If your residence is old enough for a restroom remodelling, you could want to go on as well as completely intestine it. I began my shower room remodel last month with a full demolition. If I hadn't, a number of issues would have been unavailable for fixing ... or perhaps obscure. Right here's just what I discovered when I opened the walls and also ceiling of my 1981 condo here in the Quad Cities.
Take care of pipes shocks
Below's one more point I located. I'm not a pipes specialist, yet I see a trouble here. Envision if that area of typical drain line for our back-to-back sinks got blocked. Now think of running a snake in there from one sink. Do you believe it would certainly make the turn? Most likely not. We altered it out and offset both.
Repair termite damage
When I opened up the outside wall surface, I discovered termite damage in 2 areas: the king stud, jack stud, as well as paralyze on the bathtub side of the home window and also the jack stud beyond of the window. The good news is that the damages was done long ago. As long as I've lived here, the proprietors' association has stayed up to date with termite treatment and also tracking, but I recognize there was a duration when they didn't. Therefore the damages I found.
Change decomposed subflooring
In addition to the termite-damaged wall surface, I likewise discovered rotten subflooring near the bathtub. This was primarily from obtaining as well wet, and I believed it since ceramic tiles had begun turning up because location.
Make up for no or little insulation
I understood we had insulation in our wall surfaces. I assumed it was R-11 fiberglass batts since our upstairs next-door neighbor's icemaker had a negative leak a few years earlier, securing half of our laundry room ceiling and also part of the wall surface. The common wall had R-11 batts. I figured the rest of the wall surfaces did, too. I knew they had insulation due to the fact that I've examined behind button and also receptacle plates.
I got a little shock when I took the drywall off of that outside shower room wall and also saw this:
This is actually an advantage, in a way, due to the fact that it suggests I'll get more enhancement than I believed I was getting.
Seal up the air leaks
Yes, our 1981 condominium is leaking. I understood about the large tub openings and other plumbing infiltrations since I have actually seen them from the cellar. I really did not understand that the walls were encased with asphalt-impregnated fiberboard (Celotex) that supplied lots of air leak paths. Once again, looking on the bright side, that means I'll be able to make even more improvement compared to I 'd believed.
I can not wait to do a blower door examination when it's all done. However, I will not have the ability to separate out the renovation due just to my washroom job. The owners' association simply had the whole floor sealed with spray foam insulation. I'm thinking our complete air leak will be around half of what it was.
Install an exhaust fan as well as repair ductwork
Did I state our condo was built in the 80's? The master bath has a home window, so naturally, it really did not require an exhaust fan, right? Incorrect. I've overcome a year of data on temperature and relative moisture because shower room without an exhaust fan. Now I'm placing one in as well as will gather a lot more data. Stay tuned for the outcomes.
Yet even if your shower room currently has a follower, I 'd wager it doesn't relocate enough air. The common bath follower moves about half its ranked air flow. If your bath fan isn't accessible from the attic room, opening the ceiling is the only method to get at the air duct and also fix it. Exactly what you see in that picture below is common for bathroom fan air ducts: sagging flex air duct that makes way too many turns. (That's not my brand-new follower, by the way.).
Solve other potentially unidentified repair needs.
Several years ago we had to do some plumbing benefit the tub in the hall shower room. When the plumbers had the wall opened, I asked them to place valves know the hot and cold water lines to make sure that if any person had to work on that pipes in the future, they wouldn't need to switch off the water to the entire building.
So they put in the shutoffs. When I opened the wall surface, I saw them as well as took this image:.
I 'd use that shower a few times over the years and constantly asked yourself why the stress was so low. Now I understand. The plumbers installed the shutoffs yet after that really did not open them completely. Those red deals with should be straight in line with the pipelines. Great!
I also found that our ceiling had 2 layers of drywall. We have a smooth ceiling throughout our condominium, but the initial ceiling was stippled. The good news is, it had not been a popcorn ceiling, which can consist of asbestos.
And I uncovered the original, hideous wallpaper.
If you're redesigning a shower room, there a lot of excellent reasons to go all get more info the way as well as gut it entirely. That's exactly what I'm doing. We're almost all set to start shutting it back in, so stay tuned for even more stories from the washroom.