We added a half bath.
(video at bottom)
We had an oversized basement and only one bathroom in the house, so we decided to sacrafice some of the basement
space in order to add the half bath. So I started pricing out the materials and the permits that
would be required by the town. Any work done prior to selling the house would require the proper permits to
be taken out at the building department in town.
They required specific 'to scale drawings' of the room, the rough plumbing & electrical. Of course there is
a charge for each of the permits and items contained in them. I think it cost somewhere around $350-400 for
all the permits that were required.
I grabbed my tape measure and started laying out the room as I was planning to eventually build it. Keeping
in mind that everything needs to be to scale while taking the measurements and creating my visio diagrams.
Unfortunately the townships don't accept crayons drawings on a napkin and winging it (don't laugh they had one
framed in the office as an example). The default stencils included in visio were enough to get what I needed.
I made one for rough plumbing, one for electrical & one for the walls and fixtures. You can go back in the
video to see how mine looked.
So as a rule of thumb everyting in a sub basement setting on a concrete floor I build on a pad. I used the
recatangular patio blocks from home depoy. I used some self leveling cement and positioned the blocks to be
level and even. I went 4 blocks wide & 5 block long x 4" high.
Once the pad was done I went and ordered the materials I would need to rough in the water supplies, drains
& venting. I did the plumbing first because it requires pitch and slope, keep in mind poop rolls down hill.
The pipe sizes are in the drawings.
I then had to run electric because the room required a light with switch and an outlet for the mascerating
toilet. We went and picked up some 1/2" conduit and a couple of electrical boxes along with a light fixtureand wire.
I had a conduit bender so did the bending myself but could have bought corner connectors but since I had the bender.
We had to get a mascerating toilet because we were below grade to connect to the waste stack. Ihad an electrical
outlet close enough to use as a junction box that was only being used for the washer &dryer to supply electric
for the new half bath.
We then went and picked up the mascerating toilet and the small vanity along with the metal studs and sheetrock
Since all of our plumbing was exposed and we used metal conduit for the light we were okay with sheetrocking
the room before it was inspected. This may not be the case everywhere but was for our situation.
I also ended up adding a waste check valve, which is in one of the images. You can kind of get an idea where
I made my connections for the waste and vent from the images. The water supplies I took from near the washer
and dryer were connected.
When the inspector came he said that he was impressed with the drawings and that we went above and beyond was
required for inspection. Needless to say I passed my inspections and was able to get the CO to sell the house.
The video below is not advice or directions but was for informational purposes.
Subscribe if you would like to receive updates.
Uploaded 03/18
