Made some good progress today. Before today, I was really only able to a few small things...mainly getting the subfloor nailing strips in place along the perimeter of the room so that there will be support along the edge for securing the subfloor to the supports. We also purchased the tub this week. That was quite a fun trip home carrying it in my small truck. Here's the tub we picked out, although you can't really see too much since it's still gift-wrapped.
Today we were able to knock out the bathroom plumbing. This basically consisted of running the hot and cold lines to both the tub and sink areas, as well as setting up the drain system for the tub. This needed to be done now, because the next step is going to be installing the subfloor and after that I won't have access to the crawlspace anymore, plus I need to know where to cut holes in the subfloor through which all that plumbing will run. We've decided not to move the toilet any, so i won't have to do any work there...just install a new flange once the floor is in.
Finding the location of where to run everything was a challenge. The sink part wasn't too bad. The sink drain is already above the subfloor so I didn't have to do anything there. We're moving is over about 8 inches from the old one, so finding the location for where the sink supply lines was easy as well.
The tub, on the other hand, wasn't so easy. The supply lines need to be hidden in the wall between the tub and the closet. The location of this closet wall is entirely dependent on the tub dimensions. So I had to find the schematics of the tub to find the length of the tub unit, then measure that far from the wall that's going to be in front of the exterior brick wall. That gave me the location of the closet wall and where the tub supply will need to be. From that mark, I had to measure back toward the tub to determine the location of the drain for the tub.
After all these measurements were made and marked, we got busy cutting and gluing pipes. Unfortunately, the supply lines coming into the room come in at an angle, which just wreaks havoc on the placement of the room plumbing. You can only get 90 and 45 degree elbows, so we had to use some creative geometry to get everything to line up correctly. Not really hard work, just tedious and we have to measure just about every stretch of pipe. Fairly time consuming, but we eventually got it worked out. After running the lines, and installing hangers to clean everything up, we were pretty much finished for the night. It wasn't really late, but we have to wait a couple of hours for the glue to dry and by then it would have been. We'd been at it all day, so we just called it a night and will do the pressure test tomorrow.
Action shots!
Here's what everyone else was doing while we were slaving in the bathroom.
Here's the finished product.
This is somewhat interesting. The CPVC that I'm using for the supply lines has been really nice. It's super easy to work with, and really cheap. One of it's quirks, however, is that it expands somewhat when it raises in temperature. Depending on your layout, it can be somewhat significant. For instance, if you're running it though framing members(I was warned about this by someone who'd experienced it), you need to cut the hole slightly oversize to allow for the swelling, or it'll make noise when it expands. Also, according to the manufacturer's guidelines, the most significant expansion occurs along the long dimension. Specifically, it expands roughly 1 inch over 50 feet for a 50 degree temp increase. This affects how you position the pipes and attach them to framing members. For instance, it's recommended that you not place an abrupt change of direction(think elbow) against a framing member, as the stud/joist will inhibit expansion and possibly for the pipe to bend to the point of failuer. Also, and this was really the only way in which I was affected, you have to be mindful of long runs of the pipe. In my case, I'm running the hot all the way from the kitchen, which is roughly 40 feet. One either end, the long run is connected to a network of other pipes that have been secured to framing members. The expansion of this long run is enough to warrant some consideration...expansion could feasibly stress connected pipes on either end to a point of failure. The recommended solution is to add a "loop" of pipe along the run, which is nothing more than a "U" shape inserted somewhere over the length. This gives the pipe some breathing room when it expands so that it doesn't affect anything else that's connected to its ends. Here's what we did.
Anyway, I'm pretty excited to get this part out of the way. This means that tomorrow I can actually start getting the subfloor in. It'll probably take a while, since 1) the room's not square, 2) I need to cut holes for all of the plumbing, and 3) I'm going with 2 layers of 1/2 plywood for extra rigidity, but it'll be great to have floor in the room again. After that I'll build a few walls and then be able to put the tub in. Then it's electricity, drwall, fixtures, and voila! New bathroom. Sounds pretty easy, no?
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