I was wondering if anyone has any info on installing new plumbing for a bathroom in an existing basement. I was intending on picking up one of the tanks/pumps that sit under the toilet for the removal of waste and drainage from the toilet, washer, and the shower. Since I am not going to break up the foundation, there will be a raised floor. Are there any tips for me? How far should I bring up the the floor 2×6? Is that enough for the pipes running from the shower and washer? What size pipe is used for drainage 3 or 4″?
As you may have figured out plumbing is not my strong point. I do have a plumber coming to hook up everything but I need to have the floor framed and need a sense of where everything is going.
Thanks for the help/info.
” Looks good from my house!!”
Replies
Cutting a hole in a basement slab may not be as big a deal as you imagine, and IMHO it will make for a more professional-looking job. There's just something about a bathroom up on blocks that shouts "DIY." (Not that there's anything wrong with that!) You can rent an electric jackhammer and make a nice hole in no time.
Al Mollitor, Sharon MA
You will be surprised at how easy it is to break a hole in your slab, particularly if you rent a jackhammer. You will always be glad if you do it right and you will always regret it if you don't.
Billy
unfortunately it's not my decision. I have been on jobs where we have busted a hole with the jack hammer but this HO doesn't want to go that route.
But if I did do that, there would have to be a long trench to the drain right? A trench from under the toilet, and shower, through the basement to connect to the drainpipe leading to the ceptic?" Looks good from my house!!"
See if the original plans are available. If so, there should be a schematic of where the under-slab piping is. You ought to be able to find a place to connect without going all the way across the basement if there's anything under there.
Another alternative is to install a small pumping station or use a self-pumping toilet to pump the waste water up to the overhead, where you can then run a gravity drain across the basement ceiling to where you can tie in to drains coming down from the first floor and out the main waste pipe. The pumping station would be a better choice, since it will also handle the shower and washbasin and, if there is to be one, the washing machine. Inside pumping stations like this resemble a medium-sized plastic garbage can that you bury with its collar flush on the slab. Inside the tank you put a macerator pump and a float switch. The inflow line comes in under the slab to the side of the tank. Output is from the lid, which screws down onto the tank.
You will need to add a vent stack for the pumping station, and probably for a self-pumping toilet too. Since the material in this line would be macerated by the pump in either case, you might get away with a 2" line; check with your plumber for local regulations on that.
BTW, an alternative to jackhammering is to cut the slab with a wet saw (get a gasoline-powered one with a 14" disc) and then smack between your cuts with a sledge hammer to bust it up into chunks you can load into the wheelbarrow. Makes a lot less mess to shovel up.Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
thanks dino your info was helpful except for the part about the gas powered saw... I've done that once and the room filled up with fumes real quick..not too healthy. This room only has one door to the garage, the other goes upstairs so venting will be tricky if it's even worth the hassle.
" Looks good from my house!!"
"..not too healthy."
welcome to the world of remodeling!
JeffBuck Construction, llc Pittsburgh,PA
Artistry in Carpentry
"..not too healthy."
welcome to the "world" of remodeling!
I'm not sure I like it here.....haha.....out of all the insulation, cedar roof stripping, sweatin pipes, lead abatement, etc........that basement job with the gas powered saw had to be the worst. That basement filled up so quick with smoke and fumes but I didn't realize it because I was looking straight down and thought the dust/smoke above and around me was just concrete dust....Good thing I left the door outside door open, I could barely see the daylight coming through. Electric jack hammer from then on." Looks good from my house!!"
You think you had problems...last time I had to cut a slab, the house had a central alarm response security system installed, which included all sorts of sensors, like freeze-up, pump going dry, and smoke detectors.... All this stuff was hard wired into the alarm system, and, according to the security weenies when I called them with the false alarm code, the smokes can't be zoned out.
So I had to work with the friggin' siren and hooter shrieking in my ears, on top of the nosie from the saw engine, in a naked concrete basement. I wore ear muffs AND ear plugs under them....
After a while, the saw got low on gas, so I had to run back to my shop to mix up some 50:1 for it. As I left, the sirens were still screaming, the windows were all wide open, and accumulated exhaust smoke was billowing out of them like a house afire, to coin a phrase. On the corner was a well-drilling crew working at another site. I stopped to let them know what was really going on so if the FD showed up while I was away, they wouldn't start bashing in things with their axes and flooding the place....
Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
hahaha.....thats a good one. I bet you took your time going to the shop and and back to work....Did the FD ever show up? When the fire whistle goes off if your hometown does it bring back memories?
Good story...Good luck
" Looks good from my house!!"
'Fire whistle'--THAT brings back memories. I don't think I've heard a town fire whistle in 40 years. Used to have that when I was a kid; the town used to blow a 12 noon whistle, and a 6 o'clock whistle, too. All the kids in the neighborhood knew they had to run home for lunch or supper when the whistle blew. If it blew at any other time, it meant there was a fire somewhere....
...or, that the Russkies had finally decided to drop atom bombs on our heads (this was in the fifties, after all....)Dinosaur
'Y-a-tu de la justice dans ce maudit monde?
"Check out schematics for underslab piping..." I'm in the process of finishing this type of bathroom remodel. This basement's main drain line terminated approx 2 feet above the basement floor where it did a 90 degree turn thru the basement wall and traveled out to the front street sewer lateral line. There was no piping under the slab.
I dug a trench and put in a 4 inch drain line that picked up the lavatory, the toilet and the new shower. This drain line terminated into a sewage sump pump (Gould's mfg....approx cost for unit...$500)) that had a self contained plastic container that gets buried into the floor. This pump unit was contained in a closet located on the other side of the bathroom wall. Because the bathroom was built adjacent to the existing basement wall, I built a false wall approx. 6 inches in front and used this space to run all my vent pipes behind. All water lines and vent lines were run either behind this wall or overhead and buried above the new ceiling.
As for cutting the trench, I used a diamond masonry blade in my angle grinder to first score the lines, then went back over with cheap masonry blades mounted in my circular saw. Scored approx halfway thru, then used jackhammer to bust through. I temporarily installed plastic sheeting on the walls and the ceiling to make a make-shift tent. At one end of this tenting was a basement window which we propped opened and afixed a 20" box fan to to help suck out the dust to the outside. This fan helped tremondously. Still, this type of work is not a picnic.
Davo
Oh, right. Piece of cake. Where were you when I did my basement bath (still finishing up but the john is flushing, and the sink is draining) Piece of cake, I thought I would use a concrete saw to get make some strait cuts before I broke things up. Started in (wearing googles, earplugs, dustmask, with lots of plastic everywere, boxfan blowing out the window. Just let me tell you I have a new respect for concrete dust. OMG!!
Where was I when you were doing your basement?
============
I was doing my basement. Breaking concrete is not light work and it is not clean, but when you get over that it's not rocket science. You did it, right?
Apparently you made the mistake of not using a concrete wetsaw or a jackhammer.
Billy
Edited 5/24/2004 11:24 am ET by Billy
I cut my floor --twice! Once for the french drains, once for the bathroom.
The gas powered saw was noisy expensive and smelly, but the only way to cut the 150 feet of trench - read 300 feet of cut concrete to make the trench. OK for the french drain, but I wouldn't recommend it for a bathroom.
for the bathroom, my plumber brotherinlaw insisted the full size tank underground was a better system - and a lot cheaper, so we dug again. i used a skilsaw and diamond blade. It was quick - about an hour of loud dust making to cut the trench for the pump basin and connections to toilet and shower. we planned on the basin under the vanity. plan on plastic dust walls, window fans, breathing aparatus and alarming the nighbors with the bellowing cloud of dust coming out the window.
Then it was a matter of a few hours of sledgehammer and shovel to break up the floor and dig the trench. I'd hate to do it for a living (too much like work) but a great way to get out your aggression.
All totalled about 4-5 hours of manual labor on the site prep, then a few hours of plumbing.
good luck!
I installed one of those units recently. You can make all of your plumbing connections on the tank at the back side of the wall behind the toilet. There is no need to frame the floor before the plumber does his rough in.
In my case the HO wanted no framed floor. His call. We mounted the toilet directly to the tank. The girls feet dangle and the guys never miss.
OK, you didn't like my first reply. Here's another one.
I recently saw a system in a basement bathroom where the toilet drains out the back, through the wall to a small tank/pump that sits on the floor in a cabinet in the next room or a closet. This ejector pumps the stuff up through a 1" pipe that ties into the main drain in the ceiling. It also has a 1-1/2" vent pipe. This same pump also handles a tub and a sink. The only hole in the basement slab was to allow for the tub drain trap.
I haven't seen this system in action yet, but it sure seems simple to install. Most other basement systems I've seen have a big (About 15 gallon) drum below the floor with a big ejector pump and float switch. All the drains empty into it under the slab.
Al Mollitor, Sharon MA
I was considering the self contained toilet unit for a basement job but decided to go the pit unit even though it entailed more work. I got to thinking about the long term availability of the toilet unit as it connects out the back and not the bottom. Unless the major toilet mgfrs produce them, they might be difficult to replace if the original maker folded up!
I can't help you with the framing, but here are my thoughts on above-slab plumbing....
I recently installed a full rental suite in my basement. Because the basement ceiling height was low, I couldn't raise the floor in the bathroom as you are thinking about (which was OK with me because I don't like this look; as someone else already said, it "screams of DIY"). Before I opened the slab, my plumber opened up the clean-out nearest the bathroom to confirm out what the invert elevation was of the sanitary line that he would be tying into. Fortunately, the sanitary stack dropped nearly 2' below slab elevation before returning to tie into the city's pipe. Whew, big sigh of relief because otherwise there wouldn't have been enough drop between the two to slope the pipe.
I highly recommend cutting or jackhammering the slab. It's cheap to rent a jackhammer and mostly it takes muscle power to complete the job. It took me 6 hours to jackhammer a 40' trench, another 6 hours to load and dispose of the rubble at the local landfill, and about as long to mix bag after bag of concrete mix and place the concrete. All told, it cost about $250 for rentals, new tools, concrete mix and Advil.
That's cheap when you consider the cost of a pump unit, the potential extra plumbing cost to install it, and the ongoing maintenance costs to operate it. Plus, if the unit malfunctions or the power goes out, you've got another problem that needs to be dealt with.
The company I work for develops and owns shopping centres. I've had our plumbers install a few of the pump units you're considering in tenant's spaces that are below the lowest sanitary line (it's an old shopping center that was built in phases and at different elevations). They cost us about $1,000 each, including all piping, and they saved the day, but I tell you they're a hassle to maintain and one blew apart and gave our tenant an early Christmas present in July.
If the closest sanitary line in your basement is accessible and the invert elevation is low enough and there's nothing between the toilet and the connection, open the slab and install traditional pipes. You'll appreciate it in the long run.
Danno
It is convenient to have a bathroom in the basement, especially when your family spends lots of time in it. Also, adding a bathroom in the basement will add value to your home. The basement itself is extra space that you can change into a guest bedroom or game room. If you had added a bathroom in the basement ahead of time, the remodeling would be much easier. And you won’t have to climb stairs up and down because of nature calls. Therefore, it is worth having a bathroom in the basement. If you would like to have your bathroom in basement without breaking concrete, here are some good tips.
Adding a bathroom in your basement is a great project. Whether you can build a bathroom without breaking the concrete depends on whether your basement was set up with the necessary systems like drainage and plumbing vent. If so, these will allow your basement bathroom installation to be done more easily. If not, you will have to break up a portion of concrete to add the drainage pipeline. However, if you apply an up-flush drainage system, you can add a bathroom containing a shower and a toilet without making any damage to the concrete.