Why You Ought To Totally Demo Your Restroom When You Remodel



If your home is old enough for a restroom renovation, you might want to go on and also totally gut it. I started my bathroom remodel last month with a complete demolition. If I hadn't, a variety of problems would have been inaccessible for repair ... and even obscure. Here's exactly what I discovered when I opened the wall surfaces and ceiling of my 1981 apartment below in the Quad Cities.

Fix plumbing surprises
Here's another point I located. I'm not a pipes professional, but I see an issue right here. Picture if that section of common drainpipe line for our back-to-back sinks obtained obstructed. Currently picture running a snake in there from one sink. Do you think it would make the turn? Possibly not. We altered it out and also counter the two.

Repair termite damages
When I opened up the exterior wall, I found termite damage in 2 locations: the king stud, jack stud, as well as cripple on the bathtub side of the window and the jack stud beyond of the window. The good news is that the damage was done long ago. As long as I have actually lived right here, the owners' association has stayed up to date with termite therapy as well as surveillance, however I understand there was a duration when they didn't. Therefore the damages I located.

Replace decomposed subflooring
In addition to the termite-damaged wall surface, I also discovered rotten subflooring near the bath tub. This was mostly from obtaining as well damp, and also I thought it due to the fact that tiles had started popping up because location.

Offset no or little insulation
I knew we had insulation in our wall surfaces. I assumed it was R-11 fiberglass batts because our upstairs next-door neighbor's icemaker had a bad leak a few years back, taking out half of our laundry room ceiling as well as part of the wall surface. The usual wall surface had R-11 batts. I figured the remainder of the wall surfaces did, as well. I recognized they had insulation due to the fact that I have actually inspected behind switch as well as receptacle plates.
I got a little surprise when I took the drywall off of that outside washroom wall surface and also saw this:

This is in fact an advantage, in a way, due to the fact that it suggests I'll obtain even more renovation than I believed I was going to get.

Seal up the air leaks
Yes, our 1981 condominium is leaky. I knew about the big bath tub holes and also various other pipes infiltrations since I've seen them from the basement. I really did not understand that the walls were encased with asphalt-impregnated fiberboard (Celotex) that gave lots of air leak pathways. Once again, searching the silver lining, that implies I'll be able to make more enhancement than I would certainly believed.

I cannot wait to do a blower door examination when it's all done. Sadly, I will not be able to separate out the enhancement due just to my washroom job. The proprietors' organization simply had the whole floor sealed with spray foam insulation. I'm presuming our total air leakage will be around half of just what it was.

Mount an exhaust fan and repair ductwork
Did I state our apartment was built in the 80's? The master bath has a window, so naturally, it didn't need an exhaust fan, right? Wrong. I've overcome a year of information on temperature level and relative humidity in that restroom without an exhaust fan. Now I'm putting one in as well as will collect more information. Remain tuned for the results.

However even if your restroom already has a follower, I 'd wager it does not move sufficient air. The typical bathroom follower moves about half its ranked air flow. If your bath fan isn't really accessible from the attic room, opening up the ceiling is the only means to get at the air duct and repair it. Exactly what you see in that image below prevails for bath follower 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.
Several years ago we needed to do some pipes help the bathtub in the hall restroom. When the plumbing technicians had the wall opened up, I asked to place shutoffs in on the hot and cold water lines to make sure that if any individual needed to deal with that plumbing in the future, they wouldn't need to turn off the water to the whole building.
So they put in the valves. When I opened up the wall surface, I saw them and also took this photo:.



I would certainly utilize that shower a few times over the years and also always wondered why the stress was so low. Currently I understand. The plumbings set up the shutoffs however after that didn't open them fully. Those red takes care of ought to be straight in line with the pipelines. Good!

I additionally found that our ceiling had 2 layers of drywall. We have a smooth ceiling throughout our condo, however the initial ceiling was stippled. Luckily, it wasn't a popcorn ceiling, which could include asbestos.

And I found the click here initial, gruesome wallpaper.

If you're remodeling a shower room, there a great deal of excellent needs to go all the way and intestine it completely. That's what I'm doing. We're nearly all set to begin shutting it back in, so remain tuned for more stories from the shower room.

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