New loo!

Another major topic of our site meeting last week was plumbing, or more correctly 'plumbing Tuscany style, within the confines of our house', which took some sorting out. We want to have a (big) main bathroom, and an en-suite in the guest bedroom, and although we have bought all the equipment, we now have a few serious issues to solve, lets take the en-suite first.

We are constrained by the gable end wall dimension, with only 1.8m between wall and window opening, in addition as the rooms are all only ~4.5m square, we can't make the other dimension too big, otherwise we won't be able to fit a double-bed in the room, thereby negating its usefulness for guests.  My first idea was to make the room no wider than the smallest quadrant shower (ie 900mm), and to buy the smallest loo & basin available.  All this looked great on paper, and with the idea of a sliding door (as I have seen many times in Tuscany) it all seemed possible. That is until last week, when I took a piece of chalk and marked out on the floor how it would look.  No way was that going to work in practice, so back to the drawing board.  As well as the 1.8m to the window, another key dimension is 1.4m to the first main beam (trave).  Now we are back home we had a little game of bathroom design, and here is the final result, with every permutation tested, this looks 'doable' and we can fit a bed in the room comfortably too.  I sent this photo together with a new 2D drawing to Alberto for his consideration and inclusion in the overall project (as well as architect engineer, under Italian law the Geometra is also the 'clerk of works' and is therefore responsible for all that goes on in the project).

The main bathroom has a host of other problems, particularly with how to get waste water etc out of the room (without having unsightly pipes snaking all over the floor).  In UK, (my major reference point for all things architectural), when living in a semi/detached house it is normal that all wastes exit the house through the wall, at the nearest tangent to the object, ie basin. WC etc, whilst in apartment blocks all services go via internal ducts purpose built in the design (as not all apartments may have an external wall, especially for the bathroom).  As you may expect Italy (or certainly Tuscany) is different.  Even though the house is 200 years old we have to construct internal ducts, as putting waste pipes on the outside of the house would be ugly, and not in keeping with the surrounding beauty!  An admirable sentiment, unless it means that waste water etc has to run down the wall thro my kitchen before it hits the septic tank, what if it sprung a leak?

Furthermore, before the pipes reach this internal duct (to be placed in the corner of the room, Silvio told me), how to hide them, bearing in mind that a bath waste pipe is 25mm diameter, and loo pipes are 100mm, and to make matters worse we will have a free-standing bath that must be in the middle of the room not cosied-up to a wall just to make the plumbers life easier.

Don't lose the thread now, but if you recall all the floors are coming up as they need to be strengthened (do you know how much a 1.8m x 1m bath full of water weighs?).  This strengthening takes the form of a reinforced concrete layer being placed between the sandwich of cotti, which will in effect raise the floor by at least another 6-10cm.  Not a lot, but already the doors are sub-standard height (at 1.7m, not 2m as is usual), so any more height lost and we will all be walking with either a permanent stoop or serious lumps on our foreheads, neither sounds appealing.  Another chance for the builder to increase his scope (and price), by raising all the door heights back to the regulation 2m, which is not as easy as it sounds in a stone house of this age. Kerching!

Anyway, back to the bathroom, after a very long debate (and don't forget this is all via our translator VP), we finally hit on the solution, we would raise the bathroom floor by at least 15-20cm to hide the pipes, by putting an extra layer in the sandwich, one made of polystyrene sheets, so that you get the extra height, without adding extra load (eg if you used just concrete), fantastic, but why did it take so long for Alberto to suggest it?

So, if all the floors are to be up this week, and relayed/sandblasted next week, then they will have to sort this PDQ, I bet it doesn't go without some sort of a hitch, so fingers crossed.

Comments

[Suzie]

Hi Ian,
why do you still need the geometra?
Isn't the architect enough?
We only used the geometra once to check 'weak' points.
Interesting post again. We think about the same issues!!

[Jonty]

Suzie, we don't have an architect, just the geometra, who came highly recommended, and has not disappointed so far.

[Alex]

Ciao Jonty,
I can understand why you'd stay with a geometra who knows what he/she is doing and with whom you have a good working relationship. But an architect will have ideas and communicate them better so that the geometra can just get on with it. Its probably why he didn't suggest the floating floor solution earlier. Which, to be honest, is something that an architect with the training/engineering background would be able to accomplish much quicker and with less complication.
As I work with so many English and American owners i have a list of horror stories the like of which would have you running for the UK as fast as your pasta fuelled legs could carry you.

[cialis to buy]

cialis success story buying cialis in canada http://www.maxipharmacy.com/ online medicines rx cialis viagra order cialis ohio pa prescribe.