Bathroom Layout Help!

[Jeff Bridges]

Hey BP, I need help figuring out how to deal with a weird bathroom layout! Please provide feedback if at all possible. Older house with not ideal bathroom layout. Was thinking if there were better ways to re-position items and re plumb to allow for a cleaner layout. Let me know if I could leave it as-is or should try to change it.

Current layout (exterior wall with window is on top):

Here is my new proposed layout. I would need to plumb from the floor for both because that is an exterior wall on the top  Window would be behind the toilet (I'd put blinds/frosted glass filter):

let me know if you agree or have other suggestions!

[Jim K.]

@Jeff Bridges

Ah, finally we get the substance and avoid the humiliatingly ignorant chatter of those good people who would love to be able to move bathroom fixtures around arbitrarily in a remodel without being bothered by the pesky reality that, hmm, well, little chocolate children must flow consistently downward in order to leave a bathroom.

Can you cross a joist with the 3-inch (that's actually internal diameter, it's 3.5 inches outer diameter for Schedule 40 PVC or ABS) waste pipe of your commode, by drilling a big-a$$ hole through a joist to get it through and weaken it significantly? It is theoretically possible, especially if you reinforce the joist six ways from Tuesday with additional sistered joists and a custom-fabricated angle iron, but it will add a LOT of money to your renovation. How much? The technical term in the trades is a "f**k-ton of money."

Your proposed layout will have you taking the commode's waste pipe through at least four joists (that's four big-a$$ holes, for the mathematically challenged) if you run it back to the original waste stack, while I suspect that the way the math will works out on the toilet placement that you're going to have to saw directly THROUGH a joist to get the toilet in approximately where you want it and run the waste pipe back right next to the joist sloping 1/4 in. per linear foot in order to run it to the secondary stack, which has yet to be proved to my satisfaction is actually a full-size 3-inch stack. Can you run a 3 inch pipe it approximately 5 feet and angle it so that it fits in the space created by the joist? It will require 5 inches of space top to bottom of the sloped waste pipe. The minimum working thickness of those joists is going to be 2x6, which will provide you with 5 1/2 inches, which . Doing this will cost, as we say in the trades, "a f**k-ton and a half of money." And getting the slope exactly right and hanging it correctly so that it never shifts is not an easy thing for a first-timer to do.

Something else might further complicate this issue. How old is the property, and it is platform framed or balloon framed?  We're talking cast-iron stacks and multiple vents through the roof...that points to older construction. Depending on the answer to that question, you might have to drill a big-a$$ hole through a structural wall plate or other structural support to get to the stack -- I don't know how your house was constructed.

All of these rather salient questions should be answered by a knowledgeable person on site, preferably an insured contractor, not remodeling dilettantes who know just as much about the realities of renovating bathrooms as they have been taught by the people who produce flip shows on HGTV.

But as you have discovered, if you put a bathroom layout up on Bigger Pockets, everyone's got an opinion, just like they all have buttholes and have sat on commodes all their lives and a very large percentage of them have always preferred never to think about where their aforementioned little chocolate children might go after they flush. That's for dirty, dirty manual laborers like me to worry about. They were made for finer things. They were made to order subhuman, nasty folks like me around.

So how about this, Jeff...you leave the commode right where it is and finish up the bathroom all nice and neat and live with the less than perfect results you're going to get? Live and prepare yourself for the next bathroom reno, which you'll begin far more knowledgeable about the process and better prepared to do major surgery on your home?

Should you replace all the cast-iron piping with PVC, since you have the place gutted? Ideally, yes, I would do that for my long-term peace of mind. But again, I'm not on-site. I don't know your situation or how difficult it is going to be to get at all this pipe in those two stacks, and all the outlets and vents and whatnot. And there are still more questions to be answered...what's the floor like in that bathroom? If it's a thickset tile floor with most of the DWW plumbing embedded in it, and the joists have already been thinned to handle the installation, all of this is even more bumbleheaded speculation than it's been so far.