Bathtubs were a solved problem

13 Nov, 2025

Exposure to the games industry can be hazardous to your currently held sensibilities. I am now eternally cursed with seeing everything through the lenses of modularity, resilience, and endurance. And quite honestly I think its a better way to look at the world. Logically this brings me to bathtubs.

I had a close friend who lived in one of those 100 year old Montreal walk up apartments and in their bathroom existed an original clawfoot tub. At the time I had been struggling with my own bathroom as the caulking around the tub constantly grew mold and would not maintain a good seal. I saw this as an inherent flaw in the modern design of tubs and most bathroom design in general ¹. Stepping into that ancient clawfoot tub, I knew that we collectively had been led astray. I am now forced to endure my modern tub and all its failures until I can find the time and energy to send it to the shadow realm and embrace the glory of a junkyard tub.

First off, I know exactly why we have these crappy modern tubs. It's cheaper and faster. Shocker I know. They can be mass produced, jammed against drywall, and then slathered in heaps of silicone to hide all the problems and cracks from installation. But the facade only lasts just until your warranty runs out and then it lifts, peels, rots, and grows mold. And don't even get me started on just how awful and mundane they all look².

So lets talk about what a bathroom is. It's wet, its moist, its covered in muddy paw prints from your dog. This means its gotta dry fast, be easy to clean, reduce the number of holes in the wall to a bare minimum, and be tough enough to stand up to multiple years of abuse.

More angles and seams mean slower drying and more complicated construction. Air cannot circulate as well when it has to change direction a bunch of times. Having a simple rectangle room with no alcoves or silly angles means that air flows more easily up to the fan or window. Additionally, should any water get under your plastic tub (it already has) it will just seep into the wood and rot. A clawfoot tub avoids all these problems by being completely separated from the structure of the room; allowing air to freely travel up, down, and all around. So there, clawfoot tubs solve the airflow and moisture problem.

If air can get everywhere, so can a sponge. One of the common arguments I've seen claims that built in tubs are easier to clean... I just cannot fathom how those people came to this conclusion³. Built in tubs use the wall as a surface for re-directing water... besides the obvious problem of dumping water onto seam, I now have to clean an ENTIRE WALL? Nah I'm good, with a clawfoot tub I can just clean the tub with a harsh brush and powerful cleaner and toss my curtains into the wash, no more walls to clean. Most people also complain that in a clawfoot tub they always end up with a ton of water on the ground⁴ and my only advice is that your monologue arguments should not include shadow boxing.

Modern tubs also require multiple openings in the wall for plumbing. If you live in North America then you can see that this is clearly a bad idea as it creates more points of failure and more entrance points for moisture. A clawfoot tub requires 3 openings: Hot, cold, and drain. While modern tubs require and additional 3: Shower head, faucet, and emergency drain. Not only is the current solution bad but I am vindicated in my hatred as we are actively seeing a return to the classic style of plumbing found on clawfoot tubs because it requires fewer holes in the walls. Much to my disappointment they don't go far enough to actually fix the problem as they still require sealing the whole thing to the wall with more silicone for some reason but hey, progress I guess?

And finally if you've ever actually cleaned caulk then you know it shreds as soon as you even mention the term "scrub". Caulks are soft and porous and are bad at resisting abrasion. Did you also know that you're supposed to replace it? Yeah if you've never re-done the caulk then I have bad news for you, its probably leaking and you might have water damage. You know what would prevent that from happening? Not having caulk all over the bathroom in the first place.

Clawfoot tubs were created as they understood the purpose of a bathing system in the beginning. Make it as simple as possible and as robust as possible. Reduce points of failure, make it out of good material, and place them in environments that can handle water and moisture. I can't believe people saw a literal bucket and thought they could improve it, its just like how modern startups keep accidentally inventing trains and busses but worse.

The perfect bathroom in my opinion is one with grouted tiling covering the entire floor and extending at least halfway up the wall, boom waterproofed. And only 3 openings in the wall/floor, hot, cold, and drain. The clawfoot tubs sits upon the tile, allowing me to clean every part of it should I desire, and an absolute minimum amount of caulk for me to clean (and more importantly for me to forget and never replace).