The English Bathroom

A delicate subject, for sure, but it is worth sharing a few tips on the English bathroom and how they vary from a typical American bathroom. There are some quirks worth knowing about in advance that may make your “visits” better.

First off, the English bathroom has, on average, zero counter space. Counters are for kitchens, not for bathrooms, at least according to English bathroom designers. Even in more modern American hotel chains, the counterspace can be minimal. In English hotels and in cottages and homes the minimal slips into zero space. If there is a window, there may be a small space on the ledge of the window, but otherwise, nope, none, zero, nada, nicht, nein, nil. If you are very lucky, there may be a three-inch wide shelf over the sink.

Also missing from most bathrooms is electricity. Sometimes one will find a pull string or cord near the door, but most of the time the switch for lights is outside the door. I suppose this arrangement is to avoid being electrocuted by sticking your hand in water and using the switch at the same time.  Most times you can find an electrical outlet for an electric razor near the mirror, but you will not find another outlet for other uses such as a hair dryer. This, again, is an electrical safety consideration.

What is curious about this aversion to electricity is that a vast majority of homes use the on demand approach to hot water. That is, the water is heated just as you use it, not kept in a tank somewhere on premise. Most of these heaters are electric, and in some older cottages there may be a control for the “boiler,” as it is called, in the shower or over the bathtub. I must admit that it can be a bit strange to be standing in the shower adjusting an electrical device to control the temperature of the water, but there you go, that’s how it’s done. In hotels, the water is more likely to be pre-heated, so the controls will adjust for flow and not to adjust any timers or temperatures for the boiler. However, the controls can be very cryptic. Look at this picture of a shower we recently encountered:

Water controls for tub and shower © 2018 EnglandForAllReasons.com

Without a guidebook, it’s hard to tell what to do. It turns out the upper knob adjusts the option of shower/tub, with the “1” being tub and the “2” being shower. The bottom knob is to adjust temperature. What you cannot see is that on the bottom is a little button. In GB, and maybe throughout Europe, the government has decided to protect you from the water being too hot. So it is mandated that the temperature control will only go so far and then will hit a stop. To go beyond that stop, you press the button and continue to move the control. If you happen to like hot showers instead of tepid ones, you will find it annoying to have to find the button on every possible combination of knobs while being pounded with cold water.

It is typical for a sink to have a hot tap and a cold tap. When we lived there in the 1970s, the water in most of the taps was not drinkable as it was held in an open cistern in the attic. Only the water from the tap in the kitchen was drinkable. To keep the undrinkable and drinkable separate, the hot and cold water is isolated completely, even in the tap itself. The water mixes in the sink bowl for the first time. In some modernized cottages and hotels, there will be only one faucet, but if you examine it closely you will see that there is a divider in the faucet to keep hot and cold from mixing until the water is actually out of the faucet altogether. In older bathrooms, there will still be separate hot and cold taps.  I can’t give any solid advice about the drinkability of the water in any tap, so if you need a drink, use a kitchen tap or use bottled water. Oh, and most likely the bathroom sink will have a stopper, not a control, to fill the bowl. Only in modernized bathrooms will the sink have a lever or mechanical stopper.

The British love to take a bath, so the bathtubs are usually large and comfortable. However, they are also high, so if you have any mobility issues, getting in and out may be an adventure. And the bottom of the tub is a few inches higher than the floor of the bathroom, so getting out is a step down over the high sides with wet, slippery feet. Be careful, it is an adventure. The showers in these tubs are mostly of the hand-held variety, and may or may not have a holder to allow hands-free showering. In some cases the holder may be fairly low, so if you are tall, showering can be frustrating.

Before we leave the bathroom, let’s talk towels. Most hotels and more modern cottages and homes have towel warmers that heat up your bath towel. Some are automatic, either on a timer or using the light or shower controls as the trigger to heat the towel. There is nothing quite like stepping out of a bath or shower to a heated towel!  Any frustration with the sink, shower or tub is rapidly forgotten as you wrap yourself in the lovely, warm softness of a well-heated towel.

In many locations the toilet is not in the bathroom, but in a separate closet of its own. It is referred to as a water closet, or “WC” which is often what you’ll see on rest stop signs. The  WC may or may not have a sink to wash your hands, depending on how it was built. In homes the toilet may be in the bathroom, but often is separate. Cottages vary widely, sometimes even within the cottage itself if it has multiple bathrooms. It’s not critical, just be on the lookout. When the need arises, ask for the “toilet,” “water closet,” or “loo.”

Finally, the flushing action of a UK toilet is different from how it works in the US. In the US, the handle on the toilet is pulling up on a chain to open a flapper valve that allows the water in the tank to flow into the bowl. As the water level drops, a float valve in the tank opens up a valve to allow more water to flow into the bowl to increase the flushing action. When the tank is empty, the flapper valve flops down to block the flow and the water refills the bowl and tank. In the UK, the flushing mechanism is not a flapper valve, but a siphoning action that sucks the water out of the tank and into the bowl, with a float valve doing similar function once the level in the holding tank goes down. When the tank is empty, the siphon stops and the valve fills up the tank again. This difference in operation means that the UK toilet handle needs to be pressed with a steady, firm and fairly quick push to initiate the siphon. Some older toilets will have the tank mounted high on the wall, with a pull chain. Those require a firm, steady pull to get the siphon started. Some modern toilets have a button on the top of the tank that also needs a firm steady push to get going. And you may see buttons with two parts. One part is for a smaller flow and pushing both gets a bigger flush— a water-saving feature that uses less water when a full flush isn’t needed.

Top Photo by: Apartmenttheraphy.com