Hello, I recently purchased a bathroom vanity from HD, as you can imagine the opening for the water lines is in the back of this double vanity. My home was built in 98 and I guess since it backs up to an outside wall, they ran the water lines up thru the floor. In my last install, I simply cut two holes thru the bottom of the vanity for the water lines with no problem. With this new one, it has two drawers on the bottom where my water lines would come in thus making it impossible to simply cut the necessary holes and run it up thru the bottom. With that, what are my plumbing options to hook this up? Is it possible to cut the lines off a few inches from the floor and use a sharkbite fitting with pex to run the lines around the back of the vanity into the existing opening? Right now there is there is a single sink on a double vanity, so only one set of lines is connected, the other water lines are just capped off. Thoughts/suggestions? Thanks, Rob
New Vanity install?
- Thread starter RBenton
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What type pipe comes up ? Is the floor concrete slab ?
If it’s hard copper then you could use sharkbites but I don’t recommend them except for temporary applications or shacks, hunting camps, low rent applications.
For homes that matter, never a sharkbite.
For homes that matter, never a sharkbite.
Have you seen them leak? I have a couple in my house and so far so good, however I wouldn’t bury them.
I’ve seen everything leak. It’s just my opinion that it’s inferior to other methods of fitting pipe.
Like Two said, everything can leak. I bet you would hate to find out one day that one let go while you were out or out of town. We use them for testing and then remove them.
Arctic trouble
Well-Known Member
You can modify the drawer so it's not as deep, simply move the back of the drawer forward.
Thanks guy, I will look at modifying the drawer to see how that would work, only issue may be lifting the 60" cabinet up and over the 4 copper pipes coming out of the floor without bending/breaking one, the top is attached and it weighs 300+ pounds, I could take the top off I guess. I am an average DYI but have sweated copper connections before. I was thinking about possibly cutting the copper off at the floor and putting the valves there since there is room under the cabinet as its on legs, probably 4-5 inches maybe, or like mentioned before using a sharkbite at the floor then running a flexible pipe up and around the back of the cabinet.
Mitchell-DIY-Guy
Well-Known Member
Well, @RBenton I have done this thing or similar several times, all pretty successfully. While it helps to have the countertop off, it's not always necessary.
What I did in each case is stub off the pipes in the crawl space, in some cases not exactly below the area but a bit of a distance (a couple of feet?) away. At the stub offs, I placed ball valve lever style shutoffs; this is with ½" copper pipes. Remove all the pipes that come through the floor.
Then, I dry-installed the base cabinet, (not affixed to the wall or anything yet) and drilled new holes through the cabinet base, exactly where I wanted them. In the couple of cases where there was tile (porcelain) underneath, after drilling the holes in the cabinet, I took a Sharpie on a stick, and marked through the holes where on the tiles the companion holes need to be; you need to ensure from below you are not hitting a joist. So, be judicious in where you need the pipes to come up.
I then removed the cabinet, drilled the appropriate holes through the tile and subfloor. I then inserted a length of ½" pipe in the appropriate holes, went below, took measurements, cut pipe and sweat soldered it all up. In two cases where I couldn't match 100%, instead of rigid tubing, I used a small length of flexible copper; thankfully the local ACE hardware sells it by the foot, and as I recall I only needed 2'. The big box stores sell it only in 25' coils.
One of the last projects I did like this was a bathroom vanity against a garage wall; the original pipe was in the wall, and had gone up from the crawl space up and over the sill plate on the foundation wall into the finish wall. It was way too cramped to attempt anything in that tight space, so I actually brought the hot and cold lines up the left side (not the back) of the vanity cabinet. It all worked well.
This last job was in my former weekend home in central Michigan. The crawl space there was unlike most crawl spaces I've seen here in the south. Mine was a clean, dry, well lit space with a concrete floor and level. Basically it was a nice basement albeit with a 40" headroom. It's a lot nicer working in that crawl space than what they create around here. Hope yours is as nice.
Good luck!
We call them Michigan basements. I think because we are from Michigan. I have never seen them in any of the other states I have been in houses before.
TY Mitchell, great advice there and yes, the crawl space is about 1.5 feet in the area of the bathroom, so when I went under to vent the dryer a year or so ago, it was sliding around on my stomach for the most part 
I had not thought about the flexible copper but that may be a good way to get around to the back of the cabinet if thats the route I end up taking. Thanks again for the info.
I had not thought about the flexible copper but that may be a good way to get around to the back of the cabinet if thats the route I end up taking. Thanks again for the info.Mitchell-DIY-Guy
Well-Known Member
Well, @CT18 in a word, no. While any basement in Michigan, by geography I suppose, can be called a "Michigan Basement" that's not the actual term in proper use.
A Michigan Basement (it goes by other terms too, often with some other geography attached to it) is a basement that was excavated/dug/created AFTER the house was built. In the case I mentioned, my own home built in 1996, it was merely a well finished and properly done crawl space--the kind they should learn how to do in the south.
My first home was a 1927 farmhouse in Livonia. It had a true Michigan basement. Originally just a four-room square home without a bathroom and without running water, built on blocks. In the 1930s, during the depression, the "Michigan basement" was excavated by hand, by two young boys. One of them, by the early 1990s was an old man and my neighbor. Once fully excavated, then massive concrete walls and floors were put it, slightly smaller than the home's footprint. The floor was 12" of concrete, essentially the entire floor slab was the footing. I know this because an internal drain system had to be put in and they had a massive job to make that trench--they required the ginormous jackhammers used in road construction to do it. Unlike many "Michigan Basements" I actually had some decent headroom so much of the basement was usable.
http://prugarinc.com/basements/what-is-a-michigan-basement/
We called any basement we went in that had concrete floors but we couldn't stand up a Michigan basements. That's the tradesman version of Michigan basement. You are correct I did not go to the official definition of the phrase Michigan basement. We also call soda, pop.
The definition of a basement is a hole in the ground that water runs into.
Mitchell-DIY-Guy
Well-Known Member
Right!
When built by the clueless.
Basements leak when not built properly.
Like anything else improper design or substandard construction will yield an inferior product.
Every time.
Everything fails eventually. Then it’s a hole that water fills up.
There are very few of them here. Water table too high and usually we get more rain per year than anywhere else in continental US.
If I lived in Death Valley I’d install a basement. ✌
We had one hurricane that dumped 25.98” of rain in 7 hours.
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Mitchell-DIY-Guy
Well-Known Member
High water table means no basement, period.
If it breaks you fix it. It’s a big deal for those that don’t know how to engineer them.
Like plumbing.
If it breaks you fix it. It’s a big deal for those that don’t know how to engineer them.
Like plumbing.
What’s so attractive about a room underground other than a possible storm shelter or building on a postage stamp lot ?
What’s the price per Sq ft for a finished basement ?
I read an insurance article that said “ when your basement floods “.. Not if your basement floods...... that tells the story for me.
I wonder what it costs to insure a property with a finished basement compared to just typical square footage ? That yearly premium that just keeps on giving.....
What’s the price per Sq ft for a finished basement ?
I read an insurance article that said “ when your basement floods “.
. Not if your basement floods...... that tells the story for me. I wonder what it costs to insure a property with a finished basement compared to just typical square footage ? That yearly premium that just keeps on giving.....
