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Supply Ran Through Foundation - Freeze Issue?
The plumber completed the rough-in for the new bathroom yesterday. One thing I noticed - he used a chipping hammer to carve a notch out of the foundation so that the lav DWV and supply can be in the wall. At one point, there is maybe 3" of concrete between the smurf tube containing the pex and the outside air. Is this going to be a freezing issue?
Because I am not a plumber, and don't know what I am doing, I probably would have put the DWV in the wall like he did, but ran the supply through the floor.
If the space where the pipes are located is allowed to cool to outside temperatures, then yes, it could be a problem. You could finish the room in such a way which keeps that area at the interior temperature. If you are insulating, it must be between the outside and the pipes.
It would be difficult to insulate behind it in the foundation without chipping out another 1/2". I guess that would be an option if I came up with a chipping hammer some where. Or, I could probably grind it out.
It may be a non-issue. I always over think and worry too much.
Here are a couple of photos. My apologies for the lousy quality - they are chopped out of much larger pictures.
Is this a residence? More often than not such a structure would have a framed wall inside of it, which would allow the plumbing to come to the interior of the foundation. The hot and the cold should be supported and separated to prevent hot/cold transfer between them. I would not leave the hot running behind the vent on the concrete.
It is a residence. That is an 8" wide foundation and will have a 6" wall on it flush with the outside.
The pex in picture is in smurf tube and that may help a little.
That pex is for a lav and daisy-chains to a shower half-wall a few feet away. Do you think it would be better to pull out the lav pex and just run it through the shower half-wall into wall behind the lav later? If it was ran only in the wall, it would have around R20 behind it (as opposed to less than R1 where it passes through the foundation).
The pictures below illustrate the proximity to the shower.
Last edited by RPN; 10-19-2012 at 12:13 PM. Reason: Typo
It was pretty silly of him to put in those lengths of pex to the lav if he understood the plumbing arrangement. It appears that it will be too short to get to the shower valve unless more pieces are spliced in. I would keep everything in the interior framed walls as much as possible. All piping should be installed on the warm side of the insulation.
Last edited by cacher_chick; 10-19-2012 at 07:31 PM.
I will double check the height tomorrow. The angle of the picture may be making it look a bit short. Is smurf tube pretty easy to pull through if I decide to replace the pex with a longer piece after the concrete is down?
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