By CHRISTOPHER KAZARIAN
There is something quintessentially Cape Cod about owning a home with an outdoor shower. It’s part of the magic of living near the ocean and coming home after a long day at the beach.
“It’s absolutely part of the Cape experience,” said Clifford Sands, owner of Master Tech Plumbing & Heating in East Falmouth. “It’s nice for people who have summer guests. Having an outdoor shower prevents bathing water from going into the septic system. And it’s nice to be outside, listen to the wildlife around you, and shower alfresco.”
If you’re in the market for an outdoor shower, you’re not alone. During the summer, Sands and his crew typically construct one to two per week. “Sometimes we’re repaving or rebuilding or enhancing them and a lot of times we’re putting in new ones,” he said.
Technically, they aren’t called outdoor showers but “outdoor rinsing stations,” Sands said, explaining that “a shower has to be tied into a sewer system.”
The first place to start is identifying a location for the shower. “You want the shower to have some element of privacy from second floor windows and neighbors,” Sands said. “And you don’t want it to be blocking any windows.”
Another consideration, he said, is that it is accessible to a hot- and cold-water valve.
“You want to make sure the runoff is going to be able to drain away from the house so it doesn’t puddle up and ruin your landscape or enter your cellar or basement,” he said.
As to costs and the time it takes to construct an outdoor shower, it varies. On the low end, Sands said, a basic kit and a code-compliant installation will run roughly $1,250 and take a day or two to complete.
Then there are the luxury showers. “I used to work on Nantucket, and I had somebody buy a shower valve for $6,000. That was just for the valve itself,” Sands said. “The most expensive one I did was on Nantucket, and it had a glass tile block all around it and a surface-mounted big chrome rain shower head. The shower was well over $25,000, but it was probably a $10 million house on the ocean.”
Ted Pomeroy of Coastal Custom Woodworks of Sagamore Beach constructed one in his hometown that was nearly $65,000. “But it was beautiful,” he said. “Most of the showers we do are complex. We have pavers for the ground and the drain goes to a dry well.”
Since the pandemic, he said, many of his clients have turned their backyards into an outdoor living space with kitchens, firepits and dining tables. The outdoor shower has become an important component of these areas.
With the basic 4×4 prefabricated wood or PVC shower, Pomeroy said, there are countless add-ons to consider. These include outdoor lighting; handheld shower heads that make it easy to wash not only your feet, but your pets; and sitting and changing areas to keep your towels and clothes dry.
If you can imagine it, Pomeroy and his team can create it as outdoor showers can be customized to meet your needs, space and budget.
“We built one that has no door. It’s like an S-curve that goes to the shower as you walk into it,” he said. Another was made of all stone and measured 12½ feet long by eight feet wide, complete with its own changing area.
Pomeroy, who is celebrating his 40th anniversary in construction this year, has witnessed significant changes when it comes to outdoor showers. “Early on, the control valves were exposed. Nowadays they are all concealed behind a structure. It’s almost like you’re walking into a $100,000 bathroom, but it’s outside,” he said.
He urged homeowners to really think about the quality of material and items they purchase when constructing their outdoor shower. “If you’re going to do it, you need to do it right,” he said. “That way it is going to be maintenance free for them versus something like installing new wood which is so young, and it doesn’t last and starts to rot out five years down the road. You’ll end up replacing it instead of doing it the right way from the beginning.”
When choosing materials for the shower, Stonewood Products marketing director Jason Hogan said, customers essentially have two options—PVC or wood.
“PVC has a much more modern look to it and it has lower maintenance,” he said. “It is more of a plastic look whereas the wood cedar has a more classic feel which goes with a lot of houses [on the Cape].”
If homeowners choose cedar, he said, they can let it gray naturally as it ages or choose to maintain its look by applying an oil finish on it every two to three years.
Stonewood, which has retail locations in both Mashpee and Harwich, sells a variety of cedar and PVC kits, starting at $1,250 all the way up to $4,500. It also sells shower accessories, including slat roofs, cedar floors, lattice panels, cedar benches and beach pebbles.
“They’ve been growing in popularity every year,” Hogan said of outdoor showers, noting that visitors to the Cape often look for short-term rentals and Airbnbs that have them. “Homeowners have outdoor showers because they don’t want sand coming into the house and going in their drain.”
While there is no wrong time to install an outdoor shower, Sands suggested spring is the best “because you get to turn it on and use it for the season. A lot of people do it in the fall and use it once or twice and don’t get the full enjoyment and endorphin rush from being outside in the warm weather.”
Because they are outside, Sands said, showers must be drained properly and winterized by November to prevent the components from splitting and cracking when temperatures dip below freezing.
As someone who has been in the trades since 1999, Sands said, he loves being able to help “homeowners solve problems. Sometimes people come in and they don’t understand the mechanical systems of their homes. It’s nice to explain it in layman’s terms to help them make their house more comfortable, enhance it, and make it more beautiful.”
Get Started On Your Outdoor Shower Today
Coastal Custom Woodworks coastalcustomwoodworks.com
Master Tech Plumbing & Heating mastertechplumbingandheating.com
Stonewood Products stonewoodproducts.com