We chose not to seal our barrel as it would dry out, shrink, & fall apart without frequent use. Just the 10 days of non-use on a recent trip caused visible cracks between some of the boards. It took about 2 days of sponging water onto the boards before they swelled back up to their “normal” state.

We were fortunate that the center board was wide enough to put a bar sink drain in the bottom. We did not attach our barrel to the floor aside from the several inches that the bar sink drain goes down to connect to the drain pipe.

The barrel was purchased from a local cedar place & was previously used by a vineyard as a wine barrel

I'm thinking of doing this in our Airstream however what you wrote here tell me it's not a good idea. We will use the tub one in a while (RV) so it will dry and leak? We only want a shower pan out of it.

Hi Eric,

The downside to wood is that it will dry out and shrink over time. We converted our barrel to a planter and replaced it with a round metal stock trough.