intro & rough plumbing question

[ratherbefishing]

Hi all. I'm signing in from Atlanta, Ga. I've been reading and lurking a while, but this is my first post.

I'm getting ready to start the plumbing on my master bathroom addition. Since it's an addition, all four walls sit over rim joists and block walls. There's no access to any bottom plates. What's your favorite trick to get the hot and cold water pipes into the wall?

Thanks!

[dlarrivee]

There is no trick...

Your walls don't sit on top of the block wall, they sit on top of the subfloor which is on top of the joists...

Open up the wall, drill a hole in the bottom plate...

[Winslow]

Stubb them up in the toe kick of the lavatory then into the wall just above the plate.

[mtcummins]

Maybe this isn't as much of an issue in Atlanta, but here its generally a bad idea to put water supply lines into an exterior wall, which I'm assuming this is exterior if its over the block wall? Drain lines in these walls are fine, but water lines can freeze in my climate. Maybe you're far enough south to not have to worry about that, I dunno.

You can usually notch the bottom plate of the wall and bring lines up into the wall cavity on a 45 degree angle, especially at tubs and lavs, as the toekick space and tub dead space will cover them. This doesn't work as well for the toilet, but you can pull that off horizontally from the sink/tub inside the wall.

I've also double drilled in situations like this (from underneath and above to meet in the middle), on slight angles in both cases, to create kind of a curved hole through the rim joist and bottom plate of the wall, and pushed a pex line through it. this gets the pipe completely into the wall cavity. usually you'll want to metal plate the bottom plate to be sure you don't hit it with a drywall/baseboard fastener.

[ratherbefishing]

Thanks. The 45 degree through a notch in the plate was my best idea, too. That's how we did the sink drain. The wall isn't an exterior wall anymore. But it was. Now it's between the bedroom and new bathroom, open to the studs, gonna be drywalled. Shower's not an issue; pipes come up in the middle of the room. Only the sink and toilet are on this wall.

[ratherbefishing]

I got thru the bottom plate today. Came in from the bottom at a 45 degree angle, thru the ledger, rim joist, subfloor and bottom plate. For the sink, I started at the top, notched the plate, like we did for the drain. Then I came up from the bottom with a 1" spade bit. It looks like a beaver chewed a hole in the bottom plate, but I think it'll work. For the toilet, I just did the 1' spade bit from the bottom. Looks great.

I'm gonna try plumbing it with 1/2" copper and 45's. If things don't work out, I'll buy 15' of soft copper. There aren't any issues with soft copper in a bathroom wall, are there?