban living in this country without delving into the industrial revolution, but let's not go there.
 
Lived with both .... but much prefer single level now. Most of us Aussies do.

Climbing / descending stairs is a novelty and great fun especially if you didn't have it growing up ...... but the fun runs out

Hate them now. Mike
 
Up and down stairs all me life. Never did me (puff) any harm (gasp).
Shortly going to move into a bungalow with the bathroom on the ground floor
Er, but the main bedroom's in the loft conversion upstairs
 
We live in a modern house. Our boiler is upstairs, in a cupboard opposite the family bathroom. Downstairs loo as well, and an en-suite in the master bedroom. There are only the 2 of us, so we are spoilt for choice with 3 loos in the house!
 
Our house has three floors and three toilets. There is a shower stall/sink/toilet on the 3rd floor; a bath/sink/toilet on the 2nd floor and a toilet/sink on the ground floor. Since I have IBS, (and there are three people in total living here) I insisted on us getting a house with at least two toilets.
 
In my old (ex council) house cold water tank was in atttic, Hot water was on 1st floor bedroom, as was bathroom and below bathroom was the kitchen ! (built late '50s /early '60s.
1973 dormer bungalow had bathroom, boiler, on 1st floor, 1990s refit had boiler moved to ground floor!
 
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