Downstairs Bathrooms

[EcclesCake]

I understand why older houses have downstairs bathrooms as they have been extensions and conversions etc.

But what I don't understand is why post War houses would have been built with downstairs bathrooms.

Can anyone explain the logic of this please?

[woofgang]

because its where the plumbing was. Much cheaper and easier to put the things that need plumbing where the plumbing already needs to be than to run it somewhere else.

[ummmm]

Waste disposal is expensive.

[Buenchico]

I was brought up in a house (built in1953) with a downstairs bathroom and I regarded it as the norm. (Largely, I still do). It made sense then to minimise the distance from the kitchen (where the 'copper' provided the only means of heating water) to the bathroom, rather than having to carry all those buckets of water upstairs.

Even when there's another way of heating the water, having the bathroom downstairs means that you can have more bedrooms upstairs, which is imp0ortant for people with large families who have to live in fairly small houses.

[Mosaic]

Following on from all these posts, an upstairs bathroom was also a mark of status as well as costing more to install and taking up bedroom space. So many council houses continued to have downstairs bathrooms until the 1950s. A compromise was implemented in many privately owned or privately rented terraced houses, comprising keeping the back-yard toilet but converting the back bedroom into a bath and washbasin bathroom.

[silliemillie]

I never know why people turn their noses up at a downstairs bathroom.

I always think you spend more time downstairs than upstairs.

[heathfield]

It means visitors don't have to climb the stairs to go to the loo, (and maybe have a nosey into the other rooms!).

[rockyracoon]

We had downstairs bathrooms in our first two houses, it was a frigging pain in the arse when you were pregnant and had to pee every 5 minutes during the night. Thankfully this house has one up and one down.

[EcclesCake]

Hhmm, some interesting perspectives.

I have to say I share Rocky's view about a night time trip down the stairs, it certainly wouldn't fill me with joy.

A downstairs bathroom would have been a deal breaker for me when I was buying a house.