Home Plumbing ?

justjeepin86

justjeepin86

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 9, 2005
Location
Winston-Salem, NC
So, I have a soffit over my cabinets in the kitchen. I'm working on ordering new cabinets at the moment to spruce the place up a little. I initially thought that the soffit was cosmetic, but it turns out that all my upstairs plumbing runs into it to make it's way to the crawl space. I verified by drilling a couple holes and looking in with a flashlight.

Why the hell would someone do this? For ease of running one drain line through the wall instead of multiple? I'm assuming it all goes to one drain line as I have not gone in the crawl space to look for this exact thing. There are 3 sinks, 2 showers, and 2 toilets up there. It seems like it would be an easy job for a plumber to adjust and run the drains in the walls. That is if I had it torn down to the studs in there. Anyone see a problem with that? I really want the cabinets to run to the ceiling. I can add a pic tonight.
 
The toilet is a 3" or 4" line. You'll have to pad out or double stud the walls to get it down through the floor. But your description sounds like they're running laterally. That'll make it a bit more difficult.
 
You would have to have a lot more separate drops. And then a bunch of pipe going into the floors. Cost.
 
GotWood said:
You would have to have a lot more separate drops. And then a bunch of pipe going into the floors. Cost.
Click to expand...
And then beach stack would need it's own vent.
BUT I'm with Shawn sounds like he is saying they are running horizontally
 
my house my house has a similar Chase above the kitchen cabinets. The only way to eliminate this with a two-story house is using engineered trusses. Then you can run your drain system through the webbing.
 
GotWood said:
my house my house has a similar Chase above the kitchen cabinets. The only way to eliminate this with a two-story house is using engineered trusses. Then you can run your drain system through the webbing.
Click to expand...
Edit: unless properly thought through prior to Construction
 
It’s probably because of an initial lack of planning with framing and plumbing and bathroom layout. Or the initial plumber was a POS and lazy.
 
paradisePWoffrd said:
you could still run cabinets to the ceiling, if that is the look youre after. You would just have plumbing inside the top part of the cabinets.
Click to expand...
The cabinets are not as deep as the soffit. I could probably remove some of it to make that work though. But, I think that would look like crap when you opened the doors. It idea is to have tall doors as well. Thanks for the idea though.
 
justjeepin86 said:
The cabinets are not as deep as the soffit. I could probably remove some of it to make that work though. But, I think that would look like crap when you opened the doors. It idea is to have tall doors as well. Thanks for the idea though.
Click to expand...

I agree, all depends on where the actual plumbing is, and if it could be jogged/moved to accommodate.

How tall is the ceiling under the soffit? One option might be to frame a new lower ceiling so it is all the same height. Not a good one though, IMO.
 
Back
Top