Laundry room remodel (plumbing questions)

[Uncle Cracker]

Because you may at some point need to clear a blockage by running a hose or a snake down the stack...

[ivwshane]

Ok, so now that I have then venting and drainage plans taken care of now I have some questions about the copper plumbing.

I plan on having the washer and dryer underneath a quartz counter top and to keep as clean of a look as possible I was planning on having the washer hookup box underneath the counter but in a previous thread some raised concerns about getting to the shut off valve easily. So I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone. Instead of ripping out all existing copper and rerouting it I could just make the existing washer box the new one (it's on the opposite side of the wall but it wouldn't be too hard to switch around) and then have new copper come from that to the new washer hook up box.

1) Good or bad idea and why?
2) because my houses' electrical panel is on the opposite side of the wall do I need to be concerned about running copper by or having wires (sheathed) touching the copper?

The alternative is that I reroute all the copper and have it continue underneath the house and then up to the new washer box but then I'd have a bunch of tubing and a drain above the counter.

Any ideas welcome!

[toolguy1000]

i am overly cautious when it comes to plumbing and electricity. i try to keep wires away from all copper plumbing to avoid any possible incidence of a conductor coming in contact with, and energizing, a copper water line. once the copper is energized, so are the conductive metal portions of the fixtures. i vote under and over to the new location. FWIW.

[pelligrini]

Is that panel a surface mount? If it isn't I doubt there would be any room left in the wall cavity to run the plumbing through there anyways.

[ivwshane]

Is that panel a surface mount? If it isn't I doubt there would be any room left in the wall cavity to run the plumbing through there anyways.

You are right, what I was thinking and how I drew the picture are two different things.


What if I did it like this pic?

[pelligrini]

As far as I know, that should be ok. I don't know if there ant any provisions in the code as to where and how close cut off valves should be for fixtures though.

Are there any circuit home runs coming up from below the panel?

Getting around that corner with copper might be a pain. Have you considered going back down the wall from your old washer connections, crossing over to the new location below the floor and then going up to the new hook ups?

[ivwshane]

As far as I know, that should be ok. I don't know if there ant any provisions in the code as to where and how close cut off valves should be for fixtures though.

Are there any circuit home runs coming up from below the panel?

Getting around that corner with copper might be a pain. Have you considered going back down the wall from your old washer connections, crossing over to the new location below the floor and then going up to the new hook ups?

I have but the only issue I have with doing it that way would be the new location for the shut off valve.

Unless you think I could have the shut of valve at the old location and still route the new copper lines underneath but I don't know what that would look like (going from under the washer box to the valve and then back down to the washer).

[jdon]

Just my .02 - and worth every penny-

For your water shut-off valves, are you planning on using one of those modules that includes a drain, and is recessed into the wall? If so, iirc, they almost invariably have hose bib fittings to connect directly to the washer hoses. It seems like a lot of work to remove the hose bibs and replace with sweat fittings.

I don't know about you, but SHMBO and I rarely have used the shut off valves- usually only when leaving for vacation, and never, as I recall, in an emergency.

You need to provide hookups under the counter in any case (I assume you're not planning on running garden hoses across the room from the original hookup!), so why not just put the shutoffs with the hookup under the counter, and bite the bullet and reach under the counter the few times you need to shut off the valves?

Or, if the shut off valves are the lever type, you could create some sort of throttle linkage to a handle under the front of your counter!

[ivwshane]

Ok so how about this:

Basically I leave the current shut off valve in place (move to the other side of the wall) and have the new copper continue through out of the top and then over and down and finally under the floor and back up to the new washer box.

If this is ok then I have one last question regarding the copper plumbing; I've seen people leave extra copper pipes in certain places to stop knocking, if I want to do that as well where would I add the extra copper?

[pelligrini]

That routing should be ok.

Most of the time I see Water Hammer Arresters installed at the end of a run where a fast acting valve can create the knocking. I've seen something similar to this http://www.pexuniverse.com/store/pro...x-connection-0 on the last condos we did.

[ivwshane]

Ok thanks!

So I should just add some water hammers on the top of the outlets in the washer hookup box?