2 Creating Our 1/2 Bath - Moving Plumbing Again!

Before the baseboard, flooring, and painting we ended up diving into some more plumbing work.  Like the other week when I wrote about moving the toilet (you can find that here), we also moved the plumbing for the pedestal sink for it to be centered under the new ceiling light.  I didn't want to move the light fixture since it would require a new hole and patching the ceiling.  This was the easiest way - or was it?

It wasn't a drastic change, but the water lines as well as the drain line needed to be moved about 6".  It was relatively easy since the back of the bathroom was the dark paneled cave of a Family Room.  Simply removing a panel or two gave us access to the plumbing.  Take a look at the finished picture below.

We first needed to know our exact plumbing dimensions so we headed over to Loews and found a pedestal sink that was only available in the store.  We also picked up the matching brand of toilet.

At Home Depot I picked up some miscellanious plumbing parts: copper pipe, 90 deg. copper angles, a can of propane, solder, escuthion plates, silver plated supply lines, p-trap and pvc drain parts, yada yada yada (you know - all the things you may need for plumbing lines and drains).

After measuring for the new drain and supply areas I cut the existing drain pipe and drilled a new 2 1/2" hole through the wall stud to extend the drain line.  The water supply had to be cut and then all the new pieces needed to be soldered together.  That part was pretty fun other than burning the wood stud slightly!  Good thing Melissa wasn't in the room at that point otherwise she may have tried to stop me from doing any more).

I purchased shut off valves that needed to be soldered onto the supply lines, but had a very hard time getting getting the solder to adhear and seal the two together.  After completely failing at this twice, I purchased a 'push on' type of shut off valve made by BrassCraft.  I should have picked these up the first time!  All you need is a little push and it locks in place.

Image courtesy of BrassCraft Mfg.

I won't get into all the little details as I'm sure plumbing can't be too exicing for most people.  After moving the sink into place all we had to do was connect the drain and supply lines to the sink and install the faucet.

Here are a few details of where the major items are from that finished up our 1/2 Bath:

• Faucet, Baseboard; Home Depot
• Towel Ring, Toilet Paper Holder, Mirror; Target.
• Toilet, Sink; Lowe's
• Flooring; Bargain Outlet

We may at some point in time add bead board paneling to the lower half of the walls, but we're very happy with the current outcome.

1 1 Thing You Must Do For Yourself & Your Illegal Toilet

Toilet; water closet; commode; porcelain throne; whatever you want to call it if your's is illegal it may have adverse health effects.  You may be thinking, what exactly is an illegal toilet.  Well, I'm not talking about a stolen toilet or even a high 'gallons per flush' count which is regulated by the EPA.  I'm talking about illegal by building code standards.

You may be surprised who sets the "illegal toilet" standard, well in this reference of illegal it isn't the State, but the Federal Government and the International Code Council.  The code calls for the center of a toilet to be a minimum of 15" from a finished wall.  The health effects?  Aches and pains from rubbing against the wall!

The toilet in our downstairs 1/2 bath was considered illegal; 12-1/2" to center.  I could have dealt with the fact I was breaking the law, but there was something more on my mind; brushing up against the wall every time someone wanted to use the bathroom.  This wasn't going to fly.  So why not move it?  No reason not to, so that's what we did!

After removing the existing toilet and plugging the hole with some wet rags (make sure you don't stuff them completely down the drain or you may lose them and have other problems), out came the floor. After installing new underlayment (only needed because we were renovating the entire room), I located the floor joists and realized why the toilet was illegal in the first place - a floor joist was running right underneath where the toilet should have been installed.  The original builder had to offset the toilet to the side of the joist in order to get the drain in.

So what is a guy supposed to do?  Here I have the original problem with no solution.  I can't remove the joist, or can I?  Well sort of.  In comes Metwood Building Solutions' "Joist Reinforcers"; the perfect code-approved product for my solution!  According to their website these "allow for the installation and/or repair of large diameter holes in floor joists for the passage of utilities."

Image courtesy of Metwood Building Solutions

I first went to Home Depot and found an offset toilet flange.  It's just what I needed to move the toilet over the joist, but still have the drain pipe in its original location (to the side of the joist).  I marked the outline of the Metwood Joist Reinforcer to know how much of the joist to cut out and went at it with a sawzall.  You can see how the offset flange veers toward the right (where it enters the hole) in the picture below.

After connecting the new with the old and making sure I kept some pitch on the horizontal drain, I screwed the flange to the floor and was ready to install the finished flooring.  You'll be able to see the flooring install in another post soon!

Then came the toilet installation and presto, my illegal toilet is now a modern elongated highline toilet and legal at 15-1/2".  No more brushing up against the wall!

Have you had to move anything during renovation?  What was it like?  Let us know!