Designing Kitchens and Bathrooms - Bathroom Demo

Hello everybody,

I am going to re-do my bathroom. In my plans, I am going to removed everything (shower,tub,sink,water heater) basically gut the bathroom and start new. I was told after I bought my
house that all my plumbing was "illegal." So when I re-do this bathroom, I want to do as much as I can myself. So I am asking what can I do myself and what should I hire out?

I am going to start the demo in one week...any suggestions?
I am a nurse by trade, so I am new to all of this!! Thank you
in advanced!!

Brandie Marie:confused: :confused:

All illegal seems a broad brush. :confused:

Find out what, exactly. It is possible there are major complications - routing proper drain vents for example - that explain why the original work was done wrong.

I think you should get someone with plumbing and reno experience to confirm your proposed fixture placements are OK, first. That same person can tell which stages you can do just fine yourself, and warn you of potential troubles.

Who told you that your plumbing was "illegal"? Did they define what they meant by that? Illegal as installed w/o a permit or illegal as in not per code.

Residential plumbing is really pretty simple and straight forward but if you have no plumbing experience there are some pitfalls. None of us can tell you what you can and can't do you have to decide for yourself.

IMO your best bet is to buy a DIY oriented plumbing book. Big box stores sell them. spend some time reading the book to get a good idea of what would be required and then decide how to approach the reno.

Bathrooms rank right behind kitchens in renovation costs. OTOH a quality bathroom upgrade will add to the house's value.

This is not a quick DIY project if you don't have plumbing experience. Can you find a good plumber who will help educate you, so you'll learn enough to do basic plumbing on the next project? Then work your way up to bigger projects. I would hate to see you with a torn apart bathroom -- that you can't fix yourself.

Here's a link I found on when to hire a contractor -- talks about bathrooms and when being your own general contractor is a good idea.

http://www.oldhouseweb.com/stories/Detailed/15019.shtml

May not be a "quick" DIY project, but definintely a DIY thing to do. That is why we are here. There are enough pros on line at any given time to get you through this. We may ask for pictures, etc. but you can do it.

[QUOTE=nursebrandie;1364058]

Hello everybody,

I am going to re-do my bathroom. In my plans, I am going to removed everything (shower,tub,sink,water heater)

Hear my caution! STAT! You may want to rethink removing the tub. Unless it's clearly not suitable--or you hate it--I'd leave it in place. After it was installed, my new cast iron tub that replaced a 40 yr old one that was yellow (!) was too short to meet the wall studs at either end. Since the new wallboards have to be even with the tub lip, I had a Problem. There's no L-shaped tile piece I could get to bridge that gap, so I had to add furring strips to both walls to meet the tub. I'd have been done with this project months ago, but this glitch is one I'll never forget. And it never occurred to me to measure the footprint. I just assumed 60" was standard for old and new. NOT! My bathroom is now about an inch less wide than it was.

They're made that way on purpose. You would never get an exact match to fit in the tight space without removing framing members. Adding the appropriately sized furring strips was the correct method, and hopefully your install is working out for you.

I just wrapped up a total demo and restoration of my turn of the century apartment bathroom and while it was one of the most gratifying things i have ever done, always bear in mind...it's never as straightforward as you or the DIY books make it seem.

Some things that i ran into during the process that cost me alot of time and money (still worth it though) was dealing with the stack, or drain pipe that carries wastewater from the tub, sink, and toilet.

There are somethings that in retrospect i would have called a plumber on. If you are in deep and you don't have whatever resources to do it yourself (i.e. knowledge of some more complex pipe joinery, plumbing code, heavy lifting etc.) let a plumber do it.

I got ambitious and cocky with an angle grinder and a cold chisel while trying to remove my old, rusted cast iron closet flange ( the pipe connector from the stack arm to the toilet base) and cracked the whole cast iron pipe down to where it met the main stack. Not fun. ALOT of extra work. Should have called a plumber.

Just think alot, plan for the unexpected, take copious measurements of everything, take photos to remember what things look like (especially the mundane, little things...trust me you'll forget) and progress memories and post here.

Best of luck, you won't be sorry!

Very good advice, especially on picture taking. We may sound like it is straight forward, and we probably shouldn't. Since we do it on a daily basis, some of the stuff is "straight forward", and we expect it. Maybe we could go into more detail as what to expect. We would probably have cut the stack pipe at the bottom to begin with, rather than trying to just remove the flange, but that's one of those things we just "do". Another thing to remember, you can see what you have, we can't. So for us to give detailed information and advice is near to impossible, but we will continue to try. Thanks for the post.

There's nothing to go on in this thread, yet sight unseen there's all these assumptions about what is there.

Honestly, plumbing has become easier and easier. Between Fernco clamps to join pvc or abs to cast iron, shark bite fittings to join copper ot pvc or pex, etd, it's become as easy as installing legos. There are certain thngs to consider, such as where to place vents for your drains and what size water lines you need to accomodate your fixtures, the hot water heater needs venting and clearances if it's gas that has some pretty specific requriements, but other than that, once you have that stuff figured out, it's a breeze.

Please post back with what's there for your drain lines...copper, cast iron, pvc (white pipe) or abs (black pipe) and for your supply lines...are they copper or cpvc (sorta beige rigid plastic) or since you were told it's "illegal", I'm wondering if it's that plastic pipe (Chandler, the name escapes me) that would melt in hot weather.

With patience, attention to detail, and another bathroom to use, I don't see why you couldn't do it all your self.

I find the most bathroom reno anguish in getting everything started right so it ends right. I mean getting the studs, subfloor, door rough-opening etc. bang on so that adding thickness of sheet goods, thinset, tile, trim, it all fits up nicely in the end. If I don't plan this from the start I may be forced to make fudgy little compromises later on.