The Ultimate Tiny Home Bathroom
No matter the size of house, the bathroom is one of the most important spaces. Tiny home bathrooms while limited on space, don’t have to be a rustic nightmare. Tiny homers across the world have come up with creative, compact design ideas to turn their tiny toilets into lavish lavatories. Let’s take a look at some tiny bathroom solutions that address limited resources and some luxury tiny bathroom upgrades.
What is a Wet Bath?
A wet bath is a shower space that also contains a toilet and sink. Instead of having a separate shower stall, the whole bathroom is the shower. The floor has a drain in it, and due to the toilet, you can take a standing shower or sit down on the closed lid. In addition to being compact, a wet bath makes bathroom clean up a breeze as you can essentially “hose down” the entire bathroom. The only real downside to wet baths is the need for waterproof storage for items like toilet paper. Wet baths are the ultimate space-saving bathroom option for tiny homes.
Options for “Dry” Tiny Homes
There are many valid reasons for building a tiny home without traditional running water. But, just because we’re not hooking up to public utilities doesn’t mean we have to live like savages! There are many innovative solutions available to tiny homers who want to skip the plumbing.
“Dry” Toilet Options
Chemical Toilets – Chemical toilets are very much what they sound like. Waste is stored in a holding tank filled with chemicals to break down the waste and minimize odor. They are relatively inexpensive and very simple to install. The drawback is that holding tank will still need to be emptied into an approved sewer or septic system.
Our pick for a chemical toilet is: Dometic Sanitation Dometic 965 Portable Toilet 5.0 Gallon
This is the most budget-friendly option of our “dry toilet” recommendations. It’s as simple as fill it up and empty into an appropriate black water dumping facility.
Composting Toilets – Composting toilets break down human waste by the biological process of composting. Most composting toilets do not require any water for use and the resulting output can safely be returned to nature. There can be more lingering odors compared with other dry toilet options, particularly if you get behind on emptying them.
Our pick for a composting toilet is: Nature’s Head Self Contained Composting Toilet
These self-contained units are a “set and forget” option. The large storage capacity means you are only looking at emptying it 8-10 times per year with full-time use.
Incinerating Toilets – Incinerating toilets are the least messy and require no handling of decaying feces on your part. They flash burn human excrement to inert ash and require only vary occasional ash removal. While they are the most expensive of the dry toilet options (costing in excess of $4k), many would agree that not having to manually empty poop adds a lot of value to the product.
Our pick for an incinerating toilet is: Cinderella Comfort Incineration Toilet
Cinderella was one of the first major manufacturers of incinerating toilets and are the most widely available option. They make both electric and propane-powered units.
“Dry” Sink Options
Pump sink with catch jug. – Any standard sink can be configured to run on either an electric or manual water pump. This allows us to create a fully functional sink with one refillable jug of fresh water and one empty “catch” jug for the drain. This is a pretty easy DIY project, but there are pre-fabricated options available if you prefer.
Our pick for a premade pump sink is: Portable Sink Hand Wash Station
This is as simple as it gets. Set it in your tiny home, fill the supply jug, and enjoy washing your hands without plumbing!
“Dry” Shower Options
Outdoor Shower – Many dry tiny homers opt to set up an outdoor shower solution. Outdoor shower enclosures can be as basic or elaborate as you like (or as climate dictates), but they all accomplish the same task – keeping water outside of your home. Outdoor showers can use water from a lofted holding tank (ideally painted a dark color allow the sun to warm the water) or from a well or water main (ideally with propane heat).
Our pick for an outdoor propane heated shower system is: GASLAND Outdoors BE158B 1.58GPM 6L Portable Gas Water Heater
This unit could not be easier to set up. You simply connect a propane bottle and water hose, then enjoy your well-deserved hot shower!
Luxury Additions for Tiny Home Bathrooms
One of the greatest parts of designing your tiny home is finding creative ways to make your new tiny space an upgrade, not a sacrifice. One of the ways we do this is by adding compact luxury features such as these:
Shower Panels
If you have not yet showered in a multi-head shower, you are in for a treat. The wide range of flow strengths and positions means almost everyone can find the perfect combination to make their shower experience blissful every time.
Our pick for a shower panel is: ROVOGO 304 Stainless Steel Shower Panel System
These units feature an 8-inch rainfall head, shower wand, and 6 massage heads. This is the best built unit of the dozen or so models that I have installed.
Steam Shower
What could be more spa-like than turning your shower into a steam sauna?! This a great way to double the usefulness of your space and pamper yourself at the same time. Steam shower units are relatively easy to install and don’t require an inordinate amount of extra resources to run.
Our pick for a steam shower unit is: COOLDENWALL 9KW Commercial Self-Draining Steam Generator Shower System
This is a sweet unit and is what I have installed in my own shower. It offers all of the steam generation and reliability as units costing twice as much.
Bidet
Let’s talk about poop for a minute. Nowhere else on your body is appropriate to just wipe poop off with a piece of paper, so why do we still do our butts that way? Modern bidets install right on top of a standard toilet or are built right into the toilet and give you a confident clean every time. Just think about all that toilet paper that you won’t have to store in your limited cabinet space!
Our pick for an addon bidet is: Jnariy Smart Bidet Toilet Seat
This unit is close to my heart as it has been a literal game-changer in my life. I promise you will not regret installing this bidet system on your existing toilet.
Our pick for an integrated bidet is: ELLAI MT-3602, Smart Toilet with bidet function
If you don’t already have a toilet for your tiny home, you may consider buying one with the bidet already integrated, and why not throw in a heated seat too?! I have installed 9 of these toilets so far without a single service issue.
That wraps up or tiny toilet primer. Be sure to check out our related article on tiny home kitchens here.
Go forward with your knowledge and dare to live tiny!
