If your home is old enough for a washroom remodelling, you might intend to go ahead and totally intestine it. I began my bathroom remodel last month with a total demolition. If I had not, a variety of troubles would certainly have been unavailable for repair work ... and even obscure. Below's just what I located when I opened up the walls and ceiling of my 1981 condo here in the Quad Cities.
Repair plumbing surprises
Right here's one more thing I discovered. I'm not a plumbing professional, however I see an issue right here. Envision if that area of typical drain line for our back-to-back sinks got blocked. Now picture running a snake in there from one sink. Do you think it would make the turn? Probably not. We transformed it out and also balance out the two.
Repair termite damage
When I opened up the exterior wall, I found termite damages in 2 locations: the king stud, jack stud, as well as cripple on the bath tub side of the home window as well as the jack stud on the other side of the window. The bright side is that the damages was done long ago. As long as I've lived here, the proprietors' association has stayed up to date with termite treatment and also tracking, but I recognize there was a duration when they didn't. Therefore the damages I found.
Change decayed subflooring
In addition to the termite-damaged wall surface, I also located rotten subflooring near the tub. This was mostly from obtaining too damp, and I believed it since tiles had actually started appearing in that area.
Offset no or little insulation
I understood we had insulation in our wall surfaces. I thought it was R-11 fiberglass batts due to the fact that our upstairs neighbor's icemaker had a negative leak a couple of years earlier, securing fifty percent of our laundry room ceiling and also part of the wall. The typical wall surface had R-11 batts. I figured the rest of the wall surfaces did, too. I understood they had insulation due to the fact that I've inspected behind button and receptacle plates.
I got a little shock when I took the drywall off of that exterior restroom wall surface and also saw this:
This is actually an advantage, in such a way, because it implies I'll obtain even more improvement than I believed I was getting.
Seal up the air leakages
Yes, our 1981 apartment is leaky. I understood about the large bath tub openings and other plumbing penetrations since I have actually seen them from the cellar. I really did not recognize that the wall surfaces were sheathed with asphalt-impregnated fiberboard (Celotex) that provided lots of air leakage pathways. Again, searching the bright side, that indicates I'll have the ability to make even more enhancement compared to I would certainly believed.
I cannot wait to do a blower door test when it's all done. Sadly, I won't be able to separate out the improvement due only to my bathroom work. The proprietors' organization simply had the whole floor sealed with spray foam insulation. I'm presuming our complete air leak will be around half of what it was.
Install an exhaust follower and also repair ductwork
Did I discuss our condo was built in the 80's? The master bathroom has a home window, so naturally, it didn't require an exhaust follower, right? Wrong. I have actually overcome a year of data on temperature and also family member humidity in that washroom without an exhaust follower. Now I'm placing one in as well as will accumulate a lot more data. Keep tuned for the results.
But even if your washroom already has a fan, I would certainly wager it does not move sufficient air. The normal bath follower moves about half its ranked air flow. If your bathroom fan isn't really easily accessible from the attic, opening the ceiling is the only way to obtain at the duct and also fix it. Just what you see in that image below prevails for bath follower ducts: sagging flex air duct that makes a lot of turns. (That's not my brand-new fan, incidentally.).
Solve other potentially unknown repair needs.
Numerous years ago we had to do some pipes work for the tub in the hall washroom. When the plumbing professionals had the wall opened, I asked them to put shutoffs in on the hot and cold water lines to make sure that if anyone had to service that pipes in the future, they wouldn't have to switch off the water to the whole building.
So they put in the shutoffs. When I opened the wall surface, I saw them and took this picture:.
I 'd use that shower a couple of times over the years and also constantly asked yourself why the stress was so low. Now I website understand. The plumbers installed the shutoffs yet after that didn't open them fully. Those red handles need to be straight in accordance with the pipelines. Good!
I also located that our ceiling had 2 layers of drywall. We have a smooth ceiling throughout our condominium, but the initial ceiling was stippled. Luckily, it wasn't a popcorn ceiling, which can consist of asbestos.
And I uncovered the initial, ugly wallpaper.
If you're redesigning a washroom, there a lot of good needs to go all the way and also digestive tract it completely. That's exactly what I'm doing. We're practically all set to start shutting it back in, so stay tuned for even more stories from the bathroom.