In modern life, we very rarely think about how water comes into our house, how it appears in the tap and where it goes. We just use it, and we like it.
That is probably the way it should be. It is not at all necessary for a person to think about which pipe delivers cold water and which pipe delivers hot water. But when repairing obsolete pipes in the bathroom, if you decide that in the new house, you make the pipe layout in the bathroom with your own hands or by a master invited for this, it is better to know the technology of this process. If not thoroughly, then at least its main points. Otherwise, how do you know that the correct piping in the bathroom has been made in your home?
Water supply schemes
There are various water supply schemes. In urban-type apartments, water usually comes from a common city water supply network, both cold and hot. In modern life, there are also such options when water is supplied to the house from a well or a well. In this case, a water heater is installed to heat the water.
Water pipes have a certain throughput, and a very large number of consumers cannot be connected to the system (everyone faced a situation: the pressure of cold water decreases sharply when using a shower, when water is drawn into the washing machine or the toilet is flushed). To avoid this situation, it is necessary to increase the diameter of the pipes or install a compensation valve. It is also necessary to know that an increase in water consumption will lead to an increase in the volume of sewage. This means that modernization of the water supply system can lead to changes in the sewage system.
As a rule, water is supplied to the apartment or house through the riser. Depending on the number of consumers, it can be from ¾ to 1 inch for a private house, for a multi-storey building it can be 2 inches. Further from the riser, water is directly supplied to consumers through internal piping, they are usually ¼-½ inch in diameter (depending on the amount of water consumed).
Calculation of the parameters of sanitary equipment
If you make the piping in the bathroom with your own hands, you must carefully calculate their diameter. This parameter of both the water supply and sewage systems is calculated identically (in relative units).
Water consumption for the main types of sanitary equipment is given in the table.
Equipment | Water consumption (rel. Units) | Minimum pipe diameter, inch |
Toilet | 3 | 1/2 |
Sink | 1 | 1/2 |
Shower stall | 2 | 1/2 |
Bath | 2 | 1/2 |
Washer | 3 | 1/2 |
The calculation of the parameters of sewage pipes is given in the following table:
Diameter of a pipe, inch | Volume of drains (rel. Units) | Maximum length of unventilated horizontal branch, m | The maximum diameter of the hood, inch |
1 ¼ | 1 | 0.7 | 1 ¼ |
1 ½ | 3 | 1 | 1 ½ |
2 | 6 | 1.55 | 1 ½ |
3 | 20 | 2 | 2 |
4 | 150 | 3 | 3 |
Material selection
Pipes can be metal (steel, cast iron, copper), metal-plastic, metal-polymer, polypropylene. For the water supply system, the most common type of pipe is steel. They can be welded and seamless. There are anti-corrosion coating and without it. Galvanized pipes do not require painting, priming and other protective measures, except for areas where the protective layer is broken. When connecting such pipes to steel fittings, anticorrosion treatment is preliminarily carried out. For threaded pipe connections transporting cold and hot water (t - 100 degrees C), a flax strand is used as a sealing material. It should be saturated with minced meerk or whitewashed on a natural oil. An alternative is to seal the joint with an FUM tape. It is wound in the direction of the thread in three to four layers, depending on the diameter of the pipe.
DIY pipe routing in the bathroom
In the conditions of doing the work yourself, metal-polymer or polypropylene pipes are preferred. It doesn’t matter if open or hidden pipe routing is done in the bathroom. You must first make a drawing. Calculate how many pipes of one diameter or another, couplings, elbows, tees, various fasteners, ball valves, clips for fastening pipes are needed.
Pipe connection
Metal pipes are joined by welding or threaded connection using couplings. Metal-plastic - by crimping using a special hydraulic tool that guarantees a high-quality connection. The metal-plastic pipe is cut with special scissors, it is easily bent by hand. Conductor springs are used to obtain small radius folds, and a significant number of elbows are also saved.
When connecting the pipe to the fitting, it is necessary to cut off a piece of it of the desired length, chamfer it, put on the pipe nut, a split ring and fitting, tighten the nut with a wrench, the pipe will be crimped on the fitting.
The wiring of polypropylene pipes is done by welding the fragments with a soldering iron, trying not to overheat it, since you can solder the inner hole tightly. Apply various tees (45 and 90 degrees), couplings, knees.
All joints should be accessible in case of repair, both with a soldering iron and keys.
Installation procedure
Pipes begin to be installed after meters, shut-off valves and water filters are installed. The sequence of connecting devices in the scheme of both hot and cold water supply should be as follows: inlet ball valve, meter, coarse water filter, fine filter (preferably), collapsible splitter with ball valves in each direction, collapsible pipes, water consumption terminal device.
Coarse water filters are necessary to prevent clogging of pipes and terminals with large fragments (sand, rust particles, scale, other inclusions). From a large number of types of filters, it is better to choose washed with running water with the discharge of filtered ingredients into the sewer.
For each plumbing fixture, mixer, toilet bowl, shower, washing machine, water heater, its own ball valve is installed. It helps if something has to be repaired. You do not have to block all the water entering the apartment. It is enough to shut off the water in the place necessary for repair.
After the piping has been completed, make sure that there is no leakage. To do this, turn on, first of all, cold water for 10-15 minutes, and then check for drops or smudges in the threaded joints, in places of welding, crimping, in places where flexible tubes and hoses are present. If there is a leak, then the disadvantages must be eliminated. Then the same routine should be routed pipes for hot water.
Hidden wiring
There are two options for distributing pipes in the bathroom: open and hidden.
DIY pipe routing in the bathroom is easier in the open version in a sequential way, when all plumbing fixtures are connected by one pipe in series with each other. Such wiring does not always suit the owners, since all pipes remain in sight.
Hidden wiring assumes the location of the pipes in the recesses of the walls, and after checking the tightness of the wiring made, closing these recesses with an external coating (for example, tiles) or plastering makes the pipes invisible. The difficulty lies in the fact that the gating of walls for hidden wiring in the bearing walls cannot be carried out. Pipes can only be connected in accessible places. The main pipeline inside the wall must be integral. Pipes that are walled into the wall are placed inside the corrugated hoses to protect them from mechanical damage during thermal expansion (in the hot water supply system) and to protect them from condensation (for cold water).
The complexity of this option is justified by the fact that the pipe layout in the bathroom is not visible. The photo illustrates the neat appearance of the bathroom.