Installing a half bath in place of a kitchen

Is there enough room to put in a washer/dryer along with the half bath? Washer/dryers in unit are considered very desirable.(the Bosch stack w/d seem to be used quite a bit in).

Also makes a difference if the existing bathrooms are en-suite or outside the bedrooms.

building doesnt allow washers/dryers but i'm guessing we could fit both. current plan is to have bathrooms en-suite but if we cant get the half-bath we may have to rethink that (which impacts the rest of the plan unfortunately - i wont get into it though).

re w/d I might say try to sneak it in,(a lot of people seem to do this, disguising cartons as huge
TV's) but I've heard some bad stories about proprietary leases being cancelled because of flood caused by washer, so that's probably not a good idea.

This is a simple question for an engineer or the management company. Not so sure you can put poop down a former sink drain pipe. If you don't want the apt unless you can install this 1/2 bath, no harm in finding all this out now.

couldnt habe said it better myself

have

To Kylewest's point, you must have a waste line to install a toilet. Can't imagine any coop board, especially one in a pre-war that typically has a fragile infrastructure, making an exception for this. Especially one that already doesn't allow a W/D -- a sign that the building is meticulous with plumbing alterations.

The architect may be thinking that you could extend the waste line from the existing bathroom but you've said it's 15+ feet away and I doubt there's a board that would allow that (and boy, I wouldn't want to be your downstairs neighbor). I'm no plumber but I'd get the board's approval in advance and in writing before proceeding with your purchase if this is a deal breaker.

Just going by what combiners have done in my old co-op, plumbing per se isn't a problem since you'd be using the same stack the kitchen did. The problem is hooking the toilet, which needs a fat below-floor waste pipe, into the waste stack.

In my building, they either couldn't dig into the floor structure, or it was too expensive to. So, in place of former kitchens they've put laundry rooms. In one big 3-unit combo one kitchen became a laundry room and the other became a dressing room with shaving sink.

"Not so sure you can put poop down a former sink drain pipe"
"To Kylewest's point, you must have a waste line to install a toilet."

Both quite correct, but the real answer is you don't know what's there, and the Coop itself or managing agent may not know, either. I know for sure in my building(s) which is a 3 brownstone Coop that the only person who knows where (almost) all the pipes are is me, and there are a whole lot of them in places know one would even think to look.

Also, re: washers and dryers, although not pertinent here, if you want to use a gas dryer you have to vent it, and you can't vent a dryer into a KITCHEN vent: imagine the result of having years worth of lint build up in a vent which is likely to get lots of heat and maybe a few sparks/whatever 9which is why a lot of the old one's are asbestos lined). And the cost of running a vented gas dryer vs a non-vented electric dryer can be pretty big $ wise (especially in buildings like mine where the gas is included in the mtc but the electric isn't, heeheehee).

But a question: what are you really doing with the combination? I can't imagine you're not adding a bathroom in teh combination (i.e. the one that already exists in the unit no matte what size it is). Does having another 1/2 bath add appreciably to the value. For example, if you were going to end up with a 2 BR 3 bath apartment already, do you need another 1/2 bath on top of that? Or the other way around, if you were going to end up with a 4BR 2 bath unit, another 1/2 bath is probably a real plus. Except one note: as a ROT, the closer the 1/2 bath is to the entry of the new unit as a whole, the better off you'll be. If you have guests over and you have to send them all the way across the apartment to get to the 1/2 bath, it's worth a lot less than if it's off the entry foyer.

its a long story, but in a nutshell, in order to expand our dining room we need to take out some closets which results in one of the bathrooms opening up into the dining room (not good, we think). only way we can think of to solve that is to close off the current door of the bathroom and open up another entrance from the adjoining bedroom into the bathroom, so we end up w a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom but both bathrooms are en-suite (which we though would be cool to have in a pre-war, but for the fact that our guests now have to walk through a bedroom to get to a bathroom). so we were hoping we could convert the old kitchen into a half bath for guests (near the foyer).

cannot imagine you can put in a toilet where the toilet outlet pipes are not in place(back upo against another toilet????)

I would guess that wall-hung commercial toilets don't have the same need for fancy below-floor waste lines. Plus they're Scooba-friendly.

It's also not my understanding that a toilet typically has a special dedicated waste line independent from a sink/tub line ... but correct me if I'm wrong. And if I'm right, is sharing with a kitchen sink any more of a Bozo no-no than sharing with a tub? The latter would gross me out way more.

"its a long story, but in a nutshell, in order to expand our dining room we need to take out some closets which results in one of the bathrooms opening up into the dining room (not good, we think). only way we can think of to solve that is to close off the current door of the bathroom and open up another entrance from the adjoining bedroom into the bathroom, so we end up w a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom but both bathrooms are en-suite (which we though would be cool to have in a pre-war, but for the fact that our guests now have to walk through a bedroom to get to a bathroom). so we were hoping we could convert the old kitchen into a half bath for guests (near the foyer)."

Well, as reasons go, you've got a pretty f-ing good one (i.e. I follow you logic). but a question: do you already own or in contract for the units? (i.e. is it safe to let us see the units and floorplans; who knows someone might have a suggestion you might not have thought of).

"It's also not my understanding that a toilet typically has a special dedicated waste line independent from a sink/tub line ... but correct me if I'm wrong. And if I'm right, is sharing with a kitchen sink any more of a Bozo no-no than sharing with a tub? The latter would gross me out way more."

The one thing you can not do for sure is use a 3" waste line (typical for sinks) for a toilet waste line (which has to be 5").

Also, one thing I've been lax about reminding people is that paying for extra check valves is always a good investment even if your plumber says they aren't necessary.

30yrs, I want to pay homage to your knowledge, judgment and willingness to take lots of time to help people out on this board. My father owned and managed numerous residential and commercial properties throughout Manhattan for 50 years. I so often have wished he could still answer my questions. When I read your posts, I feel as though Dad is still around. There's no higher praise. :)

thx for all your help. i'm probably not in a position to share floor plans yet (at least not on an open forum). i spoke to our contractor this morning - he's still telling me that its doable to extend a waste line (he counts it as about 10 - 12 feet) to our current bathroom. he said its not going to be cheap (he's going to come back to me later today w an estimate) but he can get it done (he said much easier than moving the water and gas risers out of the way - which is our other option, as far as i can tell). he's come very highly recommended and otherwise sounds like he knows what he's talking about so i'm trying to believe but i'm still skeptical. forgot to ask him - any ideal what floors in a pre-war are made of? what does he have to dig through to get there? thx again.

Ten to twelve feet is really not a lot for a waste line. The line needs to pitch 1/4" per foot in order for the water to flow. So you need less than six inches of space (5" pipe and 3/4" inch pitch) under the floor to make that happen. However, as 30yrs said, finding a way to back to back the bathrooms would be easier both in terms of work and dealing with the coop.

Your contractor may well be thinking of using an upflush toilet (http://www.upflushingtoilets.com/Saniflo_Macerator.htm). Some boards will not permit this.

nyc_sport, if you need ten to twelve FEET of waste line & a 1/4" pitch per foot, you'll need 3 inches of pitch plus your 5" pipe = 8 inches, no?

Satsu, You keep talking about what's possible & these are extremely important questions, of course, but the bottom line is what this will cost you & what you're apt to recoup when it's time to move on. I love floorplans & I've seldom seen a bathroom with enough room to put in another door. Also, combined apartments often end up with very high monthlies and, while some combos can be quite successful, many just end up being poorly cobbled-together space.

Look at this very carefully & get lots of second opinions before you end up in a real mess.

I wanted to move my kitchen sink to the other side of the galley kitchen [ultimately disallowed by the coop board], and the plumber kept saying it'll be "really expensive" to do it right, with the sloped waste line and I think vent line. When I finally got a number, it was something like $800. I'm really cheap, but I don't consider that even slightly expensive. So don't be deterred upfront.

thx. drdrd - appreciate your perspecitve. we're very cognisant of doing this "right," which is why we're obsessing about floorplans and talking to contractors, architects and you all prior to signing a contract (btw, we think the feedback we've gotten on se has been oustanding - really helpful). we're pretty good on maintenance - about $1250 on a 1300 sq ft apt (no door man though). we think that if we can get it done the way we'd like it could be a real special apt (for us and, hopefully, for whoever lives there after us). we've also gone to a bunch of open houses in our neighborhood to look at comps and, frankly, dont think the inventory out there is all that great in our price pt (900 k to $1 mm for 2 bed/2 bath, pre-war) - i was a little surprised in this market, but maybe its just the time of year.

but, completely agree, if we need to compromise too much its going to turn into a mess.

"nyc_sport, if you need ten to twelve FEET of waste line & a 1/4" pitch per foot, you'll need 3 inches of pitch plus your 5" pipe = 8 inches, no?"

I may be wrong, but I think it's significantly worse than that: you've got the flange (above the floor), but then you've got the lead bend:

http://chestofbooks.com/home-improvement/construction/plumbing/Standard-Practical/images/Fig-156-Waste-Connected-into-Heel-of-Lead-Bend.jpg

so FIRST, you've got to get down to the level of the top of the horizontal waste line, THEN you have to add the 5" for the pipe, THEN you have to add the slope/pitch. that's how you get the TOTAl of how much distqance you need between the floor and the ceiling below. So, it' not just 3", it's not just 3" plus 5" = 8", it's probably 5" plus 3" plus 5" = 13".

In addition, 1/4 is the MINIMUM to get WATER to flow. so if you are installing a urinal, ok. But you're putting in a toilet. in your current place, have you ever had your toilet stop up or flow slowly enough that it's a problem? Well, imagine how often it will happen if the distance solid waste will have to flow at a pitch which is the minimum for water over a distance of 12 feet?

I also agree with AH about the issue of "what is really expensive?" If you're talking about million dollar apartments, even if it's $15,000 to do something which will ad $30,000 in value to a unit (which is all of 3% on a million dollar apartment; 1.5% on a 2 million dollar apartment......) so if being able to change a layout to make an apartment have a MUCH better layout, look at the real cost/benefit analysis rather than "gee, $15,000 for a toilet is a lot".

OTOH, remember that whatever you think you are going to spend at design time, by the time you finish, with upcharges, etc. it's going to be a larger number in the end, so be prepared for that.

The single biggest piece of advice I can give you is this: your number one design priority should be that if someone didn't know this was a combined unit, that simply looking at the floorplan (or visiting the unit) they wouldn't go "combined unit!!!". I see so many combinations that are obvious, and that can be a real downer in terms of resale. It's like looking at a used car with the passenger's side door painted a different color so you know it was replaced.

I've often heard that, to keep the costs down, know exactly what you want upfront & then don't change your mind. I also think that a good idea might be to have everything on hand so that it's there when you need it & you're not wasting time & money waiting for something that is back ordered.

thanks for all your feedback. as you can tell i'm obsessed about all of this (which is why i'm on this website i suppose). in any event, 2 questions - (i) does anyone else have any thoughts about upflush toilet (looks very euro to me - not sure if thats good or bad), i havent previewed it yet w my contractor/architect or building but wanted to see if anyone here had a view first, (ii) does anyone know floors in a pre-war coop are typically made of (i dont even know where to start - concrete, wood, stone?).

30 years and drdrd - agree with both of your advice. thanks. we're trying

God is in the details; I think you have to be obsessed to get a good result. Good for you & best of luck.