Help Please - Problem Following Completed Bathroom installat

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Apologies, this is a re-post from the Plumbing & Hating Forum.

Hello am new to the forum and at my wits end with problems we have following a bathroom refurb. Basically moved bath to other end of room, swapping with basin. All new kit, loo in same position as previously. Used local showroom and their contract fitter (been with them for years). All seemed great before the work got under way. We are now left with:

1. Bath fitted with shallow seal waste trap even though it goes into the soli stack and shared waste (as it did previously) with basin. Get gurgling noises and the trap being siphoned when sink is run. Not all the time, but eventually starts to happen between baths/showers. Fitter is suggesting anti-vac trap on the semi ped basin (if it will fit!). Also suggesting in line AAV on the bath waster pipe where it run on the floor behind the (not yet fitted) panel. I'd rather he tried to get in deeper seal trap on the bath but don't think there is enough room. Where bath is now positioned I believe there is a joist right below the trap!

2. Also discovered that in order to hide the pipework he has run it beneath the floorboards. However this has meant he's had to drill about 3 joists for the 40mm bath waste to pass through on way to stack. The holes are not in the appropriate places according to regs. Also has notched same joists a little further over for the hot feed pipe (22mm) to come across the room (why he didn't take it from where the sink was god only knows! He did with the cold!). This is greatly worrying me as has he compromised the structure of the joists. They are 8 * 2's. Found couple of alarming things on kitchen ceiling below bathroom but may just be from the works when they were going on.

3. Fan fitted lets draughts into the room. It has flaps and I asked his electrician to remove ducting and show me - they were closed. so appear to be working. But we didn't then test them without the ducting on - stupid me! This is ducted out through north facing sofit.

Number of other niggles but these are major things. Biggest worry is the joists and what to do. Should I go to Building Control about this - would they be interested. The job was never registerd with them as it was just a refurb. Its all been paid for as well, so I have limited hold over shop/fitter. Clearly the siphoning is also a problem and he should not have used a 19mm seal trap going into the stack. Will just putting anti-vac on the basin work? Not sure I want the AAV on the floor waste run?

This is giving me sleepless nights/affecting my work - can someone help please. Thanks.


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As regard the holes/notches - they will probably not be a problem if they are near the ends of the joists.
Don't get building control involved unless you wish to add to your worries.
 
Tony thanks - am not an expert. Believe they are in the permissible areas looking at the span length - about 15ft. But the notch I can see is too deep (prob 40mm) not the 25 it should be. Also the hole drilled for the waste is near the top of the joist - prob 1 inch down. I can only see one joist from below, there are about 3 that have been treated this way. Others will be similar state I would think. There is no supporting wall below them for some distance.

One thing I have just noticed is that on the ceiling below one of these joists the ceiling emulsion has detached from the plaster (so small 'blisters') in 3 locations where the screws are securing the plasterboard to the joist. Would this indicate I am getting some deflection already. Dug the plaster out and tightened screws a little more. Have now filled back to level. Thinking of calling a structural engineer for advice/visit tomorrow.
 
Tony thanks - am not an expert. Believe they are in the permissible areas looking at the span length - about 15ft. But the notch I can see is too deep (prob 40mm) not the 25 it should be. Also the hole drilled for the waste is near the top of the joist - prob 1 inch down. I can only see one joist from below, there are about 3 that have been treated this way. Others will be similar state I would think. There is no supporting wall below them for some distance.

Manuals give these diagrams and dimensions for notching/drilling but they are very conservative and designed to allow for complete idiots notching and drilling as though there's no tomorrow.

As long as the cuts are not too far from the bearings of the joists, you shouldn't have a problem. 40mm is not much, and not worth taking up the boards to strengthen the joists.
 
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Thanks - the bath is very close to these cut and drilled sections, so obviously a worry when full. There are also two upstairs block walls resting on the floorboards (these form two of the bathroom walls). The notches/holes are in the centre of the bathroom between these two walls. AT least one of the walls has an RSJ beneath it (beneath the floorboards) - remember seeing that. Not sure what happens to the joists though where the RSJ goes across?
 
Without seeing pics, and/or perhaps simple sketch plans with a few dimensions, it's impossible to say one way or the other.
 
Sorry Tony - a bit hard to tell. I'm assuming the joists would have to span from one supporting wall to another on the ceiling. In this case I'm assuming its the length of my kitchen, about 5 metres. The bathroom is above part of the end of the kitchen and has a couple of internal thermal block walls built on soleplates on the floorboards. There are no walls downstairs in the kitchen beneath these, although the 'end of the kitchen' wall, which I'm assuming is supporting and where the joists end, is probably 0.5 m away from one of these upstairs walls.

The bathroom width between the block walls across the joists is approx. 1.45 m and the length about 2.6 m. The bath is 700 mm wide * 1600 mm long.

I can't get any pics of the joist detail as everything is covered up now apart from what I can see when I remove one of the kitchen downlights. Bathroom pics attached. The waste you can see going into the floor where it then goes through 3 joists on its way to the stack. What you can't see here is the hot tap feed for the bath, which has surfaced from the floor just a little further this side of the waste. This feed is notched into 4 joists I believe.


 

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