Conversion - bathroom to en-suite

[RogerS]

My turn to do a bathroom renovation ! Unpaid work, other than the gratitude of LOML, as it's our hovel. She misses her en-suite at the last place. There is a 'bathroom' upstairs which she uses and another one even grottier downstairs. But having the two, means I can work on one without us both having to shower in the garden.

This is it currently.



There are all sorts of nooks and crannies. For example, this one...the fan will be going and replaced with a quiet one.


My flash of inspiration came when I realised that this existing shower backs onto a cupboard in her bedroom.



So if I rip it out (and God alone knows how they got those panels round those stairs), knock through, plasterboardthe walls and get the plasterer in then she can walk from bedroom and into the ensuite. The door to the ensuite can now be blocked up, move this wall a bit (the existing radiator is on the other side)



The bog will be replaced in the same location using the existing soil pipe. The basin and radiator replaced and a decent Matki shower cubicle put in. So at the moment it is a voyage of discovery, I've always wondered what this pipe was.


It's not iron and further investigation confirmed it is copper althoutgh whether or not it is live I have no idea.



I have a feeling that the green 'pipe' above is a cover over a cable feeding these lights



The floor, like many others needs work as it's dropped.



All very much a voyage of discovery at the moment. I am aiming for end of February.

 

[Lons]

Looks like a "fun" project.

 

[RogerS]

Looks like a "fun" project.

I’ll send a car for you

 

[Lons]

I’ll send a car for you

My days of fitting bathrooms are over Rog.

 

[SamQ aka Ah! Q!]

I once jacked up a bathroom floor 3" over 8'. Oh, sure, it was fun Bob.

 

[RogerS]

Not much progress yesterday as other stuff competed for my time.

Removed more of the plasterboard. Double-skinned. Going the slow way ie cutting by hand as need to minimise the dust in the room as we've got a lot of clothing, wardrobe, linen...protected with sheets ..but the potential wrath of SWMBO is not to be ignored.


That copper pipe disappears up into the loft as I suspected. I'm pretty sure that it is this vent pipe but need more exploration up there to be certain.


What is slightly concerning is that it is capped. My plumber replaced the old hw cylinder with an unvented Gledhill. However he inherited a dog's dinner as the system defies logic and is the result of much historic (hysteric?) work over the decades.



We had three separate 'floods' during the changeover as pipes we'd thought were dead turned out to be very much live. It was very difficult to work out what was what since the pipes went into boarded up or otherwise hidden areas and changed identity inside those hidden places.

I asked him if he could recall whether the pipe was live or not - he can't. So need to engage the services of LOML and de-pressurise the h/w system. Turn off at the mains. Remove the cap and get her to turn the mains back on whilst I'm testing to see if there's any pressure. Not a biggie as I can always cap it off again down near the WC but it would be aesthetically pleasing to chisel out some of the wall and lose the end of the pipe. But only if it's dead !

 

[Accipiter]

... looks a bit of a nightmare Roger

 

[Sheffield Tony]

It would be so therapeutic to clear all that old disused crap out. Shame the plumber didn't.

 

[Cabinetman]

Hell you certainly pick your houses Roger. But I’m sure you’ll get it sorted. And that you’ve checked the wall that’s being opened up isn’t structural?
Hate doing bathrooms, the pics are bringing back memories of jobs best forgotten!

 

[Spectric]

Looks like you are in for a lot of plumbing work, but then if the electric's have all been bodged then he was just as capable of bodging the pipe work as seen by the mess of plastic fittings and spaghetti pipework in the loft space but at least it was not hidden. He did not go from a vented to an unvented system did he, that might explain that very odd capped pipe !

For dusty work I can recommend one of these, https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-12-duct-for-cam300b/


When the guys fitted my brick slips they did all the cutting in front of this extractor and the dust went outside, nothing inside so I brought one for handling plasterboard dust and it is great.

On a side note I suppose you did not have space for a caravan to live in whilst you did the house up, you could then have just gutted it and not have to work around evberything.

 

[duke]

Hey Rodger there is always something that slows you down.

 

[RogerS]

Looks like you are in for a lot of plumbing work, but then if the electric's have all been bodged then he was just as capable of bodging the pipe work as seen by the mess of plastic fittings and spaghetti pipework in the loft space but at least it was not hidden. He did not go from a vented to an unvented system did he, that might explain that very odd capped pipe !

For dusty work I can recommend one of these, https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-12-duct-for-cam300b/

View attachment 39033
When the guys fitted my brick slips they did all the cutting in front of this extractor and the dust went outside, nothing inside so I brought one for handling plasterboard dust and it is great.

On a side note I suppose you did not have space for a caravan to live in whilst you did the house up, you could then have just gutted it and not have to work around evberything.

Good link to that blower. It will keep LOML happy.

In the post above I mentioned that we went from vented to unvented.

 

[Accipiter]

Good link to that blower. It will keep LOML happy.

In the post above I mentioned that we went from vented to unvented.

I visited the link and thought "that's a good price"... then saw that it's for the 'duct' and not the blower/extractor. The give away was the "for USE with..." So £78 + £204...?

 

[RogerS]

I visited the link and thought "that's a good price"... then saw that it's for the 'duct' and not the blower/extractor. The give away was the "for USE with..." So £78 + £204...?

Yup..exactly our thoughts and so we'll pass

 

[Phil]

Nice project.

You sure know how to pick 'em.

 

[RogerS]

Well that answers that question. Not a load bearing wall !



OK...for the purists, the vertical on extreme left (white hinge on it) is remaining and I will check to see what that extreme RH vertical is doing (if anything)

 

[Steve Maskery]

All very much a voyage of discovery at the moment. I am aiming for end of February.

Which year?
S

 

[Spectric]

At least they made the wall out of 4 by 2's just a shame they cut them to short. The wiring looks DIY and I wonder what else you will find that that bodger has done which is waiting for you to find.

 

[Eric the Viking]

Well that answers that question. Not a load bearing wall !

View attachment 39100

OK...for the purists, the vertical on extreme left (white hinge on it) is remaining and I will check to see what that extreme RH vertical is doing (if anything)

It's leering at you. They always do.

At least you didn't have to contend with three inches of pigeon droppings. And I recommend fold-up loft tanks, or better still simply removing. Our original one had more than an inch of some sort of floating scum on top. Needless to say, removal involved biohazard precautions, as it probably was one.

 

[Mike G]

Best of luck Roger!

 

[duke]

Fair bit or re-wiring to do Roger, is this something you will do or bring in a sparky?

 

[Doug]

Are all those wires going to the same thing?

 

[Lurker]

Can I recommend Aqualisa showers, they are a bit more expensive than traditional ones but easier to plumb in and all the gubbins can be housed above in the loft.

 

[Lurker]

I would remove all the obviously dead pipes as far back as possible ( I can see several from here) and trace the live pipes from the outlet back towards the source labelling as you go.
You can do this without any help and should at least partially sort your problem.
I have no faith in those plastic fittings whatsoever.

 

[Eric the Viking]

I would remove all the obviously dead pipes as far back as possible ( I can see several from here) and trace the live pipes from the outlet back towards the source labelling as you go.
You can do this without any help and should at least partially sort your problem.
I have no faith in those plastic fittings whatsoever.

We had to re-plumb both CH and water in stages as we renovated here (still renovating, 30 years on!). I had a length of 22mm plastic with push-fit couplings "jumpering" between new and then-necessary old pipework under the stairs for about 10 years (on the incoming main).

When the time came to replace it permanently, I was rather shocked to find how much the plastic had degraded, apparently of itself. No sunlight, no heat, but yellowing, the precursor to cracking.

After that, I only ever use copper for everything that's not a gravity-driven wastepipe.

I also had a 'flexible coupling' to a kitchen sink tap form a pinhole behind the stainless braid. It was on the hot side. Evidently the plastic didn't like hot, HARD water, and the post mortem showed the inside surface was like cheese.

That one made rather a mess before being spotted. Again, I now use 10mm or 8mm 'Microbore'* for kitchen and basin taps - it takes longer and it's fussy but much safer. The upside is that you can clean and paint the pipe if it shows.
....

And I once dropped in on a friend who was DIY-ing a bathroom re-model as part of an extension.

I'd offered to help with the plumbing (OK I am an amateur, but I've done a lot and pride myself on doing it well), but it was declined as a neighbour of his was a professional pumber.

When I dropped in, the underfloor stuff was "nearly done" and about to be permanently hidden. The bath, loo, basin, bidet (it was a while ago!), heating pipes and feeds to elsewhere, all done in plastic, as it was 'so much quicker and easier'.

"Would you like to stay while we pressure test it?" (said 'pro-pumber', reaching for stop valve)... [you can see where this is going. Ed.]...

... I've only seen pictures of the Trevi fountain in Rome, but...

I think every single joint and fitting was leaking. Quite a few blew apart, and some stayed together but were gushing anyway. Yes, there was mains in the ceilng below, too. And yes, I did make my excuses and left, as there wasn't much I could really do.

I have an old friend who does plumbing for us (as presently I'm pretty useless for that sort of thing). We were both made redundant from a Fortune 50 company at the same time. Al is a bit younger than me, and retrained, having run a six-sigma production process and been part of an ISO9000 quality team. As you might expect, his approach to plumbing is a little different...

 

[Cabinetman]

We have put a new floor in the kitchen loads of insulation with concrete on top all done to spec, little did we know that the plumber used plastic pipes and fittings under it all, it was only after that I found out about the future problems with plastic and that his nickname was leaky!
No leaks yet and we shall be selling the house but I’m very aggrieved indeed.
I’m told that vermin will chew on the fittings when hungry too. Who’s regulating the industry?

 

[marineboy]

When I extended my bathroom to fit a new bath I did a lot of research on plastic piping and fittings. I can do copper pipe work but it seemed to me that plastic would be much easier to fit. The consensus of what I found was that quality plastic pipe and connectors has a lifetime approaching 100 years. Pipe runs need to be properly supported and the locking collars on the push fit connectors must be fully seated.

Before I started the installation I tried to pull two bits of pipe out of a straight connector. Impossible.

 

[RogerS]

Fair bit or re-wiring to do Roger, is this something you will do or bring in a sparky?

I can do it myself. I'm getting a sparks in to wire up the power and lighting in the studio though

Are all those wires going to the same thing?

No. You've got the main feed coming in to a fused spur (he loves those). Where it originates is anyone's guess. Then it goes to the light switch, the bathroom lights and also the extractor fan. The mains feed also (guessing here as not had time to investigate) goes to a light in the shower. That will become defunct. The wires will be routed back up into the loft.

I will be making extensive use of Quinetic stuff. For our members overseas,

 

[RogerS]

Can I recommend Aqualisa showers, they are a bit more expensive than traditional ones but easier to plumb in and all the gubbins can be housed above in the loft.

Many thanks for the suggestion but I prefer HansGrohe

 

[RogerS]

I would remove all the obviously dead pipes as far back as possible ( I can see several from here) and trace the live pipes from the outlet back towards the source labelling as you go.
You can do this without any help and should at least partially sort your problem.
I have no faith in those plastic fittings whatsoever.

I will tidy up at a later date. Tracing the pipes back is an impossibility as they are in here somewhere and which is all boxed up now.



Never had a problem with plasic fittings. Been using them since they first came out.

The early Hep2o pipe was not good as EtV found out.

 

[RogerS]

Slap of trade paint on the floor just to seal the dust in even though it was hoovered.



Attention now turned to the old shower.

I've never fitted one with perspex (?) sheets before. But turned out that the reason those sheets were stuck on was that underneath was a layer of tiles and predicatably Bodger had never heard of the proper boards and had used chipboard which had deteriorated so much due to water ingress you could rub bits off it.




Since there will be no water in this area, I'll apply some plasterboard and get it plastered.

I have no idea what to do with the side panels. The skip beckons.



I'll stick plasterboard to the shower ceiling and sloping bit. There is no point in removing them.



We've rejigged the layout because the original proposed layout encroached too much on the room next door.

 

[SamQ aka Ah! Q!]

That's not chipboard Roger; it's Oriented Strand Board. I'm quite surprised it was deteriorated; it is normally more resistant to water penetration than chipboard (save the green MR version).
I read that circumstance as prolonged exposure to a leak. He really were a bodger wern 'e?

Edit: Or, are those glue swirls imitating the random strand orientation on OSB?

 

[Spectric]

That soil pipe looks like it has a steep fall, to much and the turds get left behind as the liquid overtakes them. I see that last owner liked the round junction boxes, I bet you have an abundance of them stuck everywhere but at least he did not use scotch locks !

 

[RogerS]

That soil pipe looks like it has a steep fall, to much and the turds get left behind as the liquid overtakes them. I see that last owner liked the round junction boxes, I bet you have an abundance of them stuck everywhere but at least he did not use scotch locks !

Well not sure I’d trust your plumbing TBH. It’s been there for over 30 years and no turds in sight or blockages

 

[Lons]

...........I think every single joint and fitting was leaking. Quite a few blew apart, and some stayed together but were gushing anyway. .........

My reaction to that would be that unless he was using very cheap cr*p faulty fittings, the fault lies with the installer rather than the materials.

My personal experience is entirely different although I've always used quality brand name products and followed the basic rules some of which are just commonsense, e.g. cut the pipe with shears at 90deg not with a hacksaw or stanley knife, remove and burr, make sure the pipe and fittings are clean (I've seen plumbers pick them out of an open box covered in dust) and above all ensure the pipe is pushed fully home which is the most common and only reason IMHO for a pipe blowing out of a fitting.
Except for a certain tupe removeable using a tool, a permanent fitting can't be removed without cutting it off or using brute force - I've tried. The dismatlable type are locked solid if the nuts are tightened fully.

I've used miles of the stuff, including much in my own house and I'm sure I'm tempting fate but no leaks. I've used a lot of copper as well both mechanical and soldered fittings and do prefer it as I'm of that age group but the issue with modern copper is that the fittings quality can be pot luck and the pipe is tissue paper thin so it definitely isn't necessarily fault free or future proof.

We're all heavily influenced by our own experiences naturally and who can argue with that.

 

[Eric the Viking]

OK I have created leaks by poor soldering very ocasionally - it's not perfect I agree. But push-fit does fail where soldered joints would last.

I got called to eldest daughter's house recently, because of a push-fit crisis at the bottom of some boxing in her bathroom - applied badly, in a really stupid place, by someone incapable of using YouTube - very difficult to fix without doing more damage, and impossible for me to reach, anyway (at full stretch). So I left it for the miscreant to be stood over whilst he made good (my daughter teaches primary-age children: I wouldn't mess with her!).

Perhaps the problem with plastic pipe is twofold: it ages badly, and it makes plumbing look far too easy, when it isn't.

 

[RogerS]

OK I have created leaks by poor soldering very ocasionally - it's not perfect I agree. But push-fit does fail where soldered joints would last.

I got called to eldest daughter's house recently, because of a push-fit crisis at the bottom of some boxing in her bathroom - applied badly, in a really stupid place, by someone incapable of using YouTube - very difficult to fix without doing more damage, and impossible for me to reach, anyway (at full stretch). So I left it for the miscreant to be stood over whilst he made good (my daughter teaches primary-age children: I wouldn't mess with her!).

Perhaps the problem with plastic pipe is twofold: it ages badly, and it makes plumbing look far too easy, when it isn't.

I don’t agree with your statement as I think it is based on your experience of the early pipes

 

[Jonathan]

As Bob says old school copper was bulletproof, it’s what I grew up knowing but the stuff today is hit and miss.
Times change, last house I built 20 years ago I used the Wirsbo system it proved to be 100% but again times have changed and the house I’m building now I’m using composite. My plumber mate sold it to me, basically there’s a inner tube of plastic and if that fails there’s a central tube of Aluminium and if that fails there’s the outer tube of plastic and the crimp fitting are good. No doubt in the next decade or two they’ll be a different system and it will be even better
Copper generally only gets used when it’s on show

 

[SamQ aka Ah! Q!]

My reaction to that would be that unless he was using very cheap cr*p faulty fittings, the fault lies with the installer rather than the materials.

My personal experience is entirely different although I've always used quality brand name products and followed the basic rules some of which are just commonsense, e.g. cut the pipe with shears at 90deg not with a hacksaw or stanley knife, remove and burr, make sure the pipe and fittings are clean (I've seen plumbers pick them out of an open box covered in dust) and above all ensure the pipe is pushed fully home which is the most common and only reason IMHO for a pipe blowing out of a fitting.
Except for a certain tupe removeable using a tool, a permanent fitting can't be removed without cutting it off or using brute force - I've tried. The dismatlable type are locked solid if the nuts are tightened fully.

I've used miles of the stuff, including much in my own house and I'm sure I'm tempting fate but no leaks. I've used a lot of copper as well both mechanical and soldered fittings and do prefer it as I'm of that age group but the issue with modern copper is that the fittings quality can be pot luck and the pipe is tissue paper thin so it definitely isn't necessarily fault free or future proof.

We're all heavily influenced by our own experiences naturally and who can argue with that.

Totally agree.

My plumbing over the last thirty years was influenced by my good friend Roy, a professional plumber of very wide experience, including a spell 'on the rigs' in the Libyan desert. He was 'the man' for all things water-related in the public school where I worked, teaching 900 school boys. As you might imagine from that last number, Roy had miles and miles of pipework to maintain: H.P. gas, F.W. supply,1896 sewers and a 30 metre swimming and diving pool. He used screw-threaded iron pipe and copper close to the high-kilowatt boilers or high pressure lines, and for visible plumbing in ablutions and showers (teenage boys and dismantlable fittings are a receipe for disaster) plaskit everywhere else. His "homers" fitted out my aging house (1903) lead and ancient copper with replacement Hep O2 and its successors as my wallet allowed and his mantra ("pay attention Padowan!") was exactly as Bob listed above: cleanliness, precision cutting, "tophat" pipe liners at every tube-end and every pipe insertion followed by a gentle pull back to engage the internal spikey bits thoroughly. Never had a leak.

Your mileage may vary; everybody has an off-day and I'm certainly not perfect.

 

[Lons]

Perhaps the problem with plastic pipe is twofold: it ages badly, and it makes plumbing look far too easy, when it isn't.

I'm not so sure that good quality pipe and fittings age any worse than the thin and poor quality copper on sale these days but we all have differing experience. Spot on with the youtubers.
I think the biggest pro for plastic is that you can thread long lengths and create gentle bends so using far fewer fittings, always the weak point in any system.

(my daughter teaches primary-age children: I wouldn't mess with her!).

I can relate to that. Our friend has just retired from teaching primary age kids. She's lovely but I'm careful what I say and don't stand too close.