Bathroom in need of serious help!

[Michael Donahue]

Hey guys and gals! I was hoping that I could pick your brain about a possible remodeling situation. My dad purchased his house a little over 4 years ago and it was a fixer-upper (to put it mildly) and as the only reasonably-handy son, I've been the one to help him fix it up bit by bit. One of the rooms that's been on the back burner was a small upstairs bathroom that is in really rough shape. We've been thinking about how to fix it up and it'll be a big project, so I thought I'd pick your brains a bit. The house is a cape, with a bathroom on each floor (one directly above the other). You can see the floor plan I've attached. It's roughly 92" long and 60" wide (tiny...especially when you're 6'5"!)

One of my main questions is about the plumbing (though I know you guys are woodworkers!). The plumbing in the downstairs bathroom is all on the left side, as is the plumbing for the sink and the toilet in the upstairs bathroom in the floorplan. The shower (which MUST be replaced) has the plumbing as shown in the pic. From your experience, do you think this plumbing would come up through the floor here at the shower, or was snaked somehow from the left wall? Is there a way that I can check without tearing apart the wall? I want to make sure we're ready to tackle this project before we start this. Ideally I'd like to rip down that divider wall in the room to open it up, but I don't know how easy or hard it would be if the plumbing actually came right up through the floor there.

Also, I've been looking at some glass shower enclosures to replace the junky fiberglass shower that's in there now. What do I need to look for to make sure the floor is secure enough for this? It feels a bit shaky now, but I think that's because the shower wasn't installed properly and it's got some give to it.

I appreciate the help folks!

[Jim Becker]

In my experience, your plumbing could come from almost anywhere. Until you open things up, you'll not know where any of the surprises are...

[Lucas Bittick]

USUALLY stacked bathrooms have straight plumbing for practical reasons, so the shower supply might snake over from the left wall into the shower divider as you suspect.

This will sound strange, but turn on the hot water tap of the shower to about 15% and listen through the wall using a stethoscope. The sounds will transmit through the pipe, and although you won't be able to locate is with exact precision, you will be able to tell which wall it runs through.

You can also have someone downstairs lightly tap the pipe with a piece of metal while you listen with the stethoscope upstairs.

You know the hard truth, though-- there is only 1 way to be 100% sure (other than renting expensive imaging equipment;)). Since you have two bathrooms, I would rip out that shower you plan on replacing and survey the plumbing construction. I can't see how knowing the plumbing position in advance of the demolition will improve your construction timeline/planning that much, unless you plan on installing unusually custom components with wacky lead times.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Michael,

There is only one way to know 100% where the plumbing goes. Remove the wall covering.

Seriously, that's one of the reasons that professional remodels go over budget or.......the price seems excessively high to begin with......The contractor tears into a space and finds a lot that wasn't expected. Now if he or she budgeted for it in the original bid...no problem....if they didn't .....they may come back asking for more money. That's why contracts are so important. I'm not a lawyer BTW. Then there are also the cases where, the contractors are out to take the homeowner....but those cases are few and far between.

Even on TOH on PBS......Tommy, Norm and the gang often tear into a new project home and find a lot they weren't expecting. It's quite common. I've had the same experience on some of the remodels I've done in my home.

And I always take everything...electrical...plumbing....everything to code and often, I've opened up a can of worms and ended up spending more just because we found something that wasn't to code and had to be brought up to code. A lot of folks don't care for that aspect but I have a different take on it. My carport roof was built by two elderly gentlemen that either didn't know anything about framing or didn't care. In either case, I first had to retruss a 675 sq. ft. roof in place....not a fun or inexpensive job....building gussets and adding proper trussing in place. Then I had to replace the double 2x6 header....across a 19' span....with a real header 5 1/2" x 12" glue-lam because 9" of snow on the roof placed a 2 3/8" sag in the original 2"x6" doubled header. The code is often there to protect the homeowner.

[Ben Franz]

Michael - I've done a lot of bathrooms as a remodeling contractor and the only thing you can count on in this job is that nothing is ever as easy as it looks. Worst case, the shower supply pipes are in the joist bays coming out of the wet wall. You may need to open up the subfloor to get at the supply pipes and the shower drain/trap. Just cut through the plywood (or solid lumber) subfloor material with and old circular saw blade set just at the thickness of the material. You can piece in a replacement with some blocking at the edges. I think it's a good idea to replace everything from the trap on to the drain fitting. Depending on the type of pan you use, the existing drain may not work anyway. Good luck.

[Greg Cole]

The plumbing is coming in from wherever is was easiset for the plumber to run it when the house was built...
Like everyone esle said, you have no clue til ya open the can and let the worms out...

Greg

[Prashun Patel]

You should post yr plumbing questions on TerryLove.com. That site is to plumbing what SMC is to woodworking. One warning, a couple posters are slightly ornery. But if you persist and don't take any admonitions personally, you'll get more info there than anywhere else on the right way to remodel plumbing.

They helped me thru my basement bathroom project.