We recently completed the plumbing "rough-in" (drainage/vent pipe and water lines for a bathroom).
And we just achieved another "Green Sticker" from the City of Edmonton (on our plumbing permit for this project).
I say "just" a new bathroom, but it involved re-piping the laundry drainage, adding venting for laundry and the new bathroom, and "upsizing" the water lines to accommodate more water demand in the house.
Most of the rough-in took place in the "crawl space" - about 2.5 to 3 ft high with lots of heating duct in the way (also very dusty - but that's life).
Here are a few pictures.
(Photo above and below) The 3 inch drain that we installed (replacing the old cast iron pipe).
The photo above is the 2" laundry drain connected to our re-piped 3" drain. Initially we were going to leave the cast iron in place and just cut into it, however it was all gooed up, so we replaced the whole length with ABS.
One of the issues in the crawl space was its lack of space.
The photo above is a 2" LAV (bathroom sink drain) acting as a wet vent to the 3" toilet drain on the right.
Because the pipe hangers had to be so long, we opted to use pipe hangers that are almost never used in houses (you will mostly only see these hangers commercially). Hangers are important as they keep the grade of the pipe locked in so the waste can run downwards at a grade of about 1/4 inch per foot.
The photo above and below shows some of the water lines we installed. We tried to use mostly PEX in the crawl space, because soldering copper is a fire hazard (especially so in this cramped crawl space).
Also note that the PEX we used is Wirsbo or UPONOR brand. It significantly DIFFERS from the PEX that you can pick up at the home improvement stores. Needless to say there are advantages to using this type of PEX,
however most plumbers don't use it because "it costs too much".
The photo above and 2 photos below are the newly roughed-in Laundry Standpipe. When we first arrived, we found that the old laundry drain connected directly to a 3" drain which lead into the stack in the crawl space.
All you have to know here is that the original laundry did not meet current plumbing code, but did allow us to easily tie in the new bathroom in the crawl space because it was 3". However, this also necessitated venting to be installed off of the new and improved Laundry Standpipe (up the wall and into the attic which then connected to the bathroom venting and eventually the stack vent in a very tight spot in the attic - I might talk about that "fun day" sometime in the future).
The photos below should give you an idea of the spaces we had to work in. Notice the entrance to this crawl space and how short the clearance is once you are in it.
More pictures to come on this project.
Thank you,
Jay Bortnik
Journeyman Jay Plumbing
780-266-3939
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