Our last home, in the southern US, was build in 1980 and two of the 3 bathrooms (all full which is odd) were original and about 35 years old. While the appearance was dated, structurally and mechanically they were sound with no mold, water damage, or other issues. A steam clean of the tile and porcelain, along with a re-caulk and re-grout would have been sufficient to keep them going for quite some time. Our house before that was from 1965 with both bathrooms being original. The metal plumbing had started to fail and there was some rot to the sub-flooring around a toilet but otherwise fully functional and clean. In both cases the bathrooms were like most homes in the US with ceramic tile floors, steel tubs, and tiled shower stalls.
When I think about all the bathrooms I've used while in Europe, most were much newer and all felt like they needed to be redone. The finishes were unlike what's typically done in American bathrooms, some where plastic or vinyl covered while others used wood. They were all small and poorly ventilated, and they all had issues with mold and rot. I'm thinking poor ventilation and choosing materials for style over longevity might be why you feel the need to redo your bathrooms so frequently.
So you move into a new house with a grotty, worn out (and possibly only 4 or 8 year old) bathroom, with mould and maybe a tile or two falling off. Now you need to remodel, and most of what's out there is shoddy "replace every 5-10 years" quality, so the cycle repeats. New build homes are happy to install the cheapest shite available so long as it looks OK. Every time someone moves it's just about certain the mouldy, grotty bathroom and kitchen will need a makeover (or a divorce). If they got suckered in to a fitted bedroom you'll need to budget to rip that out too (also built from kitchen units with ideas above their station). :)
The parts of Europe I visit seem caught in a similar game.
Up until the seventies most houses were built with lifetime bathrooms -- one 50s house we lived in still had the tiling and fittings from when the house was built, still looked clean, nothing broken. All we ever needed to do was change taps as they had started to wear, and fit a better shower. A couple of tiles were lifted doing that -- that was revealing. No tile adhesive, all the tiles were mortared directly onto the brick, no wonder none had been lost since new. Not only that, tiles were better and the edges and corners were in the tiles -- none of the awful, easily broken, plastic corner things that appear to encourage mould.
The nicest house bathroom I ever saw was a house that had managed to keep its turn of the century bathroom, with high gloss tiling, original bath, radiator and polished pipes, with the modern additions carefully picked to appear like they were there from new.
Never quite understood how so many got so completely suckered in to such wasteful and expensive short-termism.
There are plenty of renovators that will be happy to install floating floor systems and other garbage but the traditional materials and installers still exist and don't charge that much of a premium. Many times the newer methods require subfloor modifications or other added costs that usually bring them in parity with the traditional products but the end result is much lower quality.
Or turn the argument around: would one rather have 2 bathrooms with an average age of 7.5 (15 years interval for renovation) or 4 bathrooms with an average age of 15 (30 years lifespan)?
The house with the 4 bathrooms in worse condition would be a worth a lot less money on the market than one with two bathrooms in better condition.
The cheapest option is of course having 2 bathrooms but staying with long intervals for remodeling. That's where I am now, but as both are pushing 13 yers now it's kind of stressing as they'll both "come up for renewal" at the same time soon.
But yes, living without 80's tiles is something I very much imagine paying a lot of money for.
A home with 4 bathrooms is going to see half the traffic of a home with 2 bathrooms so they might last 2x. Or is as the case a lot of times, the bathroom in the common areas of the home gets renovated as does the master.
> living without 80's tiles is something I very much imagine paying a lot of money for.
A lot of European bathrooms I've experienced were very trendy for their time and while that occurs in America I would say it's the exception and not the norm. In general our bathrooms are relatively bland and the materials are "timeless" in the sense that they're not very stylish ever, even new, but also never look that dated either. The last 3 bathroom renovations I did all involved using subway tiles, which while currently trendy, have been used consistently over the last 100 years. The houses I grew up in all used a similarly bland while tile that was 3x3" while squares.
The fixtures and finishes I've seen in European bathrooms also don't tend to stand up either. Pedestal sinks with exposed metal pipes and those detachable shower wands on sliding poles. Apart from the master bathrooms, most American bathrooms are boring with simple sturdy faucets and fixed shower heads. The sinks use vanities which hide/protect the plumbing which is usually plastic and much less vulnerable to corrosion.
Spider Robinson wrote about it. An alien looking at human bathrooms, would have to conclude we are masochistic, stupid, or have some cultural blind spot.
In many parts of the world you squat on the ground, which actually better for you than sitting. Most toilets in the last 30 years are taller to accommodate ADA requirements and you can get even taller ones for a slight cost.
> The sink that splashes
I've really only experienced that in those awful flat bottom or angular sinks. The traditional hemisphere or egg shaped sinks don't splash.
> you have to spend 40 seconds every time to get the water temperature right.
I'm assuming you're talking about showering? Most American bathrooms are not located near the hot water heater and the water in the pipes between the spigot and the heater generally cools because it's not well insulated. As such, most Americans don't hop in the shower immediately when they turn it on but instead let it warm up for a minute or two.
> The cabinet that's 2 inches deep and things fall out each time its opened.
Are you talking about medicine cabinets? Sounds like the one you used wasn't pitched properly. There's two screws inside you can remove on the inside walls to loosen it, you can then shim the bottom edge and replace the screws. This will pitch the cabinet back so things fall to the back and not out the front.
Generally medicine cabinets fell out of fashion as the size of bathrooms grew and are usually only found in pre80s homes. Fun fact, most of them have a slot in the back to let you dispose of straight razors and if you remove them from the wall you'll find a stack of rust old razors in the wall cavity.
> The mirror that fogs up.
Hmm... so fancy heated mirror that will fail or a bottle of defogger you apply once or twice a year? * Better yet just turn the ventilation fan on before you start your shower.
> The slippery tub.
The only time I've ever fallen in a shower was in Italy in one of those shower coffins. So... yeah that's not a problem unique to America.
> The moldy curtain.
You know you can change those right? And if you spend more than $2 you can buy one that's mold resistant?
> Noisy flush.
That sounds like those jet flush toilets used in commercial property, most residential toilets are gravity flush tanks like their European counterparts.
> Soap gunk by the sink.
I'm guessing by this and your mold curtain comment that you're not one to clean your bathroom?
> Plumbing that leaks and clogs under normal use.
That's not normal.
Remember those two faucets that used to be on sinks, one hot and one cold? Got replaced by the lever-valve that you push right or left to adjust temp? Took a generation to switch, though the benefits were obvious the first day.
Well, those two faucets go back even further. Watch any old cowboy movies? In the rooming house, the wash stand with the enamel basin and two pitchers? One pitcher hot water; one cold. Mix in the basin, then wash and shave.
When plumbing happened, the basin got set into the wash stand, a drain put in the bottom, the two pitchers replaced by two faucets.
Then, for about 100 years, nothing. No progress. Just that old familiar setup without modification.
Finally the kids were like "hey! I'm not filling that dirty old basin with water and washing in there! I'm just washing under the running water." The basin became simply a drain. So thus the impetus to combine hot and cold. So you didn't alternately scald and freeze your hands.
The 'modern' bathroom sink took 100 years to come about. Not because to took that long to invent. It took only a moment to see the advantages. What it took was, 100 years for the old, hidebound folks to pass away and let the kids take over.
I'm convinced our bathrooms are the way they are (weak explanations notwithstanding), because people are slow to change.
No one is agreeing or disagreeing with what you're saying because no one understands where you're coming from. You've basically said "Green is stupid because we're still using cars!"
Design aesthetic is different from 'stuff that doesn't work'. I'm reminded of design students that create something that looks like a bicycle out of cardboard layers, and say "See! I've improved the bicycle! It'll change the world!" And what they have is a useless sculpture of a bicycle.
It's plain to most folks, using ordinary bathrooms in ordinary houses that the stuff is laughably awkward, dangerous and hard to clean. Try to explain it away all you like.
Again, we were speaking about durability and aesthetics, not functionality.
Since you want to discuss functionality...
> laughably awkward
For example? Do you have any better real world alternatives.
> dangerous
What and how?
> hard to clean
Compared to?
> Try to explain it away all you like.
No one is trying to explain away anything. We're not talking about the same thing. You're interjecting your thoughts on functionality as if they're in opposition to our discussion about reliability and design.
To put it another way, we're talking about reality and you're arguing hypothetical. It's like showing us how your air guitar is better than our actual guitars.
Obviously there are still expensive parts, but we don't rebuild the entire bathroom every 15 years and we don't have to do that rebuild all at once.
And bathtubs, toilets, and sinks last 20+ years easy (it’s porcelain and/or cast iron, what can go wrong?) Replacing the toilet innards is a 1 hour job at most with a $30 repair kit from the hardware store in case the seals wear out or something.
Up to date breakdown for a cheap one ($12k) (Google translate it if curious) https://www.byggahus.se/badrum/kostnad-bygga-nytt-badrum
labor $6.8k (carpenter 40h, electrician 16h, tiling 60-70h, plumber 1-2days) material: $5.2k fixtures: $3.5k
I also suppose there is a difference with wear. If you have e.g. one or two baths instead of 3 or four for a large family, then it might be in worse condition after 15 years.
Maybe the author of the article should write about how many bathrooms Swedes have, installed in series every 10 years rather than in parallel when the house is built. A one bathroom house where the bathroom has been replaced 4 times in 40 years counts as 4 bathrooms.
Renovate for yourself and your own use, not the next owner.
I've lived in most different types of place now (rurally, in the suburbs, in inner city suburbs, in the middle of metro areas) etc and the idea of having to decorate a massive house is something I really can't be bothered with. If I had children I'd want enough space for them, sure, but that's about it.
It's not even about the cost but just the mental overhead of it all, cleaning, all the stuff you accumulate, etc.
I figure I can always grow into it, and I occasionally buy something to go into it if I find a very good deal. Total cost of ownership is more than a rental property, but I also find my total quality of life has increased due to extra space for pets and decreased noise.
I figure at that point I'd have more of an idea about where I'd want my theoretical family (that I'm not even planning at the moment) to live, plus a partner with you know, desires and opinions and stuff ;)