Whaddya do to get things right, building in a region where wintertime lows can be minus 35 F, high temp for ten days straight is zero, and the architect has put just about all feeds in outside walls?
For toilets, we come through the floor instead of from the wall. Supply for faucet sinks mounted in cabinets are easy. But this job has all bath sinks as pedestals.
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Replies
Do it just like the old-timers did - through the floor with chrome fittings and piping. Keep the risers out of sight as best you can behind the pedestal...or get the archy to redesign the room w/the sink(s) on an inside wall. ;>}
Exterior wall is fine, as long as the pipes are on the warm side of the insulaton.
I've never seen an Architect spec where the lines run on a print...but I worked mostly residential.
Anyways, if that were specced, the builder would ask us to double the wall and move the pipes into the inside wall.
I like the idea of coming through the floor. Why isn't this done all the time?
Bob's next test date: 12/10/07
Gene,
You already know the answer to this one - build with ICF and run your pipes anywhere.
I don't agree that water pipes are OK on the warm side of the insulation in a wood house, though. I only takes one outside air leak to negate that fiberglass and freeze a pipe. I've seen it happen. They have to be inside the drywall in a wood house experior wall.
Ron
You are right,On one I did, I used 2" foam and the pipes to the inside of that. Filled the rest of the space with spray foam at edges and around pipes.Cold winter froze and popped it. And I have seen repair work on countless other such attempts to do this sort of thing
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<Filled the rest of the space with spray foam at edges and around pipes>
But, see what happened? The room heat couldn't get to the pipes to warm them, either. Eventually they'll equilibriate to that particular place in the temperature gradient through the wall.
Better to leave the room side UNinsulated.
Forrest
that doesn't seem to hold waterWe have done a ton of frozen pipes insurance claims this year. Many of the pipes were in the joists between 2 heated floors and insulation around the exterior.cold air finds some small pinholes and becomes a frozen blowtorch. not worth the hassle to put pipes anywhere in a exterior wall in cold air climates
Barry E-Remodeler
I wasn't very clear on that. The pipes were sprayed in place along eithe r side of them with the faom to the outside. Pipes had about 1/4" of air exposing them before the sheetrock.That was copper. O wonder if PEX would have handled things better. The burst was just before the elbow turning out into the room
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
pedestals can come up the floor too - practically have to when the archy lives in a fantasy world. Is he from Disney where it is always warm?
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Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
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<pedestals can come up the floor too ->
Hey, but then you have to have an S-trap - isn't that a universal non-no?
Forrest
Depends on your location. I can drop 3' to the p-trap. That puts it in the basement. Run the pipe and pex inside the pedestal.
Better yet, ban pedestals.
I do realize that not everyone is blessed with basements.
I was talking supply lines. let the waste freeze - LOL
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I could tell him about the $2million water damage claim from a frozen pipe in an outside wall in a mansion in Greenwich, Ct. The homeower's insurer sued everybody in sight, including the architect(my client). Ultimately, the plumber's liability carrier paid the lion's share of the 1.3 million settlement because it was his duty under the code to "cold protect" the pipe and because he could have run the pipe to the vanity sink thru the floor. Incidently, my client got out for nothing because his drawings only fixed the location of the sink, but didn't specify where to run the pipes. That was totally the plumber's call, subject to the gc's oversight.
Get a different architect.
fir the walls where the pedestals are, to give yourself plenty of room to get plumbing on warm side, or through the floor as others have posted.
i usually plumb a recirculating hot loop that is 100% insulated with the good pipe insulation (even inside the walls) for the hot, and for both hot and cold i mount/secure over the insulation, cutting 4"-6" pieces for the cold and then pipe straps (bigger size) over that. it totally eliminates water hammer and if you are using copper prevents dissimilar metals from contacting.
a firred exterior bathroom wall would allow room for hot and cold to both be insulated and on the warm side of the structure's insulation. its all in the details.
Tell them to stop smoking crack before they freeze up and ruin a home.
We don't get that cold in VT, but here's what I do:
Put 2" Thermax against the sheathing, against the side of the studs and across above where the pipes will go.
Run the pipes up from the basement and stub out leaving air space.
Drill two 2" holes in the plate through to the basement and put wire mesh over them to keep mice out.
There will be enough heat rising from below to keep them warm.
I had a $52K claim on my first house up north. A simple hot water shower feed froze a fitting and it spilt. It was in a second floor interior wall but the builder left a void and the vented roof allowed a draft. It rained inside the house for at least 3 days. Thank god for a celler floor drain.
Another reason to use PEX!
"the builder left a void and the vented roof allowed a draft"
You have to really pay attention to details. A dryer of bathroom exhaust vent pipe running too close to a pipe. Voids around pipes and wires that act a chimneys drawing in cold air behind the rising warm air. Little critters digging burrows to raise their families.
I'm not sure PEX will take it any better, the fittings could blow off.
In thirty+ years in this business, I've NEVER seen a frozen pipe leak. It's when they thaw out that the fun begins.
PEX is great. It will expand 400% and return to size I'm told but the fixture is the weak point.
ROFLMAO on the thaw. You are indeed correct. :-)
If you can't double the wall and put the pipes in the inner one (as has been suggested), you will have to ventilate any stud bays containing pipes so that warm room air can flow into and back out of the stud bay. Without that air circulation, the chances the pipes will freeze behind the 'rock are almost 100%. In a -35º climate, it's not a matter of if so much as a matter of when. (Don't ask me how I found this out....)
By ventilate I don't mean a couple of holes in the 'rock hidden under a shimmed-out baseboard; I am talking about full-width vent grills or louvres inset to the gyprock in two places spanning the pipes in each stud bay. Assuming the pipes do not rise through the firestop, the upper vent would be just below it, and the lower vent would be just above the baseboard. (If they do, as for a shower, you'd have to get a code-exception for that firestop and remove it, and put the upper vent near the ceiling. Good luck....)
Obviously, the pipes have to be held completely clear of the insulation. Rigid foam board or urethane foam make this easier to do than 'glass.
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not brought
low by this? For thine evil pales before that which
foolish men call Justice....