Bathroom in shop.

Joe Pro

Member
I am in the process of building a "real" shop on the farm. I have been considering putting a full or maybe half bathroom in the shop. What have you guys done to accomplish this? I have been considering a holding tank buried underground near the building but I am very unfamiliar with the cost, types or size to use.

Am I going to regret doing this or not. Then I have to debate if I'm going to also install a shower...

Also I am not looking for input as to what the health department may think!!
 
First thing that comes to mind is you will be committing to always keeping it heated for it to be practical.
Water pipes, drains, fixtures, heaters will all be damaged if frozen.
If you are OK with that then it is handy and keeps the dirt and grease out of the house.
 
You will probably be required to put in a septic system it you do it legally. State and county regulations vary.
 
A friend of mine buried a holding tank for the half bath in his shop. I don't know if the sink drains into the tank or not but the toilet does. County probably wants a full septic system. Just sayin. He can have it sucked out when they come to suck out the hog building pit.
 
Joe I put 1 in on the food processing building--500 gallon holding plastic tank with a pump and line to the septic tank. If you are pumping up hill make sure you have a small hole in the pipe, inside the holding tank, so the water can drain back and keep the line from freezing. You must make sure your septic and leach field are large enough to handle everything. We put in a 1500 gal tank with extra for the leach field.
 
With or without the graces of the H.D. is your call but having a toilet is well worth the effort in my opinion. Especially if the shop is a bit of a walk from the house. I know several who went to whole route with showers and none get used. Around here the porta pot people have those tanks and will pump them out. With no leach tile they will fill up faster than you think. I would go with a small septic tank and leach tile as long as your soil will support it.
 
here is mine
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I under stand you not wanting to get the Health Department involved, but if you don't it could bite later if they should somehow find out or maybe there comes a time when you need to sell the place. And it really is best if it is put in right in the first place, and they are the only ones that will know what works best for your type of soil.

If you don't put in a shower, then make provisions for adding one latter.

Dusty
 
If you do build it with a sink, shower, and toilet, I would only run the toilet into some kind of tank with leach field or like some have mentioned a pump from that tank to your septic at the house if available. The sink and shower, since it is just gray water, I would run out onto the lawn. It will not get used enough and the water will not cause an issue.
 
Neighbor built a nice, big, new shop. He put in a toilet and a sink. Any less, or more, would be not enough, or too much. I dug the hole for the tank after the shop was completed. He had to get a mini track hoe to fit in along one end of the building to put in a leach line. The system, as used, should last a long time. We did this very quietly.
 
If you do not care about the health department...

The comments are correct about when you go to sell, it will have to be inspected and you might run into an issue... might not.

I would make your own little septic system for that bathroom. You can buy a 300 gallon poly septic tank at your local Farm and Fleet or Menards, etc. for about $450 - $500.

Put your tank in and run some leach field out to allow it to drain the liquid sub surface.

Just to give you some real world numbers.

If you have a toilet and a standard lavatory faucet. Toilet flushes 1.6 gallons per flush. Your lav will flow around 1.0 gallons per minute. So if you use the toilet and wash your hands for 10 seconds, you are sending 2.2 gallons to the tank every time. It will not take very long to fill a holding tank.
 
All the time I can see where that would be a handy thing to have, my shop is only about 40 ft' from the house but when we bought this place closest neighbor was out of sight a half mile away, I could drain off a little coffee pretty much anywhere. Now I'm surrounded by neighbors with google earth up top, nowhere to hide.
 
Lots of good information!

This is on the family farm, and the only way it will be sold is if the bank comes and takes it to sell it ( not likely ( at the moment anyhow)).

My sink and if I do install a shower will run into the footer drain of the building and will be drained to a field.

How exactly is the holding tank installed? Is there and input and output fitting? Do I bury it competently underground? How do I percent it from freezing and cracking the tank?
 

At all depends on what exactly you get. I have holding tanks at my shop for anything that goes into the trench drains. They are concrete tanks with an inlet only and a float operated tank alarm that goes off in the building when they are full. They are installed just below grade and I have not had them freeze up.
 
Sorry I did not see the "not" when I read the last line.

Bears do it in the woods ! Just run a pipe out there.
 

And the shower... I would not personally waste the space. I have piped quite a few shop bathrooms with showers that end up becoming closets. When I built my shop, I put a "powder room sized" bathroom with a stool and a urinal then on the outside of the room I piped a slop sink in the shop area. Serves both purposes for the bathroom and when you need to just wash something out in the shop.
 
FYI - You might check with the tax people, they may considerate it a habitable building and want the higher taxes that goes with it.
 
I put a toilet,shower inside a small insulated room. Sink on outside of wall in the shop with trap inside the room. 2" foam insulation under concrete floor, 2" foam + 5 1/2" fiberglass walls and ceiling. Used a 100 watt light bulb for heat in the winter to keep from freezing in Southern Ohio. Sewer line ran back past house to septic tank.
When I sold this place off Health dept said if I would have put a septic tank with aerator in I could have split the 2 acre property and kept the shop while selling the house.
I installed concrete tanks for cisterns and the one out by the shop had rebar added to the top so could drive cars and light trucks over it. Only another $50 when ordered this way and didn't have to worry about floating out of the ground, I did wrap all 4 sides and top with 1" foam to protect from freezing.
good luck
Ron
 
Yep the good ole days back before 100W light bulbs were banned ! Now I guess everyone that used them to prevent freezing small areas will have to go buy heaters ?
 
I cannot believe all the years I got by without one, now it is a must. Room is 4'x8' with 3" foam over ceiling and fiberglass insulated walls, smallest insulated walk-in door I could find. Big SST sink that can wash buckets, hot water heater under the counter. Toilet is opposite sink. Heat it with a milk house heater here in Iowa. Sewer line ran about 60' to septic. Done right, but no permits or inspections in my small town.

Also a good place for your first aid kit, with warm water to wash up those cuts. I also keep a bottle of good whiskey in the cabinet for sterilizing and anthesethic purposes ;)
 
when you do your floor put all the pipes in BUT keep them covered if you have a building inspector. i Wisconsin they make us do a perk test and have to get permits. build your shop and after the dust settles put your self a system in by midnight plumbing is best. our state and inspectors are a pain in the A==
 

Do it and never look back. I had rather use my shop bath than the one's in the house. Worst case a toilet and sink even it you have to use a 55gal drum for a tank.

My mistakes, I called in favors owned to me by a shadetree plumber he use 3" pvc should have used 4". My run to the tank is well over 150 ft. he did a poor job of packing dirt under the pipe I think it has some low places in it. He did not rap the plastic pipe in insulation when the concrete went thru a heat boy that almost was a fudge up.

I have a system I made to evacuate engine exhaust I ran it over head If I had to do it again I would have put it in the floor. Why I dunno overhead works great.
 
I have one with a sink and a shower. Built my shop before I built my house. Bootlegged in a septic tank and 100 ft of field line using river rock removed from a roof. Don't use the shower much but I would do it no other way. Small fiberglass shower. Bathroom is about 36 inches wide by 8 ft long. has a 2 ft 110 volt baseboard heater to keep it warm. NW Middle Tn. Don't think it would freeze without the heat just don't like a cold shI??ER.
 
(quoted from post at 07:36:57 09/30/16) I have one with a sink and a shower. Built my shop before I built my house. Bootlegged in a septic tank and 100 ft of field line using river rock removed from a roof. Don't use the shower much but I would do it no other way. Small fiberglass shower. Bathroom is about 36 inches wide by 8 ft long. has a 2 ft 110 volt baseboard heater to keep it warm. NW Middle Tn. Don't think it would freeze without the heat just don't like a cold shI??ER.

If there was a like button I would hit like.
 
I have a tolet and sink in my shop.Mine is hooked to the house city sewer line. It got too expensive to heat during the winter. I now turn and drain the water in late fall.
 
Half bath is a must. In my case, I would rather have a "nap space with a nice couch" than a shower.
 
I don't have a bathroom in my shop. It's close enough to the house. I do keep a bottle of blackberry brandy in the shop for medicinal purposes.
 
If you do install a leach field you need to have a tank with a baffle in it to keep the solids from reaching the outlet and plugging the perf pipe.I have installed a few systems, some on sundays :p
 
Put in the bathroom including a shower. Your wife/girlfriend will love you getting clean and not bringing dirt and grease into the house no matter how understanding she is. Also the older we get the more often toilet breaks are.
One more you ever been relegated to the doghouse? The shop's better.
 
One extreme to another for what it is worth.
Stopped by a backwoods auto wrecker years ago and the guy was quite proud to share his innovation.
Nothing more than a 5 gal pail in the corner but he would pour a quart of oil in it first ( Canola or Castrol your choice)
Oil being lighter than ... floats on top and acts as a seal to prevent odors until emptied out.
 

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