Hello!
I need to run a water pipe from the middle of the house to an exterior wall to replace the existing frostproof faucet and move the placement.
When the house was built in the 70s, they thought it was a good idea to run a copper pipe under the slab from the house's central wall to the exterior wall. The copper pipe thus emerges through the exterior wall's bottom plate and inside the bedroom's exterior wall is the frostproof faucet connected.
Since I don't want the frostproof faucet on the facade behind our dining area or have old, potentially brittle copper pipes in the house, I'm considering alternatives and have come up with the following solution for which I'd like feedback.
The bedroom located between the bathroom and the exterior wall is to be renovated, and in conjunction with that, I'm considering routing a 25 mm conduit for PEX piping in the uninsulated slab. I don't want to cut into the reinforcement, so the idea is to lay the pipe quite shallow in the slab before casting over it. In the bathroom, the PEX pipe is conventionally connected with a valve, but at the exterior wall, I wasn't planning on using a regular frostproof faucet. Instead, I'm considering drilling diagonally down through the edge beam so that the pipe comes out under the facade and below the ground level. Once outside, I can place the pipe in a larger hose or pipe to protect it further when I run it to a post in the lawn where I'll install a valve.
Is it an issue that I will cool down the slab far up when I flush water? Uninsulated slabs are already a risk-prone construction, but the cooling in this case will be very localized and only during the warm months of the year.
Do I need to worry about cutting reinforcement in the slab's edge beam when drilling to pull out a 25 mm pipe?
The plan is to empty the pipe every fall to avoid freezing, even if the PEX pipe should withstand freezing. Since I’m also placing a valve in the bathroom, the line won't normally be pressurized, and if it should still leak, it would drain through the conduit into the garden.
Is this even a good idea?
I need to run a water pipe from the middle of the house to an exterior wall to replace the existing frostproof faucet and move the placement.
When the house was built in the 70s, they thought it was a good idea to run a copper pipe under the slab from the house's central wall to the exterior wall. The copper pipe thus emerges through the exterior wall's bottom plate and inside the bedroom's exterior wall is the frostproof faucet connected.
Since I don't want the frostproof faucet on the facade behind our dining area or have old, potentially brittle copper pipes in the house, I'm considering alternatives and have come up with the following solution for which I'd like feedback.
The bedroom located between the bathroom and the exterior wall is to be renovated, and in conjunction with that, I'm considering routing a 25 mm conduit for PEX piping in the uninsulated slab. I don't want to cut into the reinforcement, so the idea is to lay the pipe quite shallow in the slab before casting over it. In the bathroom, the PEX pipe is conventionally connected with a valve, but at the exterior wall, I wasn't planning on using a regular frostproof faucet. Instead, I'm considering drilling diagonally down through the edge beam so that the pipe comes out under the facade and below the ground level. Once outside, I can place the pipe in a larger hose or pipe to protect it further when I run it to a post in the lawn where I'll install a valve.
Is it an issue that I will cool down the slab far up when I flush water? Uninsulated slabs are already a risk-prone construction, but the cooling in this case will be very localized and only during the warm months of the year.
Do I need to worry about cutting reinforcement in the slab's edge beam when drilling to pull out a 25 mm pipe?
The plan is to empty the pipe every fall to avoid freezing, even if the PEX pipe should withstand freezing. Since I’m also placing a valve in the bathroom, the line won't normally be pressurized, and if it should still leak, it would drain through the conduit into the garden.
Is this even a good idea?
Why should you go down in the plattan?
Can't it be in the bedroom floor?
Can't it be in the bedroom floor?
Aha, oh, so no insulation downwards at all? I thought that was only in basements, doesn't sound very comfortableB Bordsduk said:
Well, that wasn't really the question at hand.
What is the status of the rest of the plumbing? It sounds like, at least in the long run, you have a bigger challenge than the outside faucet?
I'm personally a bit skeptical of built-in summer water solutions. I've seen a number of those freeze and break, so they obviously tend to be forgotten sooner or later. But that's just an opinion.
The floor is constructed as follows, from the bottom up:C cpalm said:Aha, oh, no insulation at all downwards then? Thought that only occurred in basements, doesn't sound very comfortable
Well, that wasn’t really the question.
What is the status of other plumbing? Sounds like you, at least in the long run, have a bigger challenge than the spigot?
I am personally a bit skeptical of built-in summer water solutions. I've seen several frozen ones, so obviously, they tend to be forgotten sooner or later. But that's just an opinion.
Compacted sand
Plastic (to protect against moisture from below)
100 mm mineral wool
Reinforced concrete
Given the construction, I assume the mineral wool is not dry. The plastic protecting against ground moisture is outside the condensation point.
So technically it is insulation but practically, I’m skeptical of its function.
The house was built when electricity was cheap, and this is reflected in the amount of insulation generally in the floor, walls, and roof. No, the floor comfort in the house is not very high, but not as bad as one might think, I personally use indoor slippers even though it's not a problem to walk in just socks.
The status of other plumbing, in my assessment, is quite (very) bad. Not only are there hidden soldered joints and other built-in sources of risk where leaks would not be detected, but the pipes are also quite thin in some places (though I think this mainly concerns the hot water pipes). The plumber managed to break a copper pipe when he was here last time (he is not a bumbler, so it was not handling error). Therefore, I have little confidence in how long the pipes will remain leak-proof and have started replacing the copper pipes with PEX in the rooms I have renovated. So yes, the spigot is not my only problem, but the only one, apart from the kitchen, that is not easily accessible for plumbing.
I agree with you that there is a very high risk of freezing and knowing myself, it won't be many years before I forget to drain it in the fall and it freezes in the pipes. But I am relying (perhaps foolishly?) on the PEX pipes being able to withstand freezing and that if the pipes were to crack, the lowest point of the conduit opens outdoors (and with a valve indoors that is turned off when the pipe is not in use, this limits the amount of water released). Additionally, this way, I have created a way to relatively easily run new pipes in the conduit in the future if the PEX pipes were indeed to crack.
Or am I ignoring the risks and just trying to convince myself that this is a good idea?
Mainly thinking about drainage and how incoming water reaches the middle of the house(?)B Bordsduk said:
It hardly works with pipes above the floor there.
What I'm getting at is that perhaps there is reason to consider the question from a larger perspective.
Incoming water is a PE hose that's buried and pops up in the middle of the house, so I'm not too worried about that.C cpalm said:
The sewage is plastic, so-called egg shell pipes, and much of what isn't buried has been replaced with modern PE pipes. However, what's buried is still made of the old brittle plastic, but I'm not too worried about that.
What do you mean by a larger perspective? Tearing up the floor to redo everything?
My plan has been to replace all the sewage and water above the slab as the house is renovated. The reason I want to replace the water pipe to the garden (which is already buried) is because of hidden joints in the walls that can't comply with modern standards and incorrect placement on the wall.
No, I didn't mean that you should take the opportunity to redo everything now, but that you should perhaps start thinking today about which method should be used to, for example, replace the sewer pipes when the time comes and do the same with the pipe to the outdoor faucet as a "dress rehearsal."B Bordsduk said:
I have only replaced pipes under regular unreinforced and uninsulated basement floors myself, so I have no idea what is customary with a reinforced slab. I assume that at least with sewer, you have no choice but to chip around the reinforcement and insert the pipes under the slab (?)
Regarding industry regulations, it will probably still be tricky to do what you are imagining in an approved way, even though I agree that I would feel safer with pipe-in-pipe than with hidden joints. I know that there are (recessed) wall cabinets for this purpose so that the connection to the outdoor faucet ends up behind a cover, but I don't know if they are okay to install in "dry" rooms.
For example: https://www.lksystems.se/sv/produkt...p/kopplingsskap/lk-kopplingsskap-vuk-77746965
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