Hi all, I'm about to purchase a ground floor garden flat, in a two-storey period building for a great price, but it's in pretty poor condition. To make the most out of the flat, I need to re-jig the layout and move the bathroom. This is going to cause problems in terms of plumbing as the current position is very close to where the waste pipes are located, and I'll be moving the bathroom across the flat, approximately 6-7m away. Please see below the current layout and the anticipated future layout Current: Future: How easy/difficult is digging trenches and laying all the new pipework that will probably be required? How much might that cost and would this take a lot longer than the current 5-6 week refurb target? Thanks in advance, R.
Hi I was just having a look on the forum, and I see your post. I assume it's not a semi, if there's a manhole in the yard, digging out is not too bad to do. Or you can trace the existing drainage. Also need to consider the hot water run, the distance from boiler/cylinder to taps/ shower Good luck, go for it! Regards Peter
Thanks for the encouragement, Peter. It's action end of terrace. The waste from upstairs and my flat currently run into a drain at the back. You'll see what I mean, here: The plan is to fit French doors at the back here, so I may need to divert some of the upstairs pipework to make it look decent.
The bay window shown in your plan is along that 'front' side to the right in your photograph? The side that goes along the road there? That is where you'd have to dig the trench for your soil pipe. We can't really comment too much on here how complex or expensive that will be, but this is the kind of job that's done 100 times every day. The other issue is the water supplies as mentioned above. Where is your boiler fitted? I guess it's a combi type? Can you work out a way of getting two 15mm pipes to your new location without too much difficulty? What is your floor type - solid or suspended timber?
Yes, the bay is along the side of the building, parallel to the road. As you can see from the photo, the original soil pipe is at the rear, but its not clear what that feeds into. The plan is to locate the boiler in the new bathroom too, boxed in above the toilet. I haven't investigated the flooring in much depth, but I know part of it is concrete.Im sure we can get a water supply in and out, the question is how neatly we can do so. I'm hopeful we can do it well.
Almost certainly the soil waste runs along or beside that road, so it's on the right side for you. I'd have thought you'd almost certainly be able to join in to it within your property boundary, 'cos you really don't want the complication and expense of cutting across pavements and roadways. So that looks all fine. Having the boiler in the bathroom is theoretically ok too and, again, the mains services (gas, water) will be approaching your property from the right direction - I'd have thought that bringing the gas at least directly in from the outside at that point would be the best solution, rather than run it internally. Mind you, are you hoping to have a gas hob in your kitchen? Even so, running a 15mm pipe for an average hob would be better than a 22mm pipe for a boiler. I think that's as much as we can say on here. This is, of course, perfectly doable - it's what builders do every day of the week. As part of the general refurb - if you are having builders helping you anyway - it shouldn't be prohibitively expensive, but I think it'll likely be the single biggest cost - new bathroom location + new boiler install. I've no idea of ballpark - I'm not in the trade so can't even guess...
If I can comment on the bathroom in general ... That will be very tight and using the toilet could be awkward. Does it need a bath? Why not a shower only? Make it a complete, fully tanked wet room. Leave the WC on the end wall but moved towards the centre with a hand basin to the side, then about 1.2m from the end wall fit a shower head on the wall and a 600mm screen out from the wall just past the foot of the bath location.
Another thought. If a bath is required, have a look at some of the Japanese style tubs - they are around 900-1000mm square, and around 1m deep with a shelf to sit on. In a tanked room with a shower above it could be achieved. Also, Ideal Standard do some SPACE range WCs, including a corner one which I have. Could be worth looking at.
Would making it a wet room result in it costing substantially more? I don't necessarily think it will be too tight.The room will be 125-130cm wide, so even after the bath is installed, there'll still be 60cm to walk up and down... Not massive by any means, but not too tight. Here are some more pics, if anyone is interested
Check out the requirements for space for each items of bathroom pottery - plenty of on-line guides out there. Especially check to see if 600mm width is ok for the pan. I'd certainly hate to be squeezed into such a space when dropping one...
Not really. Pull up the floor boards, replace with 19mm Hardie flooring, 2400x500 T&G concrete fibre boards and fit a suitable tray such as one from IMPEY. Tank the floor with a suitable membrane that will go 100mm up the wall. Treat the walls with something like Ardex WPC. Then tile floor and walls ... Impey do a range of inset trays complete with drain and the tanking membrane for the whole floor. You will have the floor up for plumbing so that will be part way there. A bath is 700 wide so you will have less than 600 for the WC. I have just refitted a bathroom and 200mm on each side of the WC is really what is needed to make it "comfortable". We experimented with 150 on the wall side and it felt cramped finally settling at 220.
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