2008_02_28 Plumbing, tubs, showers, floor joist supports

On February 28th the tub for the upstairs bath arrived. Scott brought it up in his truck. Below Scott (left) and his brother, Steve (right), look at the jets on it.

Scott, Steve, and Steve's crew then picked it up and carried it to the house. I carried the heavy camera!

They managed to get it up the temporary stairs without either dropping it or having anyone fall off so it was a complete success. The tub is only about 5 feet long and 42 inches wide so it's not as big as some jetted tubs are, but it should be all Kathy might need or grand kids might need, etc so it should be sufficient.

Below you can see that this tub and the shower are designed to fit together so that they become a unit. You may be able to tell that the shower unit has to be picked up and then set down over the end of the tub. The shower does not yet have the glass door or the portion that completes the side of it that forms the "wall" at the end of the tub. They are glass and will be added later.

The area where Steve is standing could be left open, but we may put a linen cabinet of some type in there to fill that "hole". However, whatever we do we have to leave a way to access the machinery part of the tub in case it needs maintenance.

We could put a very shallow linen cabinet that only comes out to about half the width of the tub so that there would still be room available to get to the motor, etc of the tub. However, we could also put in one that is deeper than normal so that it comes all the way out so that it goes out as far as the tub and then just put in a removable panel in its side so it could be removed to gain access to the tub's working parts. I prefer that method I think, but it will make it very tight to get in the light switches that will be on the wall right by that door. The distance between the door frame and the cabinet would be barely enough for them to fit.

In the basement you can see all the metal straps that hold up the pipes that come from the sinks, shower, and toilet.

What you're looking at below is the shower in the master bathroom. It is an irregular shape as you can see. Why? Well, mostly because we wanted to have it as large as the space would allow and that made the log wall sides 4' 6" on the side to the right of the corner and 5' 0" on the side to the left of the corner. Also, it had to have inside wall sides that were a little bit different in length for a couple of reasons. We wanted to keep it as large inside as possible which meant having unequal lengths along the log walls and the shape of the master closet which is adjacent to the bathroom also affected the angle of the shower door.

If you have seen pictures before of the closet you may remember that the corner of it that would stick out toward the bathroom was chopped off to prevent it from extending into the bathroom area. Doing that allows there to be more wheelchair room in the bathroom if that's needed some day.

Now, back to how that affects the angle of the shower door! In order to keep it from looking "off" I wanted to keep the shower door to be parallel to the wall of the cut off closet. With them being parallel it will look OK to me, but if those two angles had not been parallel it would have (in my opinion anyway) made everything look too jumbled up.

There will be a fixed shower head on the "inside" wall that is on the right below. There will also be a separate hand held shower head mounted on a bar on the "inside" wall that is on the left that will allow it to be fixed at any height along the length of the bar or removed to be used by hand.

We also plan to put a corner shower seat and the best corner would seem to be the one in the corner of the two log walls. We'll need to make sure that that doesn't adversely affect the ability to put a wheelchair in there though. If it does then we could just continue to let Kathy use the shower seat we have now that she uses in our shower now.

The shower drain is just put in temporarily for now. It has nails that are nailed part way in and bent over holding it in, but the guy who puts in the pan and then builds the curved bottom with the mud (that's apparently what they call it) to give the tiles a curved base can unbend the nails so he can do his thing and then permanently install the shower drain when he's ready. At least that's how I understand it.

The tub/shower below is the one that is going into the bathroom in the basement. There will also be a toilet and a pedestal sink. We're not planning to spend a lot of money on the basement bathroom.

We had planned to just put in the plumbing for it should we (or someone else some day) want to put in the bathroom fixtures. However, the builder thought that we'd not save a lot of money doing that and it would be easier to do it now than later. In the grand scheme of things the cost of the tub, toilet, sink, and faucets, etc won't be all that bad. At least this way if I want to make a quick trip to the bathroom or want to wash my hands if I'm working in the workshop they won't be too far away!

They had to remove 2 inches of the top of the floor joists underneath the shower in order to allow for the entrance to it to be virtually at the same level as the floor so that a wheelchair can roll into it without having to be faced with a raised barrier and still allow for about a 2 inch slope down to the drain.

What they did to accomplish this was to cut out the OSB board and cut out 2 inches from the top of the floor joists that had been supporting the floor (the OSB board). Once they removed 2 inches from the 2x10s they then became 2x8s. Since Scott wasn't happy reducing the strength of the floor joists he decided to buy some long pieces of angle iron that are about a quarter of an inch thick and about 4 inches along each side and use them to add support to the floor joists.

He had them drill holes every couple of feet through the angle iron and the floor joists and then they bolted the angle iron to the bottom of the floor joists to give them additional strength. I think that even if I gain a lot of weight the floor in the shower will still hold me!

Below you can see the plumbing to the tub/shower in the basement.

Below Scott is using a nail gun to frame up the shower walls in the master bath shower.

Scott is standing in the doorway. The area under the window is where Kathy would like to put a short cabinet or vanity that will allow her to put on her makeup, etc there.

I guess we have to get shutters for all the windows in the bathrooms, kitchens, etc on the first floor. We went to the large home and garden show in Birmingham on Friday and got lots of good info on businesses that do everything from shutters, to garage storage solutions, to gutters that keep leaves out, people who make mantels, create water features (which Kathy would like some day), and lots of other things. We already have asked one gutter company to come out and give us an estimate on Monday.