Why You Should Totally Demo Your Bathroom When You Remodel



If your home is old enough for a washroom remodelling, you might intend to go ahead and totally intestine it. I began my restroom remodel last month with a total demolition. If I had not, a variety of troubles would certainly have been unavailable for repair work ... and even obscure. Below's just what I located when I opened the wall surfaces and also ceiling of my 1981 condo here in the Quad Cities.

Fix plumbing surprises
Here's another thing I found. I'm not a plumbing expert, but I see a problem here. Think of if that section of typical drain line for our back-to-back sinks got clogged. Now imagine running a snake in there from one sink. Do you think it would certainly make the turn? Possibly not. We transformed it out as well as balance out the two.

Repair termite damage
When I opened the outside wall surface, I discovered termite damage in 2 areas: the king stud, jack stud, as well as cripple on the bathtub side of the home window as well as the jack stud on the other side of the window. The bright side is that the damages was done long ago. As long as I've lived here, the proprietors' association has stayed up to date with termite therapy and also tracking, but I recognize there was a period when they didn't. For this reason the damage I located.

Change rotted subflooring
Along with the termite-damaged wall, I additionally discovered rotten subflooring near the bathtub. This was primarily from getting also wet, and also I thought it because ceramic tiles had begun popping up in that location.

Make up for no or little insulation
I recognized we had insulation in our walls. I assumed it was R-11 fiberglass batts because our upstairs next-door neighbor's icemaker had a bad leak a couple of years ago, obtaining half of our utility room ceiling and part of the wall surface. The common wall had R-11 batts. I figured the remainder of the walls did, as well. I recognized they had insulation because I've examined behind switch as well as receptacle plates.
I obtained a little shock when I took the drywall off of that exterior shower room wall surface and saw this:

This is really an advantage, in such a way, because it implies I'll obtain even more improvement than I believed I was getting.

Seal up the air leakages
Yes, our 1981 apartment is leaky. I learnt about the huge bath tub openings and also other plumbing penetrations because I've seen them from the basement. I didn't understand that the walls were covered with asphalt-impregnated fiber board (Celotex) that supplied great deals of air leak paths. Once more, viewing on the silver lining, that suggests I'll have the ability to make even more renovation compared to I would certainly believed.

I cannot wait to do a blower door test when it's all done. Sadly, I won't be able to separate out the improvement due only to my bathroom job. The proprietors' organization simply had the whole floor sealed with spray foam insulation. I'm presuming our complete air leak will be around half of what it was.

Install an exhaust follower as well as repair ductwork
Did I mention our condo was constructed in the 80's? The master bathroom has a window, so naturally, it really did not require an exhaust fan, right? Incorrect. I have actually got over a year of information on temperature level as well as relative moisture in that bathroom without an exhaust follower. Currently I'm putting one in and will collect a lot more information. Remain tuned for the results.

But even if your restroom already has a follower, I 'd wager it does not relocate sufficient air. The normal bath fan stirs half its rated air flow. If your bathroom fan isn't accessible from the attic room, opening up the ceiling is the only way to obtain at the duct and repair it. Exactly what you see in that picture listed below is common for bathroom fan air ducts: sagging flex air duct that makes a lot of turns. (That's not my new follower, by the way.).

Fix other potentially unknown repair needs.
Numerous years ago we had to do some pipes work for the bathtub in the hall restroom. When the plumbings had the wall surface opened up, I asked to place shutoffs in on the hot and cold water lines to make sure that if anybody had to service that pipes in the future, they wouldn't have to shut off the water to the entire structure.
So they place in the shutoffs. When I opened the wall, I saw them as well as took this picture:.



I would certainly utilize that shower a few times for many years and also always questioned why check here the stress was so low. Now I comprehend. The plumbers set up the shutoffs but after that didn't open them fully. Those red takes care of must be straight according to the pipelines. Good!

I additionally located that our ceiling had two layers of drywall. We have a smooth ceiling throughout our condominium, but the original ceiling was stippled. Fortunately, it wasn't a snacks ceiling, which could include asbestos.

As well as I uncovered the initial, horrible wallpaper.

If you're renovating a shower room, there a lot of good reasons to copulate and also digestive tract it totally. That's what I'm doing. We're almost all set to start shutting it back in, so stay tuned for more stories from the washroom.

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