Re-route existing shower vent for Niche

[Kevin121]

Hello - We are finally getting ready to finish our shower on our newer home that the builder roughed in for us. It is a standard 3' by 5' shower. The shorter walls are partition walls, and the long wall is on an exterior wall. We had been going back and forth on putting the shower niche on the exterior wall and loosing some of the insulation vs. on the partition wall and re-routing the vent. Our exterior walls are 2x6 and we live in Northeast Pennsylvania where the winters can be very cold. The one partition wall (out of view from the pictures) will be the shower wall with the fixtures, so my only other choice is putting is on the other partition wall where you see the shower's vent going vertical through the ceiling into the crawlspace above.

We want the niche to be roughly centered on the wall, and wanted to know if there are any issues with cutting out a section of the vent pipe, then re-routing the vent pipe over horizontally to the next stud bay, then up above the level the niche will occupy, and then connect back into the existing vent above. This will then allow us to install the niche in this location. I understand that the horizontal section should still slope in the direction of the drain to move out any rain water than gets into the vent. Are there any other issues that this would cause from a functional perspective? I think this is a better option for us than taking out some of the exterior wall insulation and risk damage to the insulation if there was ever some kind of leak.

I attached a couple of pictures of what I am thinking of doing. Any thoughts are appreciated!

 

[John Gayewski]

No issues with that.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[wwhitney]

If that's a non-bearing wall, another option is to cut the middle stud and install a niche next to the existing pipe. You could head off each end of the cut stud with a flat 2x4, with a u-notch at one end to slip around the vent pipe.

Cheers, Wayne

 

[Kevin121]

Thanks guys for the feedback! I am hoping this is the better option than putting it in the exterior wall.

 

[Kevin121]

Any tips for putting down-ward sloping pitch on the short horizontal run into the main vertical stack? I'm not sure how well the sloped pipe will fit into a fitting on the stack that is perfectly plumbed. I don't want water to be sitting inside those horizontal sections.