Basement Bathroom

Hi I am new to all of this.

We just built a house. We want to put a bathroom in the basement.

The contractor put a fixture in so we can install a toilet and a fixture so we can inastall a sink when we are ready.

My problem is that he never put in anything that we can install a shower.

How hard will it be to do that? Will we have to bust up the concrete flooring and put in what a drain?

And if we just want to put in vinyl or those peel and stick squares do we have to put a sibflooring before the sink, toilet and shower?

Thank you

You'll need to open up the floor to run a new drain line and probably a vent line for the shower. How deep you need to go will depend, and where is dependent on where the existing lines are.

Ideally, the shower drain is located in the middle of the planned shower floor. That line must be a 2" drain, but can go bigger but never smaller in its route to the main drain.

If you are going to be tiling things...suggest you look over at www.johnbridge.com for help on that subject. You might want to look at www.schluter.com for their Kerdi stuff or over on www.wedi.de for their Fundo stuff.

I'm in the middle of such a project myself.

It's always possible (assuming you have the height) to build the shower on a 2x6 base, and have it drain above ground into the basin, but if you want to make it look professional, you'll have to dig a trench to the drain. If you want advice on how to do this yourself , write me, I'll give you my experience; otherwise you can have a pro do it.

As far as the flooring, you can adhere vinyl directly to concrete, but I wouldn't for 2 reasons: it'll be cold, and it'll be hard. I'd instead use subflooring panels (made out of osb and plastic). Do a search for "Subflor" or "Dricore". I love these products. The only downside is that this'll add 7/8" to the height of yr floor. But if you can tolerate, I'd do it. Subflooring should be done before any fixtures are installed, since the toilet will have to go on top of it. The shower will likely go directly on the concrete, so it's not an issue there. If you decide to peel and stick, you can install the toilet directly on the 'crete and 'tile' around the base.

If you DO use a subfloor, you'll need to nail it in place to the concrete at least under the toilet. Also, unless you're doing floating laminate, you'll have to nail portions of the perimeter too.



FYI, 'fixture' usually refers to a working device like a toilet, or sink faucet. What your plumber put in for you is 'drain and vent pipe stubs'.

Installing a shower on a platform is really tacky.

My sister has a cabin with a raised tub, they built up the floor so the drain could be above it.

Everytime I step out of that tub I just about kill myself.
The last thing I'm thinking about, is that its up another step.

Break the concrete.
Vinyl can be glued right onto the concrete.

tile

If there is a hydrostatic water problem, then the moisture coming through the concrete may cause the peel and stick tile to come loose. But whatever you do, DO NOT install the toilet first and then tile around it. Or if you do, make sure you keep some extra pieces of tile for the time when you want, or have, to change the toilet and the new one does not fit the hole in the tile.

Call your contractor too

DandA

You just built a house. The contractor is worth calling. Remember what he tells you. Share it here. This'll help. Tons of new information.

The Wedi Fundo shower base is made to go on top of a platform too. Wedi sells this whole kit, with platform too if yo wish. See their web site. Call their tech support guy, in the US. Name is Bastian. Can be good if you don't want to break the concrete. I would feel comfortable breaking concrete, but maybe you don't.

David