moving pipes in renovation

Without seeing it, I'm going for "close to impossible."

Be leery of anyone who is telling you any different.

ali r.
[downtown broker}

risers are usually pipes that affect the whole line(s) of apartments. redirecting them, usually, means causing the water/heat/gas to go through a different path. this will cause a delay or lack of service to other units above you. i would not expect the board to approve this kind change.

I agree--replacing pipes affecting your own unit is hard enough in a coop apartment but replacing the risers which affect all the units above and below you would be pretty much impossible and I would be shocked if any coop board would allow it.

Went through it and we were not allowed to do it. Ended up building cabinets around it and it looked pretty good in the end.

thx, appreciate all the responses. we live in a pretty low key building but i agree that its going to be hard to convince the building to let us move the risers. if we keep the risers where they are, plan B is to combine our 2 kitchens so that we keep our gas stove where it is (more or less - move it 2 feet over) but then put our sink and dishwasher in a row of cabinets which abut the wall w the risers (although at a 90 degree angle to where the current sink and dishwasher are). I know this is a plumber question but I would think that this is doable. As long as I'm not moving the risers, I can position my sink/dishwasher any way around them. True? Or am I being naive?

If you have a single-pipe heating system the answer is no because the steam condenses and falls back down the pipe; therefore, it must be straight.

It is possible to move other risers - not related to fire extinguisher systems - but very expensive and most co-ops won't allow it. You're better off reconfiguring your plan.

Don't know for sure but would think position of drains for the appliances is also an important consideration (though a plumber might be able to configure the piping to allow moving the appliances as you want).

I must echo the responses by others that, as a rule, the board would probably not allow it.

However, I'd like to mention that I have seen this done in a 1st-floor apt in a bldg. located near the Animal Medical Center (the corner of York and 62nd?) where the coop board allowed the share holder to move his bathroom. So, it apparently isn't impossible...

Appliance drains are very site-specific and generic answers won't help you. Sinks and d/w's can often be moved but not too far. Gas lines are much easier to relocate within a kitchen. All these things to the extent they are possible are easier in gut-renovation when all walls and floors are completely exposed and it is clear what the situation is.

Your coop may be more permissive than most, but generally coops do not permit wet areas (the footprint of the kitchen and bathrooms) to be extended even an inch in any direction. Rearranging things within the footprint is much more open to discussion (but not so much the risers--that's a messy near impossibility you probably wouldn't want to take on even if your could).

Note: when I said drains are site-specific, I realize I wasn't clear. Whether drains can be moved is very dependent upon the site itself, location of pipes, etc. It is very possible in many cases for a sink or d/w. Those aren't terribly big deals unless you are moving them far away from where they currently are. Then it gets trickier hooking them up to the existing drain lines.

We had a maid's room with an adjoining bath - got rid of the maid's room to expand the kitchen, and did put another sink and dishwasher in the expanded kitchen, (totally away from the previously existing appliances though on the wall with the adjoining bathroom.) Coop did approve the plans.

If you are serious, find out if the building has an engineer/architect who reviews proposed construction plans and ask what is allowed.

thanks, this is all very helpful.

good ideal on asking the building's architect/engineer. we are likely going to use an architect recommended by our building's managment company so hopefuly that helps our cause. we're pretty cognisant of having the combined apt look like it was "meant to be" - so we're really stressing over the floor plan. (unfortunately the kitchen in our apt does not line up with the kitchen next door). If anyone had any general advice on combining apts I'd love to here it.

kylewest - to your earlier post, what is considered far away? we'd want to move the sink/dishwasher 5 or so feet (again connection to a wall w risers in it)?

Making an eat-in kitchen? That might work even with off-center kitchens.
Also, really check out the combination possibilties - as noted on other threads on SE combined apartments don't always work well - awkward access to some rooms, bedrooms that become very small because of newly created hallways, etc.

And maintenance levels that combined are sometimes significantly higher than comparably sized units.

thx, our maintenance should be good (no doorman though) for a 2 bedroom; rooms will all be decent sized: living room 12 x 21, 2 bedrooms 11/12 X 16/17 each. one thing we're struggling with - without moving the risers are stuck w the following choice. we can either: (1) have a dining room w/o windows (all other rooms, including bathrooms and kitchen w breakfast area, have big windows, lot of light); or (2) flip the kitchen and the dining room (our managment co. thinks they'll let us do this) so that dining room has windows but you have to walk through kitchen to get to a bedroom - it would be a big open floor plan type kitchen (island in the middle); or (3) have a decent sized windowed kitchen (8 X 11) and a much smaller dining room (9 x 9), no breakfast area and use the windowless space for a walk in closet. i think choice 2 is probably out but wanted to see what others think. thanks again.

Walking through a kithen to get to a bedroom doesn't sound like a good idea to me. IMHO not good for future resale value. Plus, you don't really need windows in a dining room - especially if you have a windowed eat-in kitchen. Dining rooms can be a dramatic space without windows.

Again, hard to really know without seeing a floorplan.

Call the bedroom behind the kitchen a maid's room and you will be fine :-)

But if you have a choice - why put it there?

thx. for what its worth, my wife likes option 1, i like option 3.

I vote with your wife, and she's the one voting against a big walk-in closet!!

Maybe you could find out from the architect if he would do some spec layouts for you with those options (or at least do them for not a lot of money). Sometimes seeing floorplans is a good aid to visualizing the changes.

I wouldn't mind the bedroom behind the kitchen, it's kind of old style & funky, but I can see that it could really hurt you for resale. A windowless dining room has possibilities if you want to do something dramatic & you can also use mirrors or murals to suit your decor. Flipping the DR & kitchen could create a problem because it's very rare that they'll allow you to put a "wet" room over a "dry" room. Best is probably using the windowless space for a closet but can't you improve on that 9 x 9 dining area?

appreciate all the feedback. i wish i could make the 9x9 breakfast area bigger - unfortunately the risers are right smack in the middle.

my wife and i are obsessed w resale. frankly - we're debating whether better to have a big (but windowless) dining room or a master suite w a large walk in closet.

we did reach out to an architect who is putting together some drawings for us. will see what comes out of that.

Satsu: I visited an open house at 230 West End Ave - combination of two apartments. They couldn't reroute their risers, and the risers were left right in the middle of their kitchen island. It looked pretty good. They didn't enclose the risers, but covered them with either metallic paint, or some kind of metallic wrap.

http://www.streeteasy.com/nyc/sale/387423-coop-230-west-end-avenue-lincoln-square-new-york

Look at the picture of the kitchen.

nyc10023 -the pipes really don't look bad and keep everything open. But that layout is a prime examnple of problems with combined units - that trek from entry first into Family room, to MBR thru the kitcen and living room - no wonder it took so long to sell. And yet, they seem to have gotten a good price for it.

It was a very tasteful neutral renovation. Combos are always a little difficult in terms of layout - they got hit by the Bear Stearns storm and overpriced to start. Not necessarily a bad thing to have the master bedroom on one end of the apt away from the other 2 bedrooms. They could also have tried moving the front door of the apt.

moving pipes is definitely possible. But it is one of the most expensive renovations you can do.

ok, silly question. is it possible to make the pictures on SE bigger. (already taken down off the brokers website). i feel better that my layout will be pretty compact (in a good way) but the riser thing is still killing me. if i could make that work, i'd have pretty decently sized kitchen/dinning area. thks for all the help and suggestions.

nyc10023 - right, they should have bought that tiny little piece of corridor - would have made a big difference.

What's it costing you for feedback from that architect? Do you think it's worth getting a second opinion?

I did it in my Chelsea apartment. The managing agent initially advised the condo board against doing it on the grounds that it would not only require cutting off all the gas inside the building, but the street source as well. Turns out she didn't know what she was talking about, but I had to hire an engineer to counter the claims by the engineer they brought along, and who had to admit that it could be done. My kitchen renovation sold the apartment for me last year. So, the moral of the story, I suppose, is dogged determination and the willingness to drop a thousand or so dollars for an impressive structural engineer.

Moving "pipes"....... as kw points out, there aree all kinds of pipes and it depends om which ones' you want to move:

stevejhx alludes to the heating system, but it doesn't appear that you are talking about that so I won't address it.

Hot and cold water "risers": these are also referred to sometimes as "mains" (but usually only when running horizontally). these supply hot and cold water to ALL the units above and below yours. So, the position they are at at your floor level and at your ceiling level can not change, period. While it is possible to re-route them in your unit in between, it is doubtful a Coop would let you since you would not only have to shut down the hot and cold water to everyone in that line (and depending on the shutoff valves in the basement, maybe a lot more: don't count on you building being plumbed so that each individual line has a separate shut off valve).

Hot and cold water "branches": these are the lines within your walls which go from the mains to the items in your unit which uses the water. Since this water is under pressure, it really is possible to move them just about anywhere. For example, I have a cold water line running about 40 feet out to my terrace hidden behind the baseboard in my LR. One problem you may encounter is that in most units, there are no main shut off valves just after the risers branch. Such valves could be used to shut off all the water to everything which that riser supplies (which could be your whole apartment if you only have one set of risers). If you don't have them, you will need to shut off the water to the risers (i.e. everyone else's water in that line) every time you want to do any plumbing work between the risers and where it is that you do have a shut off valve (like the one you probably have under your toilet if you have a tank toilet). If you are dsoing this kind of renovation, no matter what anyone else tells you, I recommend installing such main shut-offs off of EVERY riser. This mean if you ever have a leak, you can shut off the water first, and then figure out where the leak is coming from. Without them, if you have a leak between the riser and a shut-off valve, you will have to get the building to shut off the water to the whole line while you fix the problem: you will first have to find the person who CAN do this, which will probably result in more water damage than if you could immediately shut it off yourself, and you will have a bunch of angry neighbors because their water can't be turned on until you have fixed your problem. Most people "cheap out" when it comes to installing shut off valves, but when problems occur, they end up paying 100 times as much to fix the damage done. For example, in my 1 bath, 1 kitchen apartment, I have over a dozen shut off valves and can isolate a leak just about anywhere it might occur.

"Gas": "natural gas" (which is mostly methane) also can be run just about anywhere because it is under pressure and a gas. it is usually run using solid piping inside the wall, and then a shut off valves just outside the wall, and then flexible metal tubing between there and your stove or other appliance.

drains: there are several different type of items which needs drains, and the way they get done varies: generally in Manhattan you have 2 sizes of drains, 3" and 5". the 5" are used for toilets and the 3" for just about everything else. You can NOT use a 3" for a toilet, which is why you can not assume that just because there is water somewhere the you can put a toilet there. In addition, you need a vent line (which goes up to release sewer gas). Also, you have to remember that the toilet exhaust pretty much starts on your floor, so to move it around in any substantial way you have to dig into your floor and probably your downstairs neighbor's ceiling. Sinks are another story: they use the 3" pipe and start at whatever level above your floor you set them at. There needs to be a certain "pitch" (angle/slope/whatever) to the drain pipe to have it operate properly (which I think is 1/4" for every foot). This will limit the distance you can place the drain from the waste stack.

thx 30 yrs (and everyone else). i now know more about risers than i thoughts possible. I'm hopeful that I figured out a way to do the renovation w/o moving the risers. i'll speak to the architect today to see if it works.

question for the group - i had a contractor take a look behind the wall behind my neighbor's kitchen to find the pipes - he found 3 pipes, i forgot what he called them, 2 were 2 inches and one was 3 inches. based on what i'm reading here i'm starting to think that the contractor missed a pipe or two. my neighbor's kitchen has a sink, dishwasher and gas stove. should there be more pipes back there?

easiest guess is the 2" were the hot and cold water risers and the 3" was the sink waste line. The gas line is probably in a separate chase.

thanks, i was afraid of that. means i have to deal w another pipe in the wall. i assume moving a gas line is also a non-starter?

Of everything to move(plumbing wise), it's the easiest if you're willing to skirt the rules a little (If I was involved in the management of any building, I would never let anyone do anything which resulted in ConEd having to do a pressure test).

yeah, i hear you. i'm probably not the kind of guy thats going to "skirt the rules a little" where a gas line is involved. thanks again. you've been very helpful.

You'd be surprised how often it's done. In fact, you almost HAVE to to get anything done.

alright, we're meeting w the architect and contractor on friday. i'll let you know how it goes.

30 yrs., you seem to have encyclopedic knowledge of pipes and renovations and you're very generous with it, too, so I'll go ahead with my question: if there's a 100 year old townhouse with only one set of risers and very short branches, so that the kitchen and the only bath are clustered together in exactly the same way on each floor (these are floor-through apts), what would be the chances of creating either a 0.5 or full bathroom in any given floor if you can find a space for them immediately adjacent to the existing bath (if you could, say, put the new toilet 2-3 feet from the existing one)? Thanks a lot.

i gutted my classic six and the three risers were left in place -- building small sofits around the pipe.

coop required

Trompiloco: The biggest problem you are going to have is that your building is probably constructed of brick and mortar outside bearing walls with 16" joists into pitch pockets spanning the wall to wall interior. They are probably spaced somewhere around 1.5 feet on center. There is a very good chance that the 5" waste line is between two of those joists, and that the lead bend into it simply goes straight back to the wall (i.e. does not have to cross any joists to get from the seating ring to the waste line).

Now, if you want to add a second toilet and go to that same waste line, you're going to have to go ACROSS (i.e. thru) a couple of joists. Cutting 5"+ holes in 100 year old joists isn't generally the type of thing a building's engineer is going to be thrilled at. Now, you could "sister" steel plating on the sides of the joists* which you cut through, or you could do the same thing which you probably already have at your fireplace, which is having the joists run into a header and then have larger members from the header to the masonry wall, but again I don't know how thrilled the building's engineer is going to be about it. You could also run the lead bend above the current floor level by building up the floor of the second bath about 3/4' to 1' ft, but most people don't like to do that (have a "platformed" bath which you have to step up into). In addition you're almost certainly going to have a "wet over dry" situation which has become a big buzzword/red flag in Coops these days.

* if allowed, the most likely candidate for success. Sistering is basically taking another member and bolting it onto the joist to strengthen it at some point. In this case, what you would probably do is have 2' or 3' long by 16" tall (assuming 16" joists) steel plates made with 5"+ holes in them for the waste/exhaust from the toilet to go thru and place one on each side of the joist, and then bolt the 2 plates together thru the joist. This will strengthen the joist at that point where it would have been compromised by having a 5'+ hole drilled thru it. Now, it's almost a surety that some of the joists already have had some hole drilled thru them for various thing like steam mains, electric conduits, etc. One thing to remember which is may be counter intuitive is that if you have to drill thru a joist, it's much better to do it just above the center line than at the bottom (where just about every contractor drills because the top half of the joist is under compression and the bottom half of the joist is under tension, the further from the center line, the more tension, so the greatest change of compromising the joist is by drilling thru it near the bottom (or "worse, "notching" the bottom, which you see all the time).

Personal story: In my apartment, I wasn't 100 sure I was going to replace the tub originally, but it turns out i may have saved my life by doing so: when they had installed the tub, they had NO subflooring under it (not just no mud - no plywood, no lead pan, no nuthin') and it was basically balanced on a single joist. Of course, since it was centered on the joist, when it came to the drain, they had to notch the top of the joist to run the tub drain. Well, they notched out about 12" out of the 16" joist, so it was basically cantilevered from the opposing building wall 14 feet away (and I'm not too sure about that, either, because it's close enough to the staircase that the other end might just have been flanged into a header at the stairway cut-out. The solution used was as described above, sistering steel plates. When I asked someone in the building how the hell a full tub of water plus the weight of a human being didn't end up falling thru the floor I was reminded that the apartment had never really been used residentially so odds are the no one had ever filled that tub with water.

30yrs, great story about the bathtub. Lots of horrors revealed once you start opening things up, huh?

Another toilet possibility is going wall-mounted, but that has its own set of issues.

30 yrs., you're the best! I understood less than half of your post because of lack of terminological awareness, but I'll forward it to my architect brother-in-law and I'm sure I'll be ahead of the game pretty soon, and better able to decide if the whole thing is worth the trouble or not. Thanks a million!

30 yrs., one last question: does it make any difference whether the projected 0.5 bath is on the first or the top floor (or anywhere in between), in terms of the weigh bearing down the joists and the possibility of going through one of them without compromising the structural soundness of the building, etc.

a) It makes a HUGE difference if it's on the first floor because you can probably do WTF you want to under the apartment and no one will care*. Any other floor and they aren't going to let you run new pipes below their ceilings!

b)But this leads me to something I was thinking about today and came back to this thread to add: if the buildings were gut reno'd in the 1970's or later, they may have dropped the ceiling in the center of the units. Is this the case? Because if it is, there's space below the bottom of the joists and the dropped ceilings for plumbing 9the main reason the people who were doing the reno's did it. Now, you still have to wet over dry issue, and the work is MUCH more easily done from below than above, so you might have to incentivise your downstairs neighbors into letting you rip down a pice of their dropped ceiling and replacing it, but it makes it MUCH easier to do.

* I became acutely aware of this at 136 and 140 West 16th Street by seeing the first floor layouts with plumbing where no plumbing should have been based on the other units, and the super pointed out that since it's the first floor the Coop let the unit owners do what they wanted with piping below the floor (ceiling of the baswment).

"Lots of horrors revealed once you start opening things up, huh?"

Don't get me started. But I'll add one little anecdote: I remember hearing a story from an archeologist about how they were on this "dig" and when they opened up one of the walls in whatever ancient language they were using (Cyrillic? hieroglyphics?) there was complaining about what an asshole the GC was by the subcontractors on the job.

You rock 30yrs. But can't you have two back-to-back toilets (so 2 adjacent bathrooms) tied into the same waste line? That way you don't have to span joists.

30 yrs, thanks again! It's good news, because one of the units we're considering is on the first floor.

nyc10023; yes that is possible but you'd be REALLY limited in layout and would almost definitely have to gut the first bath and be building 2 from scratch. In addition, this *might* put the further away toilet too far away from the waste drain down without sufficient ability to pitch it enough.

Hi, firstly I must admit I push the envelope to get the design that I want. In my last renovation I had all 3 experiences.
1. Not being able to move a big 6 inch pipe.
2. Moving 2 risers in my kitchen 4 foot, they were in a place which was in the total way so we moved them over to be put in a new wall, we needed 4 inches for them to slope down across the ceiling to the new place 4 ft away (1nch gradient for every foot traveled)then they went down to the floor in a new wall.
3. After doing a probe of taking down a 6 inch by 12 inch section of wall near the pipe, the super confirmed (by touching the pipes) that they were redundant as he suspected and had them taken out, this happened in 2 areas in the apt.
Bottom line as the answers above suggest a renovation is dealing with variables, however it is fun resolving these issues, I have found that sometimes I actually get a better outcome when I get one of these "roadblocks" as you have to really think it thru.
Good Luck

Hi - the only pipe we need moved in our kitchen renovation is the gas line. We are filing all of the proper paperwork with the board. Does anyone know if boards usually require architect involvement and a permit to move gas lines a few feet? If required, does anyone know approximately how long it takes to get the permit? Thanks for your help.

Also does anyone know the approximate cost for a DOB permit both with and without an expediter?

am_village, I'm not sure if anyone answered your question but I moved our gas line in the kitchen last month. Your board or managing agent will likely refer you to your building's official architect. S/he will tell you if it's OK for your plumber to simply file a "repair slip" with the DOB or if the plumber will be required to apply for a whole permit. The repair slip is a special form; your plumber will know the actual name of it.

If your board requires that you file with the DOB, then you need an architect or engineer, and a contractor, who will apply for the permit. The waiting time is 3 weeks and $245 WITHOUT an expediter. With an expediter, well, it's a lot more $ and a lot less waiting time. Once the building permit has been secured, your plumber then applies for a plumbing permit, which costs -- I believe -- around $40. It takes a day or two to arrive if your plumber uses his own expediter (as mine did).

thanks cilantro that was very helpful.

hi wanted to get some advice. Doing a gut renovation in my condo. Doorman building and high floor. I have a gas riser in the middle of my living room. Will the building let me move reroute it at the ceiling run it across ceiling to another wall, down the wall and reattach it at the floor connection? Also is this done and in any way dangerous? Really appreciate some input. thx!!

I am not trying to move a riser. I would like to move the small pipe that comes from the top by the meter across the room is this possible? I think all is needed to do is change direction the pipe is going from east/west to north/south

Can I move a gas line about 7 feet across a room through the ceiling and down a wall to gas stove. dropping ceiling about ten inches for recessed lighting so there will be plenty of space. And what permits do I need