Ensuite and Family Bathroom Layout in a Burnaby Custom Home

The ensuite in a Burnaby custom home carries more decisions per square metre than any other room in the house. Where the toilet sits. Whether the shower has a curb. How far apart two sinks go. Where the window looks and who can see in. Where the fan duct ends. Every one of those gets locked in at rough-in, and moving any of them after drywall means opening finished walls.

This post is about layout and air. We already covered the tile and what goes behind it in tile and the waterproofing behind it, so we will not repeat that here.

Start with the walk-through

Most ensuite plans we review were drawn around the fixtures: a tub here, a shower there, a vanity along the long wall. The problem shows up when you stand in the bedroom doorway and look in. If the first thing you see is the toilet, the plan needs another pass.

We lay the room out from the bedroom door inward. The vanity or the tub is what you see first. The shower sits deeper in the room. The water closet goes out of the sightline, and if the footprint allows, into its own room with a door. A separate water closet is the single change that lets two people use an ensuite at the same time without negotiation, and on a primary suite in Deer Lake or Buckingham Heights with the square footage to spare, it is the first thing we draw.

A water closet room needs three things of its own: a door that swings clear of the fixture, a light on its own switch, and exhaust. The BC Building Code requires an exhaust fan in every bathroom or water-closet room, unless that room is served by the home's principal ventilation exhaust. A toilet room with no fan is the one everyone notices.

Curbless showers and wet rooms

Curbless is now the default request on our ensuites, and for good reason: no step to trip on, easy to clean, and it reads as one continuous floor. What owners do not always know is that the slope to the drain has to happen in the structure. The framer drops the subfloor in the shower zone, or the floor is built up everywhere else, so the tile setter has a recessed pan to pitch. That decision goes on the framing plan. Discover it at tile stage and you are either building a curb after all or grinding a floor.

A linear drain along one wall lets the whole shower floor pitch in one direction, which suits large-format tile. A centre drain needs four planes sloping to a point, which means small tile in the shower and a visible pattern change.

A wet room takes the same idea one step further: the freestanding tub sits inside the waterproofed zone with the shower, behind one glass panel, so the whole area can get wet. It saves a wall and reads as one large space. It also means the tub filler, the tub itself and the floor around it all get planned as shower, and the exhaust fan has to handle a bigger wet area. We like wet rooms in a large ensuite. In a compact one, a separate shower with a glass door keeps the rest of the room dry and warm.

The double vanity, and how far apart

Two sinks are only useful if two people can use them at once. The test is simple: can two adults stand at their own sink without touching elbows, and is there a drawer stack or a run of open counter between them? It is a comfort decision; the code leaves it to you, and we settle it at full scale with the cabinet maker rather than on a plan at 1:50.

What the plumber needs before rough-in: both sink centres, the faucet count, and whether the drain is a bottle trap that shows or a standard trap that hides in a cabinet. What the electrician needs: outlet locations that are not behind the faucet, mirror lighting at face height on both sides, and whether the mirrors are lit from behind. The framing needs blocking for a wall-hung vanity, which is our preference because it makes the floor easier to clean and lets the heated floor run under it. All of that lands in the plumbing rough-in and the electrical rough-in, and none of it moves easily afterward.

Natural light without the neighbour

Burnaby's older neighbourhoods are full of 33-foot and 50-foot lots, and on a teardown rebuild in Parkcrest or Burnaby Heights the ensuite window often faces the neighbour's ensuite window across a side yard a few metres wide. Daylight in a bathroom is worth fighting for, and the sightline is the problem to solve.

The tools are a high sill, so the window starts above eye level and still fills the room with light; frosted or reeded glass, which keeps the light and drops the view; a clerestory band along the top of a wall; or a skylight over the shower, which lights the wettest part of the room with no privacy question at all. On a lot with a view to the north or over Burnaby Lake, we will put a clear window at the tub and take the privacy hit with a blind, because the view is why you bought the lot.

Whatever the glazing, a window inside the shower zone gets a sloped, waterproofed, tiled sill and a vinyl or fibreglass frame. Wood trim in a shower does not survive.

The exhaust fan: sizing, and where it vents

This is the part that gets built wrong most often, so here are the rules.

The BC Building Code's ventilation section for houses, Section 9.32, requires an exhaust fan in every bathroom or water-closet room that provides at least the air flow in its table, with the fan's capacity rated at 50 pascals of external static pressure under HVI Publication 916 or CSA C260. In the code text posted on the province's free portal, that minimum is 23 litres per second for an intermittent bathroom fan and 9 litres per second for a fan that runs continuously. The same section requires exhaust ducts to discharge to the outdoors. The mechanical designer confirms the figure against the current 2024 edition, which the province lists as in effect for permits applied for after March 8, 2024.

Two things follow from the rating rule. First, the fan has to deliver its rated air flow against the resistance of the duct, so the number on the box only holds with a short, clean duct run. A long, kinked run of flexible duct can cut a fan's real performance to a fraction of its rating. Second, the duct has to end outside. Every fan we have pulled out of a 1960s Capitol Hill bungalow was dumping into the attic, and the roof sheathing above it told the story.

A fan that vents into the attic is a humidifier for your roof.

Icon Projects Team

So on our jobs the bathroom exhaust duct is rigid or smooth-walled, as short and straight as the framing allows, insulated where it passes through unconditioned space so the moist air does not condense inside it during a Burnaby winter, and terminated at a proper wall or roof cap with a damper. The switch is a timer or a humidity sensor rather than a plain toggle, because a fan that runs for twenty minutes after the shower does the job.

In a house built to Burnaby's current Step 3 of the Energy Step Code with a heat recovery ventilator, the bathroom exhaust may be a pickup on the HRV rather than a separate fan; the code allows the principal ventilation exhaust to serve the bathroom if it meets the rules for that system. That is a mechanical design decision, made with the HRV sizing, and it has to be settled before the ducts are run.

Heated floors

An electric heated floor mat is the most requested comfort item in an ensuite and it fits Burnaby's requirement that new homes meet EL-4 of the Zero Carbon Step Code, because it runs on electricity. The mat sits above the waterproofing membrane and below the tile, with its own thermostat and a floor sensor that is placed before the tile goes down. If the sensor is forgotten, the thermostat runs blind. The tile post covers where the mat sits relative to the membrane; the layout point is that the thermostat location, the circuit and the sensor route all belong on the electrical drawings.

Plan for the grab bar now

Here is a rule that is new and that most owners have not heard of. For building permits applied for on or after March 10, 2025, the 2024 BC Building Code requires at least one bathroom in a new dwelling to have its walls reinforced so grab bars can be installed later. The province's adaptable dwelling unit design guide lists detached houses, semi-detached houses, townhouses and secondary suites as dwellings where the grab bar reinforcement applies even though the wider adaptable-unit rules do not. The province's information bulletin on adaptable dwelling units puts it plainly: grab bars are not required, but the walls beside the water closet and beside the shower or bathtub must be reinforced so a future installation is not limited by the lack of anchorage. The design guide describes plywood or solid lumber behind the wall finish at those locations.

We block every bathroom, beyond the one the code requires. Plywood behind drywall costs a few minutes of a framer's day and lets a bar go in twenty years from now without opening a tiled wall. A curbless shower with a linear drain does the same work in advance. If you want to go further, the aging in place post covers door widths, clear floor space and the rest.

The family bathroom

The family bathroom gets less attention and more abuse. It is where the kids bathe, where guests go, and where a wet towel lands on the floor every day for fifteen years.

Our defaults: a tub with a tiled surround and a glass panel rather than a shower curtain, a single wide vanity with two drawer stacks rather than two small sinks that crowd each other, a floor drain if the room is on a slab, and porcelain rather than natural stone because it stands up to shampoo and bath toys. If there are three children sharing it, a separate water closet earns its space here too. The same fan rules apply, and so does the grab bar blocking.

What we check at framing

Before the drywall goes on, the ensuite gets a walk with a tape and the plan. The subfloor drop for the curbless shower is in and pitched. Both sink centres are marked on the wall and the water lines land on them. The blocking for the wall-hung vanity, the glass panel hardware and the grab bars is in and photographed with a measurement from the floor. The fan duct runs to a cap you can see from outside. The heated floor sensor conduit is in the wall. The window sill in the shower is sloped.

That walk takes twenty minutes and it is the only time those items are cheap to fix.

Frequently asked questions

Should the toilet be in its own room in a Burnaby ensuite?

If the footprint allows it, yes. A separate water closet lets two people use the ensuite at the same time and keeps the toilet out of the view from the bedroom. It needs its own door swing, its own light, and its own exhaust; the BC Building Code requires an exhaust fan in every bathroom or water-closet room unless that room is served by the home's principal ventilation exhaust. At Icon Projects we test the door swing and the standing room at full scale on the plan before the plumber roughs in.

Does a curbless shower need a bigger footprint than a standard shower?

It needs more planning, and the footprint can stay the same. The slope to the drain has to happen in the subfloor, so the framer drops the floor in the shower zone before the tile setter arrives, and a linear drain along one wall lets the whole floor pitch one way. What changes is the coordination: the framing plan, the plumbing rough-in and the waterproofing all have to agree before drywall. In a Burnaby custom home we plan the curbless shower with the structural drawings.

How far apart should two sinks be in a double vanity?

Far enough that two adults can stand at their own sink without touching elbows, with a drawer stack or an open span of counter between them. It is a comfort decision; the code leaves it to you. At Icon Projects we lay it out at full scale with the cabinet maker, then give the plumber both sink centres and the faucet count before the water lines go in the wall, because moving a sink after rough-in means opening finished walls.

What size exhaust fan does a bathroom need in BC?

The BC Building Code's ventilation section for houses, Section 9.32, requires an exhaust fan in every bathroom or water-closet room that provides at least the air flow in its table, with the fan's capacity rated at 50 pascals of external static pressure under HVI Publication 916 or CSA C260. In the code text posted on the province's free portal, that minimum is 23 litres per second for an intermittent bathroom fan and 9 litres per second for one that runs continuously. The mechanical designer confirms the figure against the current 2024 edition for each house.

Can a bathroom exhaust fan vent into the attic?

No. The BC Building Code requires exhaust ducts to discharge to the outdoors, and a fan that dumps warm, wet air into a cold attic is the fastest way to grow mould on the underside of the roof sheathing. In a Burnaby winter the duct also needs insulation and a short, straight run to a proper roof or wall cap, so the moisture does not condense inside the duct and drip back onto the ceiling.

Does a new house in Burnaby have to have grab bar blocking?

Yes, for building permits applied for on or after March 10, 2025. The 2024 BC Building Code requires at least one bathroom in a new dwelling, including detached houses, semi-detached houses, townhouses and secondary suites, to have the walls beside the toilet and beside the shower or bathtub reinforced so grab bars can be installed later. The province's design guide describes plywood or solid lumber behind the wall finish at the future grab bar locations. At Icon Projects we block every bathroom.

Is a window in the shower a bad idea in Vancouver's climate?

A window in the shower works if it is treated as part of the wet zone and the sill is sloped, waterproofed and tiled like the rest of the shower, with a vinyl or fibreglass frame rather than wood. The bigger issue on a Burnaby or Vancouver infill lot is privacy, because the window often faces a neighbour a few metres away. A high sill, frosted glazing or a skylight over the shower gives the daylight without the sightline.

Can I put heated floors in a bathroom in a Burnaby home under the Zero Carbon Step Code?

Yes. Electric heated floor mats run on electricity, so they fit the City of Burnaby's requirement that new Part 9 homes meet EL-4 of the Zero Carbon Step Code. The mat sits above the waterproofing membrane and below the tile, with its own thermostat and a floor sensor that has to be placed before the tile goes down. Plan the thermostat location and the circuit with the electrical drawings rather than as an add-on at tile stage.