Showertray fit with pipes behind?

[ean21]

Hi, I've removed a bath and plan to fit a shower. I have the basis of the necessary plumbing in place - the hot+cold+waste from the bath. I want to fit the shower in the same place, but I'm having trouble visualising how the try can fit in the corner because there are pipes in the way.

I know I could box them in, but then I would have to box all the way to the height of the shower enclosure. If I cut away the two inner sides of the shower tray (probably impossible anyway) then it would be weakened.

Help! What am I missing here? Pic attached...

[jas xjr]

You need to chase the pipes into the wall. That is cut a groove into the wall which will then contain the pipes up to your mixer. Once connected , plastered and tiled

[Big Al.]

Build a 4" false wall in front of the pipes, then butt your shower base and shower to that.

[Spudler]

jas xjr said:

You need to chase the pipes into the wall.

Fit a 90mm fast flow waste and a 50mm tray and jobs a good 'en. Tidy job all round.

[ean21]

Thanks. I understand I'll be chasing the H+C pipes vertically up to a surface-mount mixer, then tile over the lot.

But, its the mess at the bottom that is giving me a headache. I don't think I can chase all the pipes in the pic back into the wall. The left wall would be OK, its an external wall and is a cavity wall. The back wall is an internal wall and is only single block, so chasing all those pipes in horizontally for the width of the tray might not be good. The chase would have to be 23cm high. Or have I been staring at this for too long?? see pic 2...


Something else I had considered was making a wedi tray and tiling it, for a walk-in style shower, but I've still got the problem of getting the glass screen down past the pipes on the back wall.

[Gingerbread Man]

Shower trays can either sit on the floor or on legs with a plinth. This tends to give you 100mm space under the shower tray. So you have 100mm void to get the hot and cold chased into the wall and up to shower mixer height.

So it looks like you'll have to drop both the hot and cold down as they come in from the right and also on the left wall, chasing into the wall to drop the pipe height if needed.

Then it looks like you have an overflow pipe coming in from the right. I'm assuming from a toilet? Either drop this and tee it into a waste pipe with an inline collapseable trap, or probably easier, remove it all together and swap the toilet syphon with a newer version that has a built in overflow feature, it'll then overflow into the pan as opposed to outside.

Does this get you down to below the 4" plinth height?

[ean21]

Thanks GbM - 4" is the top of the two waste pipes, so the sink waste on the back wall would pass under the tray, and the ex-bath waste, now the shower waste, passes under as well. The toilet is being replaced, so I'll make sure to get the built-in overflow. That leaves the 5 copper pipes. I will have to re-route them to get them under the 4"

The act of explaining it and taking pictures has helped in itself. I have realised that I could as Big Al said hide the back wall and pipes with wedi board, and butt a 800x1400 tray to it, and also up against the pipes on the left wall. Then bridge from the left wall to the tray with wedi board, and tile over it. Then fix a plain glass screen to the back wall, with an overhead brace to the left wall - the walk in arrangement simplifying the odd shape. I think I could use this as its got the height if I need it.

linky

What do you think?

[Gingerbread Man]

ean21 said:

Thanks GbM - 4" is the top of the two waste pipes, so the sink waste on the back wall would pass under the tray, and the ex-bath waste, now the shower waste, passes under as well. The toilet is being replaced, so I'll make sure to get the built-in overflow. That leaves the 5 copper pipes. I will have to re-route them to get them under the 4"

The act of explaining it and taking pictures has helped in itself. I have realised that I could as Big Al said hide the back wall and pipes with wedi board, and butt a 800x1400 tray to it, and also up against the pipes on the left wall. Then bridge from the left wall to the tray with wedi board, and tile over it. Then fix a plain glass screen to the back wall, with an overhead brace to the left wall - the walk in arrangement simplifying the odd shape. I think I could use this as its got the height if I need it.

linky

What do you think?

Depends if you need the room space or if the space left by boxing in pipes isn't an issue. You'd only need to box in to cover the copper pipes going up to the shower valve, so maybe only 25mm of boxing in depth needed. The waste pipes would be under the plinth?

You could box it out with 2x2" and ply.

[ean21]

Cheers guys. Off to bed now to sleep on it.
Thanks again.