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Log home plumbing

I have a question and an idea about plumbing the bathroom in the loft so that no plumbing lines are visible or need to be covered on the first floor. Does anyone in the community have any experience with plumbing?

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Permalink Reply by Dianne on July 22, 2008 at 10:17am: Be quite interested in hearing your idea. I have no experience other than being told where the pipes had to go by the plumber. In both our log homes we have stacked the bathrooms. In our first home the downstairs bath had a ceiling put up to hide the pipes.

Our options in the new home are either to do the same thing, or to raise the bathroom floor up for the Master Bath.

Love to hear your idea.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Randy on July 23, 2008 at 4:24pm: Yes Dianne, my idea is to raise the part of the loft floor under the toilet and the shower and possibly use an RV toilet instead of the standard china toilet. That would allow the drain lines for both the shower and the toilet to be run into the wall behind and not have to penetrate the floor, which is also the ceiling of the bathroom below. Some of the RV toilets are very nice and work very well. Our plan right now is to stack all the plumbing right from the basement to the loft and keep all the pipes accessible by use of shelves/doors on the walls behind the plumbing fixtures. I was just wondering if anyone else has already tried this with success or not.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Glenn V on July 24, 2008 at 10:42pm: I wouldn't use an RV toilet because they are only used with around 45 psi water pressure which is well less than most home pressures. I guess you could use a pressure regulator inline. Some also don't hold water well to trap smells and constantly leak the water trap down. Most that I know of also are bottom drain.There are regular toilets that can be wall mounted. I have one in my house . No drain thru the floor but thru the wall and bolted to the wall .It is old and I am assuming that that style is still made.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Tom & Barbara Gaskell/Heritage Log Home Dealers/VA on July 28, 2008 at 9:01pm: Randy:

We have done it three ways in the log homes that we have built. The first is a drop ceiling in the downstairs but you have to be pretty inventive because the bathroom could be above the kitchen or a bedroom. The second is to raise the bathroom floor up high enough so that you will have the required slope in your drain lines to allow for flow. This will usually require a step up of at least eight inches. The third way we did it was to put a sleeper floor though out the second floor. The reason the customer did this was because he wanted enough space between the exposed ceiling below and the sleeper floor to not only allow for all of his pipe work as well as all of his duct work to run through this area. That way he didn't need an air handler upstairs and he could install recessed lighting without causing a conflict with his second floor. It was a little expensive since we had to increase the height of the second floor walls to allow for the required headroom. He felt it saved him a little money over all doing that way.

I hope this helps.

Tom; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ken Brown on July 31, 2008 at 10:31pm: I can send photos of what not to do. Stepped out while the plumber installed the second floor bathroom pipes. Came back the hole in the toungue and grove, the kitchen ceiling, was already cut. Now I have to wait for the house to do its settling and then I'll have to box the pipes in.; ▶ Reply to This