Bathroom remodel advice

[TopCatGr58]

Hey guys,

I'm hoping there are some plumbers and construction folks out there that can give me some advice. The Scenario...90 y/o mom that can't get up the stairs to the full bathrooms there. Have 1/2 bath downstairs with toilet and vanity/sink, so have plumbing access to add hot/cold supply lines and drains to put in a small SHOWER into the 1/2 bath. I read online about how the shower has to have at least 900 sq. inches of floor space?? I have made a simple diagram of the existing space, toilet/sink placement, and where I think we can put the shower...about 24" x 36" but that's only 864 sq inches?? Also read/learned that the door doesn't necessarily have to open inwards into the space...so reversing the direction of door is also in the possible plans.

The house was built in 1996, is on a crawl space, so pulling up the floor to access the piping isn't a problem, and I'm assuming the wall will need to be cut into to run the supply pipe up for the shower head as well as the controls.

I've been having difficulty finding a local contractor. I checked with one of those fancy remodeling places that advertise locally on TV, and they are used to expanding/enlarging bathrooms and such, but still quoted me $10-15K for this job!!! That sounded rather exorbitant to me??

Can someone give me some realistic quotes of what I should expect for this type of job? Wife was also thinking about putting down floor tile vs. linoleum. And the shower would be one of those free standing type, but secured to the wall on 2 sides of course. I found some examples of shower stalls/grabrails and such for like $2k on the Lowes site.

Any thoughts, ideas, suggestions.
Thanks in advance, T.C.

[Radioguylogs]

Near Future?

Do you need to consider the possibility that a wheelchair could happen not long after you make significant modifications?

[rdmcguy]

Shower stall

Tc....Unless you are pulling a permit I don't know if you would be terribly concerned about square inches of floor space,you might want to look into a neo angle shower (google it) Here in Colorado the going rate for each plumbing fixture(as it comes out of wall) is $1,500... that is labor only.I am assuming you are looking for a contractor versus doing it yourself?

[bikerphil]

I would try to find a stand alone shower and squeeze it in there and run a few pipes yourself, save some bucks that way. You could put it in another room even.

[mack]

reno

I’m with Phil on this. With a crawl space to work with, you can do almost anything TC. If it was my place I’d change the configuration completely. Having the door swing out is a good idea. I’d put in a corner style, self contained shower, switch the vanity and toilet locations and turn the vanity to run along the back wall and move the toilet to in front of the door opening. This way a walker or wheel chair could be accommodated in the future. Also you wouldn’t need to touch the wall the return air grill and thermostat is on. If you don’t sweat copper or are uncomfortable with open flames in your crawl space, go with “pex”. The drainage pipes should be all ABS so that is easy to work with changing the trap locations. You can move a toilet 5 feet from the main drainage stack which I would imagine is in the wall beside the existing toilet location. Showers have a 2 inch trap and sinks have 1 ¼ traps with 1 ¼ vents. You can get most of this work done by only cutting the lower portion of the drywall out on two walls. Remember to put in an exhaust fan on the exterior wall, the power for this should be able to be fished to the light switch.

[XJOK2PLAY]

TC,
While I'm an electrical contractor and not a plumber, a lot of my friends are plumbing contractors.

I can tell you this much...
The average hourly rate for plumbers in the Tulsa, Ok area is usually $100-$125/hr.

Most can work pretty fast.

Cost of a one piece, drop in shower stall should average around $1500.
But that can vary. Tile prices vary a lot.

I would say $6-$10k. $10-$15k sounds vary high end to me.
But, not sure what hourly rates are in your neck of the woods, either. Maybe plumbers there make a lot more per hour?

[mack]

$$$

I'm in Canada so I have no idea what the costs are down there but I too thought the quote was grossly padded. If I was down there aside from the cost of your choice of shower, I bet I could do it all myself for 3K. PEX is very easy to work with and is flexible so you can fish it around. You need a cutter and clamper but that's it for tools. ABS, a hack saw. No reason you couldn't do it yourself. Electrical is another story for most but one fan is nothing. Just as a side note, I think those are the old asbestos tiles on the floor. You don't need a permit to remove and dispose of them but be careful and try to get them up without breaking them and wear a mask just in case.

[Radioguylogs]

Afterthought

Another thought:

I have found that older people need a grab rail next to the toilet to get up.

In my homes, the towel bar next the toilet gets pulled out by older guests.

[TopCatGr58]

Hey Mack,

After seeing your "little" deck video, I have no doubt that you could do this project! I replaced our toilet upstairs this past weekend, but all of the plumbing was already there, just replacing parts. But actually creating new splices/junctions and such is just a bit beyond my comfort zone. I've contacted yet another contractor, sent him the diagram and photos I posted here, was supposed to possibly come by this afternoon after work, but traffic from his city to my city in this metroplex was quite horrible today, so he wasn't able to get here. Hoping he'll be able to give me a rough estimate on the work from what I've shown him. Yeah, grab rail along the toilet side is a good idea and will add that to the job. The floor is just plain linoleum I put down a year or so ago, no asbestos around, house was built in '96, well beyond the cutoff for asbestos use.

T.C.

[mack]

Reno

How's your bathroom reno going TC. You'll never guess what I'm doing now. Renovation my wifes downstairs bathroom!!!!