After knocking out yet another tile wall to get access to one leaky copper fitting in the supply line to the bathtub, I have to say: There’s got to be a better way than this. Are these pipes being run any differently on new homes than they were 80 years ago?
Most of my work is remodeling older homes, so I have to confess I’m not up on all the latest building developments. I do know someone who ended up cutting through an exterior wall to access the pipes behind his one-piece shower/bath enclosure. This was in a 4 year old, $750k house run with copper, not pex.
Has anyone seen a better way to plumb bathrooms? The current method of waiting for water damage to show up on 1st floor ceilings or in the basement, then tearing out walls, seems kind of ridiculous.
Thanks for any comments.
Replies
Get a better plumber
Other than piping materiels method hasn't changed much.
Except pex manifolds with individual lines are becoming more common.
Do you look to the government for an entitlement, or to GOD for empowerment. BDW
I agree with you about better quality plumbing work. It just struck me kind of funny that no one's come up with a different way to plumb for access. On one job I gave a client an estimate to fix a leak behind a tile shower wall. He was flabbergasted, and asked me to explain why, and when I listed all the time, tools and materials needed to get behind the wall, fix the leak, then retile, he understood. Just wondering. Steve
Knocking holes in a wall. Could be worse. Have you seen what they go through when plumbing run under an OGS, On Ground Slab, goes south? Can you say jackhammer?A couple of times I have worked on homes with a spa or whirlpool installed in exceedingly expensive tile jobs without any access panels. Something goes wrong and its tear up the Italian marble or the exterior brickwork. In electrical work all junction boxes are required to be accessible. Why this doesn't seem to be a requirement for plumbing, or at least a major consideration, is beyond me. Ideally access panels and/or chases would be provided for plumbing.
Same access usually applies for both electrical & plumbing.
J box is the equivalent to a compression connector & those can't be buried in a wall or floor.
Most roman tub fillers specs call for an access panel ,but rarely I ever see one installed.Do you look to the government for an entitlement, or to GOD for empowerment. BDW
It's always interesting why some problems get solved and some don't. You've got millions of people working in a multi-billion dollar industry, year after year... and yet things haven't really changed much. Which is surprising, because those two factors- lots of money at stake, and lots of people affected by the issue- often lead to innovation. (It's not just in the bathroom, either. Whenever I see some big dude on his back, under a kitchen sink, with a flashlight, contorting this way and that trying to rotate a basin wrench, I just laugh at the absurdity of it all.)
Seems to be an age old problem.
You will normally find galvanized , copper , or cpvc.
We make a good living off these types of repairs because they are not DIYer repairs.
Dont mess with the system , just kidding .
Not kidding they rate as well or better to popcorn ceilings and gutters.
The three have provided many a meal here .
For what I know ;
A copper joint needs to be held tight with out normal movement but play if it does if that makes any sense. The lines are held with plastic clamps or rubber lined. In other words no metal to metal. Wood works good too if its made as a clamp.
Galvanized of course goes out the door.
CPVC is ok if the pressure is kept low and to remind it isnt rigid enough to hold itself .
I replace with copper and clamp it down securely and give the angle joints room to move if it happens. The faucets and the shower head should be held very snuggly and the tub be reinforced not to move down from weight at the head.
Ive also left access doors built on site decorative .
The best guard against it is the house plan.. A closet headed to a shower wall is great, for your knowledge but the homeowner doesnt think about that .
Tim
You really can't avoid plumbing failures. I noticed at my gym that they had cut a hole in a tile wall to access the back of a shower -- apparently it had been leaking. Looking in the hole I saw that they had, during the original construction, used a solder-in single-handle control, and had soldered a short (maybe 2") copper stub in the bottom (tub spout) port in the control to plug it.Apparently silt and rust had collected in this stub and set up galvanic action. It had eventually corroded a hole in the pipe about 1/4" in diameter. (Understand that the water we have here isn't noted for being corrosive.) This building is about 10 years old.There was absolutely nothing I could see wrong with that installation, save for the fact that the stub allowed silt/rust buildup in stagnant water. The only practical way to have avoided the problem would have been to use a different control with either threaded ports or lacking the bottom port entirely.(Incidentally, I was impressed with how well they patched the hole in the tile. They initially cut the hole with a masonary blade, through tile and cement board, following the grout lines, then patched it back with new tile so you can only tell it was patched if you know to look. I had figured they'd just have a piece of SS cut to cover the hole.)
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. --James Madison
Of couirse we could talk about the not so good repairs.
The one I love is the caulked crack ceiling . Must be very popular as many as I see. <G>
Tim
We pressure test for full hour before closing up the wall. I caught one in February, just a drop every 20 minutes.....
The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there, and the battlefield is the heart of man.
- Fyodor Dostoyevski
Had a call for a leak in a wall. Pressure test was 100 psi of air for 24 hours.
1/2" copper 90 was never soldered.
I don't think we need a revoloution, just some common sense.
I have never installed a bathroom without and access panel directly behind any tub/shower fixture. It only takes a bit of thought on the part of the designer.
Pipe in an exterior wall are another no-no as far as I'm concerned.
Battles with a basin wrench under the kitchen sink are something that is harder to avoid but once again some planning on cabinet placement and design sure can help.
One piece fiberglass/PVC tub or shower units I see as short life units and will probably crack before the plumbing has a chance of leaking.
Lately I've had a lot of granite showers go in and without acess panels in would be insane to install them