Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Anyone ever move or setup basement bathroom "stub"

Nick,
Keep in mind I am not a professional plumber or electrician, just someone who's done a fair amount of home renovations with people more knowledgeable than myself to help guide the way!

For the sink, you're right, usually you'll just tie into an existing line or add a new run if needed connected to the main house drain. Not much to it - just by the right size connectors and piping, cut and splice in. Of course make sure there are no 'low spots' or sags in the run - that may cause clogging issues eventually.

I have never seen a square drain with gravel like that for a shower, I'd end up googling that so no experience there. Can you lift up the gravel to see what the runoff collects into?

For the electrical, check with your builder what he normally does to get an idea (if you can) where the lines would be. Otherwise track the lines from the outside in to get an idea where they go. In our case when we hit them, they ran down the foundation wall, under the concrete floor in conduit and straight to the fuse panel. In hindsight it was obvious the builder just took the shortest route to the fuse panel from the demarcation point - it just never occurred to us that electrical would be running under the concrete floor. Your construction might be entirely different of course.

Yeah, we have moments and lots of fun & memories doing this stuff. My bro-in-law was on the impact hammer when he hit the electrical. Luckily he was only touching the rubber handles so was just 'jolted' by the surprise and not 'shocked'.

I've done a lot of home improvement work as well as work for commercial buildings, just never actually tied into a basement bathroom stub.

I can do, to code, framing, electrical (from circuit box), copper plumbing, drywall, mud/tape/texture, tile. I have also built 3 large decks, done drain-tile work (all of it), put in 2 windows (where there previously were none), some siding work, and who knows what else. A couple of things that I've never done but would love to know are:
1) Basement drain work (I know, pretty obvious since this is my question here)
2) Laying/stretching/seaming of carpet
3) Replacing kitchen counter-top (never done it, but have a good idea)
4) Installation of hardwood flooring

So anyway, I wonder if the home builder did what you said that took the shortest path from the meter on the outside to the box inside. We don't own the house (yet) and I would need to see if the builder is still around/remembers the house/is able to tell me about it since it is 9 years old.

Oh, sounds like you do quite a bit. I bet I could learn alot from you! It's fun doing this stuff isn't it? Last fall I did a hardwood install with my uncle who does this stuff for a living and learned a few good tricks from him. I actually quite enjoyed installing the hardwood, prepping the floor prior to install was a royal pain however!

See Dan..

See Dan Build.



Run Dan Run!!

Oh my gosh Rick. That is hilarious!

Dan, I have been looking into the idea of some hardwood surface in the basement as well (tile in the bathroom) and my fear is that it would be too cold. I've heard of some people putting down a "dimpled" (big dimples) rubber and then a stranded wood subfloor and then the hardwood to make it warmer, but seems like a lot of work. Especially if we end up with the house that we would end up with about 1600 finished sq feet in the basement. That's a lot of surface. I still would love to learn from someone first hand how to do it (I know the general concepts)...

Was talking to someone else today about the basement bathroom. They had heard horror stories about the up-flushing toilets. They did say that if I wanted to move it I would need to talk to a plumber to have him mark out what would be needed, then do the physical labor myself and have the plumber come back and tie in the new pipes. Was told about $500 for the plumber and the rest would be all my hard work and tool rental... Who knows...

Nick, you can't use hardwood under grade unless it's engineered.

In my last house we moved the plumbing around a bit to add a bathtub, removed a shower and to move the toilets location. It's a fair amount of work but I would do it over again as it was worth making the change IMO.



oh and we moved the floor drain near the furnace (can't really see that in the pic)

Adrian, haven't looked in to what it would need to be, but probably a laminate wood (which is engineered), but we will most likely end up with carpet.

Ben, we are looking at moving the bathroom about 25 feet! That is a good amount of demo, unless we can tap into the drain lines closer to the new location. It is one of those things that with the house, having the bathroom right at the bottom of the stairs is problematic for layout and flow, but if it could be relocated to the other end ("under" or "behind" the stairs so to speak), the whole basement layout and flow falls into place nicely.

Here is a link to a video of the basement in the house that we are looking at...

Right at the bottom of the stairs at the beginning is the bathroom stub. The shower rough in is under the plywood and the toilet is the pipe sticking up. I want to move it to the other end of the stairs with a linen closet literally under the stairs. Hopefully this helps people to visualize the situation...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8d38h-ftUY