Shower drain rough-in

[petrogias]

Hello Everyone,
Just registered, Great site!. I have a basement bathroom project that I am working on and it would be great to have some advise from the experts.
The rough in was done when the house was built (10 yrs old). I measured the drain to the finished walls at about 15 and 14.5 inches, however all the prefab corner shower bases or complete prefab showers that I have seen so far seem to have the drain location at 12/12 inches.
Don't understand if this was the standard back then and it is different now. The toilet rough-in is correct at 12 inches.

Is there solution to relocate the drain without breaking up the concrete. As you can see from the pictures the 2" pvc is not glued at the moment and there is some wiggle room but not 3", also there is a 7" pvc around the drain, don't know what this is for.

Thank You for your input.

[hj]

The standard for a corner stall is usually 12" x 12" but there were, and may still be, some where it was 16" x 16" or 18" x 18", but they may be hard to find without a special order. It will be faster and cheaper to break the concrete and move the drain to the proper location. The larger pipe was to provide room for the shower's drain fitting.

[johnfrwhipple]

It's really not that hard to build a custom shower pan in the big picture. I'm sure your local building pool will have dozen's of crews able to do this for you. Check with the NTCA for a qualified installer near you.

The shower pans from AKW can build a barrier free shower and the shower pans are sizeable. A 36" x 36" drain pan could be cut down to size.

Schluter makes a sizeable shower pan as well - make sure your tile choice accepts non-modifed thinset if you go this route.

Noble Company makes countless shower building products and world class membranes.

LAticrete has new shower pans coming onto the market any week now as well.

Tons of options.

JW

[jadnashua]

It's generally best to have the drain in the middle of the shower, but it can be nearly anywhere. If it is in the middle, the elevation changes in all directions will end up about equal. When you move the drain from the middle, while maintaining the minimum of 1/4"/foot slope, since it looks best to have the pan even all around the wall/tile interface, the shorter section must have a bigger slope to account for the height change required for the longer section.

[petrogias]

Thank You Everyone for all the input and options, I will follow up on this. I also spoke with a couple of local shower manufactures and they suggested that I could also build a base which would, by using a couple of elbows allow me to relocate the drain to align with the pan. Is this approach acceptable?
If so, the height of the base would depend I guess on the new location plus the height of the drain. What is the typical height of a drain fitting and are some better than others?

[jadnashua]

There is a limit on the total amount of change of direction you can have in a drain line...adding elbows to offset things is NOT a good idea. Maybe one, but to do that, you'll probably have to break up some concrete.

OR, make a custom pan, then the drain can be anywhere. If doing a tiled pan, it's easy to make it any size with the drain anywhere. This isn't really all that hard.

[cacher_chick]

If you want to have a nice finished project, moving the drain is just another part of the job. Pouring a little concrete will be one of the easier parts. A lot of people think it's a big deal, but in the bigger picture, it is not at all.

[johnfrwhipple]

There is a limit on the total amount of change of direction you can have in a drain line...adding elbows to offset things is NOT a good idea. Maybe one, but to do that, you'll probably have to break up some concrete. ...

Jim I see plumbers off set above PTraps all the time. Often it's a couple 45's back to back to adjust a little or with a slight section of pipe for more space. Looks like quite a bit of vertical height there in the picture. I'm sure if she needed an inch or two of play she could achieve it without busting up concrete.

JW

[cacher_chick]

I guess if you really wanted to take the easy way out, you could put in new wall framing at the measurements required for the shower you want. This would result in loosing a few square feet, but would be invisible once the room is finished.

[dw85745]

Just a word of CAUTION:

Before you start breaking concrete make sure you are not on a POST TENSION SLAB.

[cacher_chick]

Just a word of CAUTION:

Before you start breaking concrete make sure you are not on a POST TENSION SLAB.

Are post tension slabs ever used in a basement?

[hj]

quote; Just a word of CAUTION:

Before you start breaking concrete make sure you are not on a POST TENSION SLAB

HOW would they EVER "post tension" a basement slab? And why would they even have to?

[dw85745]

Are post tension slabs ever used in a basement?

Most likely not -- but personally I'd check just to make sure. I know some contractors stencil "Post Tension" somewhere in the concrete (at least for garages)
but whether that is required and whether it was done early on when Post Tension first came out -- NOT sure. Just worth a check before breaking concrete so
someone doesn't get injured or killed. Kinda like using a backhoe. Better to check than hitting something underground.