Hi, we hired a plumber to rough/finish plumb our bathroom(3000.00-rough, 800.00 finish). Anyhow he did the rough, we paid him. Now it is time to plaster,drywall, we have no vent to the roof. He wants to wait until spring until roof thaws.OR, he wants to use an inside kit so that he does not want to go out onto roof. My questions 1)is this inside kit as good? 2) I feel like he is doing a little bait and switch. When he originally did rough(6 weeks ago) there was no snow yet,and fairly decent weather.Am I wrong to be upset and is venting with an inside kit as good?

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Originally Posted by mjwel

Hi, we hired a plumber to rough/finish plumb our bathroom(3000.00-rough, 800.00 finish). Anyhow he did the rough, we paid him. Now it is time to plaster,drywall, we have no vent to the roof. He wants to wait until spring until roof thaws.OR, he wants to use an inside kit so that he does not want to go out onto roof. My questions 1)is this inside kit as good? 2) I feel like he is doing a little bait and switch. When he originally did rough(6 weeks ago) there was no snow yet,and fairly decent weather.Am I wrong to be upset and is venting with an inside kit as good?

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What your plunber wishes to install is called a AAV,(Air Admittance Vent) (see images) Doiwn stream from your trap. This is a spring loaded mechanical vent. A AAv's great when you have no other options but if you have options I would go with a roof vent. The reason being that, over time a AAV can fail while a roof vent has no parts to go bad. Chabces are a AAV will be just fine but to be positively sure go with the roof vent. Good luck and thank you for rating my answer, Tom

I think he should install vent through the roof. Vent not only suck air in when you use water - but it also allows moist sewer gas to rise to the roof. AAV cannot accommodate that. AAV is more-less retrofit device and has to be accessible. For the money you are paying, I would have him come back and run the vent through the roof.

Thanks for the answers, guys. Sounds like I will have to get this plumber to honor his original agreement and go up to my roof to vent it. Any other comments are appreciated.

Mjwel...

I'll third the opinion that venting through the roof is best. Otherwise, if this guy continues to push for the AAV ask him how much money he is willing to drop off the price as it takes about 3 times the work to run a vent to roof/through roof. I'd bet he won't be so eager to go AAV route then... ;)

Good luck!

MARK

More ammunition please! Thank you for all of your replies. I am so ticked off, we knew he really wanted the job, needed the job-turned down some very capable plumbers. I was very quick to pay without drilling him about every little thing. Live and learn... a few bad eggs ruin it for the good ones...

If outside condition don't allow installing roof jack until spring, make sure he at least gets the vent run up into the attic before drywall is installed. He can then cap the vent in attic, and extend it out through roof when weather permits. If you have a very steep roof and there is snow and ice on it, I can see why he wouldn't want to get up there right now.

One other option. You say it is just a bathroom remodel, so there is probably another vent that goes out through the roof for other areas of house(other bathroom?) It may be possible for him to tie in the new bathroom vent into another existing vent in the attic, as long as it penetrates roof with correct size for you code requirements. I wonder how he plans to vent the toilet with an aav. Please let me know what you think.

Mjwel...

Mygirlsdad77 has the correct solution to this. There is no reason to even discuss AAVs at this point. As stated by Lee (MGD77), ".It may be possible for him to tie in the new bathroom vent into another existing vent in the attic, as long as it penetrates roof with correct size for you code requirements".

A bathroom requires a 2" vent at a minimum. Have the plumber connect into any 2", 3" or 4" vent in the attic. NO WEATHER ISSUES TO DISCUSS!

Nice job LEE... :)

MARK

Nice work guys, thanks again. Here is the whole scoop. It is a 3 level addition, with cathedral ceiling(however the roof is fairly flat -maybe 30 degrees).

I do understand why he doesn't want to go out there , but again he knew this when he took the job-he completed this job mid-December (no snow on the roof,yet)

Thank you Mark.

mjwel, please let us know what the final outcome is.

I'll let you know!

Thanks! Always appreciate an update!

Ok all, everything worked itself out. Turns out we had water coming in so we had to hold off on plastering to find leak. Therefore giving plumber more time to get act together.I think our silence made him think things over a bit, he ended up coming over to place the roof vent with no further discussion(huh?). He must have realized that he messed up... anyhow, it's all good! Thanks for everything.

Glad he did what needed to be done. Enjoy your new bathroom. Take care,

Lee