Plumbing question

   / Plumbing question #1  

bake321

Silver Member
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Oct 18, 2007
Messages
198
Location
Kentucky
Tractor
Kubota 9540, Kubota RTV900
Need help from the plumbers and others. I'm ready to hire a plumber for the house we are building. I'm real pleased with one candidate, but he runs the supply lines from the crawl space to sinks, etc through the floor instead of in the wall. His point of being able to fix potential problems in the future is well taken, but seems to me that it makes a much cleaner install coming out of the wall. What do you all think?

Cary
 
   / Plumbing question #2  
My father-in-law is a plumber here in Kentucky and I can tell you from going to the job site with him that there is a definite advantage to running the lines through the floor instead of the wall. Even though we don't get the sub-zero arctic air like our northern neighbors do all the time, we do still have cold snaps here that pose freezing dangers in our houses. When I built my house last year, he specifically ran the water lines through the floor because it provides an extra amount of freeze protection to the water lines. I have been with him on several jobs where the water lines were installed in the outside lines and during cold snaps, they froze. This is particuarly true of washing machine boxes installed on the outside wall. I really believe your plumber knows what he's doing there. He's protecting you from some future headaches should there be a chance of freezing. Just my two cents!!:D
 
   / Plumbing question #3  
Agree completely with running water lines of any kind through the floor instead of within the wall. This summer we began a moderate renovation to our kitchen and discovered that the drain line from the kitchen sink had been leaking for years. Of course this resulted in a MAJOR renovation - floor completely replaced down to subfloor, mold problems, etc. If the drain had not been run horizontally through the wall for about 18 inches before exiting through the floor we would have sustained only minor damage or none at all. Thank god our homeowners insurance covered most of it. But once it became apparrant we had to do some major work to repair the damage, my wife decided on a major renovation. It ended up costing about $20 large out of my pocket! But hey, I got a tractor and a 30x40 building a couple years ago, so it was payback time.
 
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   / Plumbing question #4  
Because my kitchen sink is on the outside wall, and because I have a slab foundation, my water line runs through an exterior wall. Normally, you don't want to do this, but it's the only way that I have to get the pipes there.

My pipes froze on my that are in the wall, and it took most of the day for them to thaw out. Luckily, they didn't rupture, or I'd have to tear apart the wall to fix the leak. It's the fist time that it's happened,andthe first time that we've ever had so many days of freezing temperatures in a row that never went above 32 degrees. If it was a one time event, that would be great, but if it starts to happen more often, I'm going to have to start leaving the heat on in the house at a much higher temperature. After the ice melted, I left that line on just a bit every night, and didn't have another problem.

Eddie
 
   / Plumbing question #5  
NEVER run water pipes through outside walls. ONE place in our NJ house had such pipes, and they froze.

Running through interior walls is fine, but for maintenance, running them through the floor, particularly if an unfinished basement floor would be ideal. I think that if I built a house and ran any water pipes through interior walls that I'd affix access panels to those walls (and this is what I've done where I've found pipes running behind walls in closets). Around here, so many houses have required repiping due to the plastic fitting problem with chlorinated water and acidic water in copper pipes and creates a mess in having to cut out the wall, etc.

Ralph
 
   / Plumbing question #7  
I ran mine through the 1st floor ceiling and then down through the wall. Reason for ceiling keeps pipes from freezing{house on piers 2 story}}. I lived in a few homes here in the north were the pipes went through the crawl space. Never fails they freeze and it is a sun of a gun to crawl under there in the dead of winter. I also went with pecs pipe{sp} it can handle being froze{few times} without giving issues. I also installed a water manifold system, easy to make and cheap, so I can shut of any line I want at any time. IF I had a cellar then yes pipes would have been run under floor
 
   / Plumbing question
  • Thread Starter
#8  
Hey good responses and I should have clarified on inside walls only. I will let him go through the floor except for the commodes.

Thanks

Cary
 
   / Plumbing question #9  
Thru the floor will allow access, and is not really any worse cosmetically unless you are looking at vanities that are elevated off the floor (legs, bunns, ect).
 
   / Plumbing question #10  
I always go for easy accessability whenever possible.
 
 
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