Hi,
I bought my house about 12 years ago and it was built in 1996. The basement was partially finished and now I would like to finish it out completely with a bathroom. I was told when I purchased it it has rough ins. In a closet there seems to be 2 rough in drains and then two other drain pipes that are used. I was hoping I had 3 drains for shower, lavatory, and toilet. There is one 2" and one 4" currently in this closet that are not used. I have attached a few pictures so you can see what I am talking about. I want to know if there is any way other than cutting the floor to have another drain installed. I do know when they did the basement refinish they did not seem to leave enough room for a toilet to be installed and I will have to move a wall. I'm just wondering if it's just too much work to get a shower down there. One of the current 2" drain pipes seems to split off into two different drains. Can I use one of those for the lavatory or shower? Why would they split it off like that?
Thanks! Mike

Your best bet here is to try to find out who did the rough in under the concrete and contact them. Hopefully they are still in business and will come out and let you know what is what.

I'll give a guess... ;)

Of course, the 4" is the toilet drain.

The 2" drain line with the cleanout is for the lavatory.

The 2" vent (no cleanout) is the 2" toilet vent.

This all suggests that in your area all fixtures get individually vented and this is piped for a 1/2 bath only!

To add a tub or shower means you are chipping up the floor or installing a SANISHOWER pump system... ;)

Care to discuss more just let us know, OK?

Mark

OK... Sorry I just noticed in the pictures that I did not include the other 4" pipe that comes into the floor in the basement from upstairs.
The two 2" pipes that are connected together that goes into the floor in here also goes upstairs. Is that a vent? Is one a vent? Why would there be a plug like it has in a vent?
There is the capped off 4" which I know would be for the toilet. There is also the 2" that is capped off too. Is that a drain or a vent?
Lol... I think the more I think the more confused I get!
Oh, my builder went out of business before the house was finished, it was then bought by a real estate company and finished and sold... so legend has it!

Most likey the builder hired a plumber to do the plumbing, so the plumber may still be in business. See if you can find out.

Things just got kind of messy... you have pipes in picture, you don't have pipes in picture... makes it super hard to say much, for sure!

Seek out the plumber if possible, otherwise, post pictures of all the pipes and we should be able to tell you more, OK?

Finally, in the picture you did post is that a 2", 3"or 4"pipe that is capped off? Let me know, OK?

Sorry about not getting all the pipes In the picture. I took more pictures. As stated before the Builder went out of business and I have no way of finding the plumber who did the work on my home.
This picture shows as you look in the door there is the existing plumbing coming from the upper 2 floors of the house. One 3" drain to the right with a clean out. Then to the left one 2" that comes from the upper floors that splits into 2 2" pipes then goes into the floor (are these both vents?). One of these has a clean out and the other just goes to straight into the floor. This has me confused as to why it splits and even if these are both drains or vents or what. In the second picture it shows the two rough ins in the floor the 3" on the left and the 2" at the right of the picture, you can see the orientation to the 2 2" existing pipes. I'm sorry it is not possible to get a picture of all the pipes in the same picture. Thanks again for all the information.

Hi Mike

See my picture below... answer my questions and then I think I can decipher this setup, OK?

Q: Does this tee fitting go to a drain that goes upstairs?
A: No, there is a clean out plug on that pipe right there facing the wall. There is another clean out plug closer to the floor. This pipe goes up about 4 ft from the floor then connects to the pipe to it's right. This pipe then goes into the wall through the crawl space then goes up to the 2nd floor. Where it goes to the 2nd floor there is also another 2" pipe that goes up as well, that is connected to the 3" drain pipe.
Q: What is this Mike?
A: I believe this is a 2" rough in. The rough in I would want to use for a lavatory or shower. It comes out of the floor about 5" and is capped off.

Hi Mike

OK, the 2 pipes that join together and, "then goes into the wall through the crawl space then goes up to the 2nd floor. Where it goes to the 2nd floor there is also another 2" pipe that goes up as well, that is connected to the 3" drain pipe" sounds like it is strictly a VENT up to where it connects into the 3" drain pipe and then I suspect that there are no drains connecting above this point, right? So to confirm, there are no drains on this line...just vents, right?

Next, cut the cap off the 5" high drain pipe andpour a 1/2 gallon of water into the pipe. After you pour the water shine a flashlight into the drain(don't drop in the pipe) and see if you can see standing water (confirms a PTRAP underground)... if so this is probably set up for a TUB DRAIN (can be converted to shower drain if you use a specific shower pan). If there is no standing water then this is probably for the sink... ;)

Let me know what you find.

Hi all and thank you for all the information. MassPlumber, I did verify that the 2" capped drain pipe does have a PTRAP in it. The other 2 2" pipes are vent pipes that go to the roof of the house. The 4" I assume is for a toilet.
One of the vent pipes does have a cleanout about 2" above the floor and an elbow in it about 18" above the ground, I'm guessing that would be for a sink drain.
The issue I now have is that I am working on the layout of the bathroom.
The previous owner had built walls around this area to just close it off as you will see in the attached file. I will have to move the walls away from the toilet drain and make it a decent size so you can actually use it as a bathroom.
I want to make it a 3/4 bath but I don't think I can use a off the shelf pan because of the layout of the tub/shower drain in relationship to the vent pipes and toilet drains. I poured a shower pan in my master bath in the house so I do know how to do it but it is allot of work.
Does anyone have any ideas how I can make this work?
http://i808.photobucket.com/albums/z...Bathroom10.jpg

Here is the PDF