If your home is old enough for a shower room renovation, you may want to go ahead and totally digestive tract it. I started my restroom remodel last month with a total demolition. If I hadn't, a number of problems would certainly have been inaccessible for repair ... and even undiscovered. Here's just what I discovered when I opened the walls and ceiling of my 1981 apartment right here in the Quad Cities.
Repair pipes surprises
Below's one more thing I discovered. I'm not a pipes expert, but I see an issue right here. Imagine if that area of common drainpipe line for our back-to-back sinks got blocked. Currently think of running a snake in there from one sink. Do you assume it would make the turn? Most likely not. We changed it out and balance out both.
Repair termite damages
When I opened up the exterior wall, I located termite damages in 2 places: the king stud, jack stud, as well as paralyze on the tub side of the home window and also the jack stud beyond of the window. Fortunately is that the damage was done long ago. As long as I've lived right here, the owners' association has stayed on top of termite therapy as well as tracking, however I comprehend there was a period when they didn't. Thus the damage I located.
Change decomposed subflooring
Along with the termite-damaged wall, I likewise discovered rotten subflooring near the tub. This was mainly from getting too wet, and I presumed it since ceramic tiles had actually started popping up because area.
Make up for no or little insulation
I knew 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 ago, securing half of our utility room ceiling and also part of the wall. The typical wall had R-11 batts. I figured the rest of the walls did, also. I knew they had insulation since I have actually examined behind switch 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 in fact a good thing, in a way, since it indicates I'll obtain more enhancement compared to I believed I was going to get.
Seal the air leaks
Yes, our 1981 condo is leaky. I learnt about the large bath tub openings as well as other pipes infiltrations since I've seen them from the basement. I really did not understand that the walls were sheathed with asphalt-impregnated fiber board (Celotex) that gave great deals of air leakage paths. Once again, searching the bright side, that suggests I'll have the ability to make more renovation than I would certainly believed.
I can't wait to do a blower door examination when it's all done. Sadly, I will not be able to separate out the renovation due only to my washroom work. The owners' organization just had the whole flooring secured with spray foam insulation. I'm thinking our overall air leak will be around half click here of what it was.
Set up an exhaust follower as well as solution ductwork
Did I mention our condominium was constructed in the 80's? The master bathroom has a window, so naturally, it really did not need an exhaust fan, right? Wrong. I've got over a year of data on temperature level and also relative humidity in that restroom without an exhaust fan. Now I'm putting one in and will collect more data. Stay tuned for the outcomes.
Yet even if your washroom currently has a fan, I 'd wager it doesn't relocate sufficient air. The normal bath fan stirs half its rated air flow. If your bathroom fan isn't really available from the attic room, opening the ceiling is the only way to obtain at the duct and repair it. What you see because picture listed below is common for bathroom fan air ducts: sagging flex air duct that makes a lot of turns. (That's not my brand-new fan, incidentally.).
Resolve other potentially unidentified repair needs.
A number of years ago we needed to do some plumbing help the bathtub in the hall shower room. When the plumbers had the wall opened, I inquired to put valves in on the cold and hot water lines to ensure that if any individual needed to work on that plumbing in the future, they would not need to switch off the water to the whole building.
So they put in the valves. When I opened up the wall, I saw them as well as took this image:.
I 'd make use of that shower a couple of times for many years and constantly questioned why the stress was so low. Currently I understand. The plumbers set up the shutoffs but after that really did not open them fully. Those red takes care of ought to be straight in line with the pipes. Wonderful!
I also discovered that our ceiling had 2 layers of drywall. We have a smooth ceiling throughout our condo, however the initial ceiling was stippled. Thankfully, it had not been a snacks ceiling, which can contain asbestos.
And I found the initial, horrible wallpaper.
If you're redesigning a restroom, there a lot of great reasons to go all the way and digestive tract it totally. That's exactly what I'm doing. We're nearly prepared to start closing it back in, so stay tuned for even more tales from the shower room.