I'm thinking about converting a downstairs bathroom to a utility room: retaining the loo and basin (possibly replacing it with one of a different style), removing the bath, adding a washing machine and a tumble dryer. So I'll have to install, or have installed, a couple of mains sockets.
Does taking out the bath mean that the bathroom building regs no longer apply? If not, what is the criterion which defines a bathroom and means that no sockets are allowed?
Thanks.
If you take any notice of the Yanks, its still a bathroom even if only ever built containing a long drop bog!
Mike
AFAIK the definition of "bathroom" has nothing to do with it. It's the distance between electrical and water fittings that's important and covered by the regulations. There are precisely measured "zones" around water fittings, and restrictions on what you can have electrically within those zones.
You need to look up the zones.
Sounds more like a kitchen without a cooker to me. I think being less silly, if you do not have a shower or a bath you are less likely to be in there naked. Brian
One thing I found interesting about our bathroom is that there is only floor where the feet of the bath are, the rest of the boards are sawn off at the edges. I assume this makes plumbing a lot easier.
Brian
Building regs apply all the time. I think you mean electrical special locations, where you cannot have a socket outlet within 3 metres of a bath or shower. Take the bath or shower out, and do what you want. Building Regs still need adhering to, and electrical accessories should be suitable for their environment, so no socket outlet directly next to the toilet, where it could be pee'd on.
If you step out of the bath, do you fall through to the basement then?
I'll bet that link has has got the usual zone 2 bollocks around the sink.
has no such restriction.
In reply to Bert. The IEE have special regs (section 701 of the 17th edition) for "locations containing a bath or shower".
So my conclusion is that a bathroom needs a bath in it to be called a bathroom.
And in a kitchen?
Think if it's not got a bath or shower - so you'd not get naked and dripping wet - it's not covered.
Thanks for all the replies. I was familiar with the concept of zones but mistakenly thought that it only applied to a room containing a bath or shower. Now I know otherwise I'll investigate the relevant regs.
701 Zones ONLY apply to a room with a bath or shower!!!
On a slightly different tack, having looked at numerous Right Move, Zoopla and builders' own descriptions, I am getting heartily sick of bathrooms without baths! If it only has a shower, let it be a shower room or dream up some other name, anyone for "indoor rain room"?
Wet room.
Property descriptions in the US have 'half-baths'. Toilet and washbasin, no bath or shower.
Trouble is, that already has its rather more specific meaning.
How odd! The name makes me think of those very short baths with two levels. Why have the word "bath" in there at all? Still, "cloakroom" is just as ridiculous in most houses.
what on earth is a "long drop bog"?
tim
I wonder how the "grand designs" bollox of putting an open bath in a bedroom affects what you should call the room?
Tim
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