I just demolished the walls and floor of a bathroom.

The hot and cold feeds come from the crawlspace up into the wall cavity on the right side. Then both lines are routed to the corner, over the back wall, to the other corner, to the left wall, there you have four controls, one control for cold shower, one for cold body jet, one for hot shower, one for hot body jet, these controls can be opened at the same time, then the mixed water for shower and body jet are routed back through the back wall again to the other side. 4 sets of copper lines, never seen so many nail plates.









I am thinking to just have the hot and cold feed come up on the left wall, where the shower and hand shower will be, instead of routing the pipes through wall notches. The hot and cold feeds for toilet and lav on the other side will be branched off down in the crawlspace, and get rid of all the copper pipes in the wall.

I’d rather sweat all those joints in a wall rather than a crawlspace

I assume your using pex B if so it’s probably a better idea not to use a lot of fittings and go through the crawl space

The only thing to worry about is rodents chewing on the pex

i agree..

I sweated just looking at the pictures....

One reason I hesitate with so many joints in the wall is repair in case there is a leak.

This bathroom is in between two bedrooms. So the left wall has a closet on the other side, the right wall has a closet on it's other side as well. Normally this is a perfect situation because you can open up the closet wall and do access panels or make repairs. However, both closets are lined ceiling to floor with cedar. The bathroom will also be tiled ceiling to floor. So access to repair will be an issue.

If you look at this picture below, there is rotted wood where I put the green cup. This was a leak that went on for years unnoticed, on the hot side, slow like one drop per 3 seconds. It is partly why I had to gut this bathroom.



I ran 3/4" cold and 1/2" hot PEX A tubing to the underside of this bathroom. My plan is to have a small manifold in the crawlspace. The 3/4" cold will branch to three 1/2" pipes for toilet, shower and lav. The hot will branch to two 1/2" pipes to shower and lav. It will be a copper manifold with ball valves for all outlets so if I need to I can turn off shower only if I want to (but have to get under the crawlspace). The PEX will end at the manifold and all the risers into the wall and up will be type L copper.

I can't do much about rodent chewing PEX.

What is the advantage of routing the pipes around the wall like that?



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It's 100 degrees in south Florida I sweated without looking at the pics. I wonder once I removed these plus what copper I have if I can turn it to the scrap yard and get a steak dinner out of it

I think Bsipps nailed the reason: easier to sweat those joints in the wall than in the crawlspace. I've never seen a setup like that, that's a pretty cool retro shower, I'd be tempted to leave it, but I get that you want bulletproof simple in a rental.

At any rate, I would have run 3/4 on the hot pex also to service both sink and shower. If you are concerned about longevity in-wall, I would transition the pex to copper in the crawlspace under the bath so all the piping in the wall is soldered copper, you'll never have to worry about a leak. Even with that, you'll probably have enough copper left over for a steak dinner on the way home from the scrap yard...

I'm getting ready to demo a bath in a few weeks, and I'm going to repipe in copper....I've been soldering copper for so long to me it's easier than trying to figure out if the pex I'm using has the right crimp or has been recalled or got UV damage sitting in the yard at the home center.

To run 3/4" PEX for hot means a longer wait for hot water since this bathroom is 40' from the hot water heater. The area of a 3/4" tubing is more than twice as much as a 1/2" tubing so they will have to turn on the tub or sink faucet and wait twice as long.

These copper pipes are 32 years old, they are coming out.



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