Submitted by BillB on 7/20/2011
DIY Bathroom Remodel
Days 5-8 - Rough Plumbing
Contents
Day 4 - Plan fixture and drain placement. Start rough plumbing. 
For the shower width and therfore the curb position, I measured my mosaic tile sheet and came up with a number that eliminated the need to cut any tiles. My finished shower floor will have 2 full sheets and a half sheet, (3 tiles). When you're measuring for drain & curb, don't forget to add the 1/2" CBU to your calculations and use finished wall locations to measure off of.
Code for shower size is minumun 30" wide, but check with your local inspector on this as for all codes.
Marking the drain, which is centered on the floor, between the shower ends and the inside of the curb. When I cut out the floor for the drain, I was left with partially unsupported 2x6 tongue and groove boards so I figured I should add beams on either side of the hole. I'd anticipated this when I added beams the day before but waited to add these two until I had the hole cut and knew exactly where to put them.
I decided to center the shower valves and head between shower wall and the middle of the curb, where the glass will be. I figured this would give me a little more room to the back wall in the shower.
Once I decided where everything would go, I started to put together some plumbing. Here I was playing with transferring measurements to a piece of paper and laying the valve and fittings down to measure for the straight pipe sections. Worked well.
FYI; a small mistake I made was to run the pipes next to studs. I thought the studs would provide a convenient backing to anchor the pipes to. And they are but there are drawbacks. One is that if you miss the stud with a CBU fastener you might hit a pipe. And another is that if there's a valve at the end of a pipe, the valve is probably is too thick and will need to be set in a bit from the stud to lay flat; it the pipe is right against the stud, you'll have trouble getting the valve to sit comfortably.
Here's the shower valve with some of the required plumbing and beneath it is the wand outlet and an on/off valve to control it.
The shower plan is a thermostatic shower valve, 4 ports, 2 in and 2 out. One of the out ports is for a shower head and the other is for a wand, which will be placed on the side of the shower for feet washing. The head and wand each need an on/off valve.
Tools
Tape, rulers, square, plumbing stuff.
Activities
- Make faux wall piece to thickness of the wall, (CBU + thinset + tile).
- Mark center of finished shower, locations of curb, drain, shower head, shower valve, wand valve.
- Measure and cut pipe for rough plumbing.
Day 5 - Rough plumbing. Figure out these valves.
I was nervous about getting the valves placed correctly; I didn't want to get the tile on only to realize the trim wouldn't go on the valves correctly and have to tear out the wall of the closet behind the shower to fix it. So I spent a lot of time messing with these things. The trick is to get them at the right depth, though the manufacturers leave you wiggle room; a range of depths for which the trim will still work.
So here's the shower valve test mounting. I cut a piece of blocking made of plywwod, because a 2x4 would have been too thick to fit behind the valve. I cut it "heavy", (about a 1/16" longer than the space between the studs, so it would stick in place between the studs; I had to hammer it in. This way, the block held in place by friction, you can move it in and out a bit to adjust the valve mounting depth. Also, once you've got the depth set, it's much easier to screw it into place; it works as an extra set of hands. At this point the copper pipe isn't soldered yet.
The shiny cylinder in about the middle of the valve is what allows wiggle room. It's shiny because I have the finish trim slipped over the brass part of the valve. The deeper the valve is set, the less of this cylinder will show or protrude from the tile surface.
Here's the valve with the faux wall in place, giving me a stable finished wall surface to measure to, making the depth adjustments easier. It's not something you have to do but I found it helpful, especially since this is my first time doing this.
By the way, see the grey plastic ring on the front, with the "stop" ridge at about the 10 O'clock position? I talk about this next in the next photo.
I'm backtracking in time a bit to reveal something. I had some problems with the Grohe shower valve when I was first looking it over and reading the instructions. There's a plastic ring on the front of the valve, called the stop ring, which is the safety stop to prevent somone from increasing the water temperature without pushing a button on the handle first. Sort of like a child-proof top. You can see it in the photo above. From the factory, the ring is set to the correct position but the instructions say to check it's position and if it's not correct; remove the ring and put it back on correctly. Being curious, I removed the ring even though it was correctly positioned. When I put it back on I broke one of three plastic tabs that hold it in place. I was being careful too but I still broke it. Even with one broken tab though, the ring still seemed to hold well and I decided to install it as is, with a broken tab. Still, even though I broke the ring, I don't think a plastic part here was good engineering. Strike one on Grohe.
Here's the inner trim piece on the trim kit installed. But I had some confusion here as the 2 brass screws that hold the inner trim plate to the valve were too long; they bottomed out on the valve body before the plate was tight to the wall. So, I thought maybe I was doing something wrong or that I was using a trim kit that was incompatible with the valve. Looking at the Build.com website I noticed some confusion around my valve; the photo of my model, 34 331, didn't look like the valve I had; it had a different flange on the front. So I ordered another 34 331 valve and paid for next day delivery. But in the meantime I called Grohe and they said the trim, 19 170, and valve, 34 331, were compatible and to just cut the screws to the proper length. So, now I could just go buy new screws at the hardware but since I ordered a new valve and I still had that broken tab on the stop ring, I decided to wait for the new valve to show up. But what crap, that they can't give you screws that work!!! Strike two on Grohe. And what's with the photo on the Build.com site? Grrrrhhh.
Tools
Tape, rulers, square, plumbing stuff.
Activities
- Battle the shower valve
Day 6 - Rough plumbing. Valve Saga Continues.
The new valve came, I soldered up all the pipe for it, two for hot and cold, one out the top for the shower head with an on/off valve, (which you can see in the photo), and one out the bottom for the shower wand on the side wall of the shower. I was adjusting the valve again for depth and this time for level as well. You level the valve so the final trim is straight. But something was wrong. The valve has two main parts: the back or the body and the butterfly shaped flange on the front that the trim attaches to. They were misaligned on this valve. If I leveled the flange, the body was cockeyed, which is a problem because the pipes are attached to the body and over the length of the pipes, 2 or more feet, the angle of the body is exaggerated.
I pulled the valve out AGAIN and unscrewed all the pipes and stuck it in a vise to study it. Here it is with the body leveled.
And with the level across the top of the flange, you can see it's out of level. If I mounted this valve with the flange leveled, the body would be out of level along with the four ports and therefore the pipes that screw onto them. The copper would all be leaning over to the right, by a couple of inches, the pipe fittings would all be cockeyed; soldering this mess would be difficult at best - you can't line up a pipe running under the house that's level with a fitting pointing 10 degrees up. The pipes were so skewed I'd have to drill new holes in the bottom plate. And it just looks bad. Strike 3 on Grohe.
So I removed the fragile plastic stop ring from the new, misaligned valve and managed to get it installed on the original valve without breaking it. I put the broken ring on the new valve and returned it, with a note describing the issues with the valve. Pipes back on and I'm moving forward again. Let's finish setting this valve.
Outer trim piece installed, after I got new screws for securing the inner plate. The chrome knob that sticks out from the surface plate and to which the handle is attached, is the wiggle room mechanism. The deeper you mount the valve, the less of this knob you see. If the valve is too deep, there's no knob left for the outer chrome plate to slide onto. Too shallow and the plate bottoms out on the wall, leaving rough valve showing. Either way, you won't get a water seal and you're back to resetting the valve.
When setting these valves, the shower valve and the on/off valves, any valve you have, not only do you have to set the depth and get them level, (if level makes sense - some valves and trim have no axis or anything that needs to be leveled), but get them square to the finished surface. Here I'm making sure the on/off valve for the shower wand is square.
Tools
Tape, rulers, square, level, plumbing stuff.
Activities
- Battle the shower valve
Day 7 - Rough plumbing. Finish Soldering
Back in business now that the shower valve issues are solved. I finished soldering everything, hooked up the water supply, hot and cold, to the two input pipes on the valve and turned the water back on. I flushed the pipes out, ran about 10 gallons of water through the shower head and wand outlets to get rid of all the flux and dirt.
I won't go into soldering except to say that the pipes must be DRY. I had a problem where water was still coming out of a pipe I'd cut over an hour later; every 10 seconds or so about 10 drops would emerge. I couldn't get the off valves any thighter, both the one at the street and the house but the pipe I'd cut was long, about 20 feet between the main line into the house and the bath area. I pulled all the pipe clamps that held it to the beams in the crawlspace so it sagged, creating a big belly or reservoir for the slowly accumulating water. This gave me time to get the new joint soldered. I tried the bread in the pipe trick once when I installed a new water heater and it didn't work; I was under the house at 11pm in a puddle fixing my bad solder joint.
I made a couple of nipples to put on the shower head and wand outlets so I could test the piping between the on/off valves and the outlets under pressure.
No leaks.
But wait, 2 hours later a drop had formed at one of the threaded port connections on the valve. I released all the strapping and clamps holding the pipes and valves to the studs and blocking, pulled the valve about 5 inches away from the wall and cut the pipe coming off the leaking port. Unscrewed the pipe, applied new thread tape and screwed it back on. Then using a coupling, I soldered/repaired the cut I made. This photo shows the coupling where I cut the pipe.
I considered cutting all three pipes necessary to remove the valve, (the shower head outlet pipe wouldn't have to be cut to remove the valve), because I was afraid of soldering close to the valve as heat can damage some valves. The litereature said nothing about applying hear near the valve but I wanted to play it safe. BUT, after removing all the clamps and straps, I found I could get the valve far enough away from the wall so I could turn an L-shaped pipe configuration made up of two pieces, each 5" long, making it 10" away from the valve. The photo shows this L-shaped piece, beginning at the valve, mking a turn at the stud and ending at my cut where the coupling is now. I could lean the other, still attached pipes out and get the valve far enough away from the wall to spin this L-shaped piece while threading it off and then back onto the valve. (After applying fresh thread tape.) And, just before soldering the coupling, I wrapped a wet rag around the valve and the horozontal bit of pipe to soak up some the heat from soldering. After soldering I felt the valve at the port and it was just warm; nothing that could possibly cause damage. It all went pretty fast but I had to flush the lines again and start a new leak watch. And of course I had to make sure the valve was square, plumb and level again.
Tools
Tape, rulers, square, level, plumbing stuff, pail.
Activities
- Solder copper pipe
Day 8 - Rough plumbing. Shower Drain and Vent
This diagram describes the code for a vent. It was created by a frequent remodeling web forum contributor going by the name lazypup; I see his posts all over the place, especially GardenWeb/ThatHomeSite forums. (Hope you don't mind, lazypup, and thanks!) It shows that I could have placed the vent farter down the line from the trap, 5 or 6 feet. It's all about having air space above the water level in the drain pipe. But my final design is closer to the ideal vent placement; there's no way the water level can crowd out the air space. My drain pipe length, about 16", is less than the 24" max, so I'm OK there too.
This is the ideal vent placement, immediately above the trap. The drain comes in from the left, sloped at 1/4" per foot and hopefully right next to the vertical drain pipe coming from the tub, and the vertical vent pipe is attached BEFORE the trap. Chances are you won't be able to achieve this configuration working with existing vent pipe and soil stack locations.
The old tub drain was at one end of the tub and the shower drain is in the middle of the old tub space so I had some designing to do.
This is what I came up with. The drain comes straight down from the shower and the vent connects right after the trap and heads to the left of this photo where it ties into the vertical vent pipe that extends out the roof. The shower drain must be 2" in diameter and the vent can be one size smaller, 1 1/2". This took a lot of trial and error work. I'd come up with an idea and put it together in the garage but realized I needed to be under the house to really come up with a plan. There I had the locations and angles of the existing vent and drain.
To experiment you need three reference points, 3 places where you tie into the existing system: 1) The drain pipe coming from the shower drain, 2) the soil stack at the end and 3) the vent pipe. To simulate the drain pipe coming down vertically from the shower floor, I cut a piece of 2x6 and drilled a hole with a hole saw exactly the size of the drain pipe; it was a good tight fit. I screwed this over the drain hole in the sub floor and shoved a piece of 2" drain pipe down. This served as a solid/stable anchor for the drain system and I didn't have to guess where the drain pipe would be. The vent pipe and soil stack and existing utb drain pipe were already stable.
I got an appoximation of where I wanted to cut into the existing drain by cobbling together fittings and pipe lengths and guessing at the angles that the fittings would need to make. ABS pipe comes in 22.5, 45, 60 and 90 degree angles, so you have a lot to work with. Just mess with it, adjust the angles of the various fittings and you'll end up with something that works. I had a hacksaw and a sawzall under the house to make cuts right there though ideally, you'd pass your marked pipe to a helper waiting "above ground" who'd make nice square cuts on a chop saw. I suppose I had room underneath for my chop saw; never thought about it until now.
Here's the connection of the vent to the existing 1 1/2" copper vent pipe. I used a 1 1/4" to 1 1/2" clamp connector, a 1 1/2" chunk of pipe, a 22.5 degree fitting, a 22.5 degree street fitting, and then into the 1 1/2" horozontal vent pipe to the drain, with a 1 1/2" to 2" coupling in there. I kind of had to do a little jog over the copper water pipe and then under the beam. Funny thing, for 1 1/2" copper pipe you use a 1 1/4" clamp coupling. Go figure. If you want to clamp onto a copper fitting for a 1 1/2" pipe, then you use the 1 1/2" clamp. It cost me another trip to the hardware and an army-crawl/pilates-workout slog from the crawlspace access to the work site below the bath. The guy at the hardware was sympathetic. Good for a martini. That red rag stuck in the bottom of the vent pipe will be replaced by a cap. This was where the old drain pipe went before turning to slope towards the soil stack.
Here's the connection of the vent to the existing 1 1/2" copper drain pipe. Starting at the copper pipe, I use a 1 1/4" to 2" clamp connector again, a 1 1/2" to 2" coupling, a 2" chunk of pipe, a 22.5 degree fitting, and then into the2" sloped drain pipe to the drain trap. As you can see, I the old drain was 1 1/2", which is to code for a tub drain but a shower drain, like mine, needs to be 2". (I've seen resaoning for this, something about a tub takes longer to fill and therefore overflow, giving a person more time to discover a clogged drain before the place floods.) I convert from 2" to 1 1/2" where the new meets the old. I talked to a contractor friend who said he's had this situation pass inspection because it's too much work to yank the 1 1/2' pipe from the soil stack and attach a new 2" pipe to it. Maybe he caught the inspector in a rare good mood. If it turns out to be a problem, which I doubt very much, I'll deal with the soil stack then; change the 1 1/2" copper to 2". I wondered if I'd have converted 2" to 1 1/2" right at the beginning, at the vertical piece coming from the shower floor drain. That way the transition would have less effect on hair, as it would be falling straight down and moving fast. Gravity would be helping more. Just a theory.
While down under I placed a couple of supports to hold the floor patch for the old hole in the floor cut out for the old tub drain. A couple of 2x4 pieces.
Also in this phot you can see the copper pipe holders I added to keep the pipes from banging against nearby wood. This is something a contractor probably wouldn't take the time to do; nor is it necessary as it's probably overkill. I also put bits of neoprene, from old shoe inserts, under the pipes that I clamped to studs to reduce any possible water hammer noise. Again, probably not necessary.
To test the drain and vent system, you might need to do something called a static head test but only some locales require it. I would disconnect my new drain line where it connects to the old one and put a plug in it. (You can buy plugs designed for this.) I'd also plug the drain above the trap. Then I'd get on the roof with a hose and fill the new drain and vent system with water and let it sit for 24 hours during which the water level shouldn't drop. You'll have to ask your inspector exactly what they require; there may be some acceptable drop in water level, say 1" or there may be another test entirely, like an air test.
Tools
Hack saw, sawzall, screw guns
Activities
- Design drain and Vent system
- Assemble drain and vent system
- Install Floor patch supports - patch old drian hole in sub floor.
Toilet Drain
The existing toilet drain had a couple of problems. The first was that the flange was rusted out so one of the bolts could no longer be anchored. This photo shows what it looked liked half way through my effort to remove the flange with a hammer and cold chisel.
Here I've removed some of the sub floor boards, (they were just pieced in by someone, probably a plumber, back in the day) and you can see the whole closet bend.
Its a cast iron 3" x 4" closet bend, commonly found in ABS these days, attached to a 3" drain line with a clamp connector. The 4" end sticks up through the floor and it's what the toilet flange was attached to. The second problem is that the closet bend was set too high for my new floor and it wasn't level.
I decided to just swap out the old iron closet bend for a new ABS one; that way I'd be working with new material and if the bend, after insallation, was still too high, I could easlily trim it down on the chop saw. Turned out it was just about the perfect height; it will be just about 1/8" below my finished floor, which is close enough. In this photo it sticks up about 1/2" above the plywood subfloor, over which I'll lay the tile. One the tile is in, I'll be able to insert a new flange inside the closet bend and screw it down through the tile and into the subfloor. The hole in tile will be jusy enough to accomodate the 4" closet bend, say 4 1/4" and I'll use my Rotozip with a router bit to cut a few grooves, like little spokes, where the screw holes are located on the flange. That should be a little easier than drilling holes in the tile for the screws to pass through on the way to the subfloor. Either way though.
There seems to be some debate as to whether the bottom of the flange should be set flush with the finished floor or lower, say with the subfloor. Every plumbing book I have shows the flange attached to the subfloor but I think the books are wrong; they show it that way for their own publishing convienience. The consensus seems to be that the flange bottom should be flush with the finished floor but there's a caveat. Depending on your toilet and the thickness of the flange, this arrangement may not work without shimming or raising the toilet a bit. A toilet bottom, (no pun intended), is recessed so just the skirt rim sits on the floor. And there's an exit port on the bottom of a toilet, the trap outlet, which has a raised rim that aligns over the drain. On my toilet, an older Kohler, the rim of this port is just a bit up off the floor when the outer rim of the toilet, that which defines the skirt, is sitting on the floor. The trap outlet rim should not touch the drain flange or the wax ring will be completely squeezed out and the toilet will probably rock back and forth; the port rim will hang up on the flange and prevent the skirt rim from itting square on the floor. There must be a small gap, somewhere between 1/8" and say, 3/8" between the flange and trap outlet rim. The wax ring is designed to fill this gap. I've been advised that flange thickness and toilet design is dictated by ANSI standards, which may indeed be the case but I've got a toilet and a flange that do NOT work when the flange bottom is flush against the floor. The flange is so thick that the trap outlet rim hits it before the skirt rim hits the floor, causing a rockin' toilet. (And no, it's no just an active bowel.) To see what was really going on, I set my toilet up on a sawhorses to get a good look; the flange, when pressed up against the bottom of the toilet was just flush with the skirt rim. Add the fact that the was ring has a little plastic funnel built into it, though it's thin, along with the need for a space for the wax to fill, I was out of room. I needed to get a thinner flange.
If your flange is set just below the finished floor you're probably fine and if it's way below, you can get extender rings to make up the difference. And FYI, under the code the toilet must be on the upstream end of the line. It can't be connected to any drain fixture with other pipes coming into it like a wye or tee.
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