Buzz
Many of us are familiar with this scene: You're lying in a bathtub filled with warm water and bubbles. The heat is comforting, and you're all set to unwind. But no matter how you arrange yourself, you face a frustrating choice—either your legs are hanging out of the water, or your head and shoulders are. No matter your position, a part of you remains cold.
Here's the issue: Bathtubs are simply too small. But why is that?
Bathing, Victorian-style
To truly grasp why bathtubs aren't designed to comfortably fit the average person, it's crucial to look at how the world was different when plumbing first entered our homes. "Indoor plumbing arrived in the United States in the late 1880s," says Jeremy Cressman, a veteran of the residential and commercial bath industry and current vice president of sales and marketing at BLANCO America, speaking to Mytour. In the late 19th century, large bathtubs were difficult to produce due to their high cost—though cost wasn’t the only factor affecting bathtub sizes. People were smaller back then, and the tubs themselves were made from heavy cast iron, making them hard to move. (Today’s bathtubs are often crafted from fiber-reinforced plastic.)
The rise of mass production in the early 20th century led to a 'cookie-cutter approach' to housing, which standardized the size of the domestic bath, according to Cressman. Bathrooms were typically about 5 feet by 7 feet, with the tub—usually 5 feet long and 32 inches wide—placed along the shorter wall. The standardized dimensions of these mass-produced bathtubs were based on the assumed size of the average person, often overlooking those who didn’t fit that mold.
The Bathtub Boom
According to Alison K. Hoagland, author of The Bathroom: A Social History of Cleanliness and the Body, after World War II, Crane—a leading manufacturer of bathtubs—reported that 75% of their business came from 5-foot tubs, as smaller tubs were more affordable and thus more attractive to landlords. These tubs were also easier to maintain and required less water. For change to occur, Hoagland explains, 'Architects would need to design bathrooms of different sizes, and a critical mass of demand would be needed to lower costs.' Unfortunately, this seems unlikely to happen in the near future.
"The bathing industry makes that [size bathtub] because they know that’s where the volume is," says Tim Ahearn, national sales manager at BLANCO America and former head of sales at Jacuzzi Luxury Bath for over 30 years, in an interview with Mytour.
Given how much has transformed since the Victorian era, it’s surprising that bathtubs haven’t evolved in the same way. Award-winning architect Christie Pearson, author of The Architecture of Bathing, notes that architectural historian Sigfried Giedion made this point in his 1948 book, Mechanization Takes Command. Pearson believes that even today, our views on bathing remain tightly linked to the prudish era when the practice first entered the home. 'What’s being implied,' she tells Mytour, 'is [that] bathing isn’t pleasurable, and you shouldn’t linger. A bathtub is necessary for cleaning children, but once you’re old enough, you should be showering.'
Online discussions surrounding the mysterious shortness of bathtubs suggest ideas like the risk of drowning if tubs were any longer, the notion that baths are more for children than adults, and that large bathtubs would be far too heavy. In reality, only the second argument holds any weight—and even here, it might be that baths are viewed more as for children because they are too small for many adults to comfortably enjoy, not the other way around.
Out with the Bathwater
Whether due to their awkward size or simply for aesthetic reasons, many people—especially Millennials—are ditching bathtubs altogether. 'The demand for tubs has been shrinking over time, particularly among large-volume buyers like multi-family housing developers and hotel chains,' says Cressman. This shift likely reflects our faster-paced lives. Hoagland adds that our commuter-driven routines make a quick shower more practical than a time-consuming bath. In the Victorian era, when people bathed only once a week, a slow, leisurely bath made more sense. Today, eco-consciousness is also a factor, with many choosing showers over baths to conserve water.
Unfortunately, this growing trend of shower-takers won’t drive the demand for longer bathtubs. Pearson argues that for this to change, there must be a radical rethinking of the bath itself—one that goes beyond merely adjusting its physical size.
As we bathe less frequently and start to view the bathtub as an impractical space not worth spending time in, we lose touch with something vital. A bath offers a unique relaxation that a shower can’t replicate. 'It's a vessel for dreaming; for languor; for non-productive time,' says Pearson. 'It's a vessel for reverie. How much space should that deserve, and how are we being encouraged to value or devalue it based on square footage?'
