How to Install a Basement Bathroom | Ask This Old House

so what's the new plan what's the new layout well this is our master bedroom okay right here we're gonna put a closet and then right yeah yeah yeah and then this will become our master bath okay what's the leg of anity here yeah a toilet back here and then this will be the shower well that is a big job it is not should we get that down the deck well we really need your help with is the rough plumbing below the floor okay so that we can probably get down the day but it still it needs to have a licensed plumber and local codes I'm gonna get some local help sounds great well Jeremiah there's nothing rough about rough plumbing you really have to get the pipes in the perfect location before we buried in concrete these plates are really helpful once you take me through the layout here well what we've got here is the back wall of our bathroom on that wall we have two fixtures in this area we're going with a 488 inch by 48 inch shower that's a good sized shower very good sized shower and it opens from this side yes sir you walk it into it that way all right our drain is going to be 24 inches off of this place all right by 24 inches so the trap opening has to be exactly right there all right and then we have a five inch wall separating the two fixtures which creates our space for our toilet all right so standard toilet in America is called a 12 inch rough it wants to be 12 inches off the finished wall we have to allow for sheetrock at a half an inch so we wants to be twelve and a half inches to Center so we have to break this away for a new drain right here we also want to have at least 30 inches side to side on a toilet and what do we get here we get like 32 more than 30 almost 33 so that's great there's enough space to fit absolutely all right so we have to expose this old drain pipe right here we have to trench over to the new shower a trench over to the vanity this has been a little bit of digging to do there's your shovel better get started I'll start from the same all right so we've exposed the old what they call a closet Bennis where the toilets at right here you can see the branch right here that went to the shower and this is the drain for the lavatory now this pipe is probably 80 years old you can see the evidence of the old cast-iron connection that was called Bell and spigot this is filled with lead right here we don't want to disrupt this if we do it means we now have to dig outside and tie onto the pipe way out there that's not good we're going to try to cut this right here behind the knuckle and hopefully there's enough material right here that's good we can tie on to now we can't just use a regular metal blade because this is cast-iron so we'll use a grinding wheel with a diamond blade okay Oh clever it out of there let's see how we did there's the old drain from the shower oh my goodness that's great plenty of meat there I'm so glad we didn't have to dig up the whole backyard absolutely alright to tie onto our old cast-iron pipe we're going to use this this is a flexible mechanical coupling it's a couple of stainless steel hose clamps right here and this will transition from the 4-inch cast iron here to the three inch PVC right here once you glue that into our Y fitting German alright let's put it on and now to tighten it up I'm going to use this as a special torque wrench that allows me to tighten those clamps up without over-tightening and stripping it so we need to be sure that this elbow this closet Bend is exactly right so remember here's the center line we want to be twelve and a half inches off the rough so it wants to be right there just hold your piece in what should go this is the important measurement right here that's 16 good once you cut that one for me so always good practice to deburr the end of the pipe and to actually ream the inside to make sure it's as smooth as possible in there good alright let's put it into place push push okay Wow twelve and a half just like we planned all right tighten it up okay okay so let's just check our measures perfect and perfect okay so that is our rough for the toilet now we have to do our branches our two inch to the shower and over the lavatory I got the beginnings of a bathroom down here well let me get you up to speed here's that old cast iron line we tied on to it here is the 3 inch drain line for our toilet right here you can see this branch right here going over to the shower stall with a trap right there so what is that trap for well any plumbing fixture has to have a trap they're filled with water and that's important to keep sewer gas from coming up inside the building and making a smell instead toilet has one built in there'll be one under the shower stall and one under the vanity all right so now our drain lines go to the shower heaven we come over here to our lavatory but any plumbing fixture has to have a trap and it also has to be vented so what is the venting do well the venting is really important we're gonna have water go down a pipe we have to have air coming in behind it to relieve it so it'll go down smoothly otherwise you're going to have gurgle or all kinds of noises so in the old days we might have to individually vent to everything so in a case like this the toilet might have needed a three and a three by inch and a half Y fitting with a small vent pipe over here another Y right here coming off the side those med pipe would come together another one from the vanity and now it comes together it goes up through the house and ties into the stack that goes out through the roof okay but local code nowadays lets us do a thing called a wet vent a wet vent means that we upsize this pipe right here to two-inch and now this pipe which is normally just the drain for the lavatory also acts as the vent for the shower and the toilet so now it's a having three individual small pipes we have one vent right here for the whole plumbing group and that really saves time and money so now we've got everything dry fit we just need to glue it all together so we have worked really hard to get these pipes in the perfect location and to have pitch about eighth of an inch per foot so the water drains properly but we want to make sure they stay there so Jeremiah used this metal rebar drove it down next to the trap and all the locations and taped it so when the concrete guys come in it's not going to knock the pipes out of place now inspectors going to come tomorrow and then we're ready for concrete okay before the concrete gets here though what we want to do is install a foam cap over the toilet drain and also put some plastic around the shower drain that way we can keep the concrete off the pipe so when we come back to set the fixtures we don't have to worry about chipping that concrete away from the pipe that's a great tip

Channel: This Old House

Views: 3,324,279

Rating: 4.7569757 out of 5

Keywords: This Old House, Ask This Old House, DIY, Home Improvement, DIY Ideas, Renovation, Renovation Ideas, How To Fix, How To Install, How To Build, basement, bathroom, toilet, vanity, sink, bathroom sink, shower, bathtub, tub, plumber, plumbing, construction, construction worker, diy, do it yourself, home renovation ideas, diy home improvement, diy home projects, home renovation ideas on a budget

Id: gqwAETNyTnE

Length: 8min 1sec (481 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 13 2016