Plumbing a House

Every house today has a lot of plumbing throughout the house. Behind the walls is a labyrinth of drain and water pipes. Each one of these pipes are laid out in a way to supply water to your fixtures or to carry away soiled water from your fixtures.

When you hire a plumber during the construction phase of your house, that plumber will use their knowledge of the plumbing code to make sure everything is done properly. You can be sure that beyond that there will be an inspection to make sure your house has been plumbed to code.

Piping Used

In many areas the pipe that is used for building houses now in Pex piping system for water lines and ABS pipe for drain lines. Pex pipe is a plastic pipe that is white, clear, blue, and red. Then for water filters you might see orange, green, yellow, black, and grey. ABS drain lines are a plastic pipe that is always black in color.

Stages of Plumbing a House

The first stage of plumbing a house is to do the rough in work. This includes the ground work in the basement or crawl space, the drain and vents through out the rest of the house and the venting system in the attic. The water lines need to be run throughout the house in the rough in stage. As well as hooking up the bath and shower faucets for tubs and showers. Also in the rough in stage any bathtub and shower needs to be installed, hooked up and tested.

At this point if you are installing a sump pump you will have to dig this into the ground.

Make sure they plumber you hire does an air test on all of the water lines before any drywall goes up. Also make sure that any clean outs on the drain system that are going to be buried in the walls and ceilings are tight so they do not leak. In fact it is best to silicone these closed. If necessary you can always use a wrench and force the clean out open, but if you do not silicone these closed there is a chance on or more could leak and cause problems after the walls and ceilings are closed up and painted. It will cost you a lot more to repair later on then it will to make sure these do not leak now.

In some areas you are required to water test the drain lines.

The next phase of plumbing a house is to do the finish plumbing. This consists of setting the toilets, sinks, faucets, and doing the finish work on the bathtubs and showers. In this phase you also need to install and hook up the water heater. The hot and cold water lines for the water heater should be made of three quarter inch copper and run up about three feet before converting to the PEX system. If you are using a manifold system the I would run copper from the meter to the cold manifold, tee off to the water heater in copper and back to the hot manifold still in copper. Takes a bit more work but they you only need half inch PEX throughout the house.

If you put in a sump barrel you will now install the sump pump in the finish stage.

Once everything is done you will need to turn on the main water line and test and check all of the plumbing in the house. Look for leaks around the toilet tanks and bases, and under the sink in the drain lines and water lines. You will also have to hook up the water and drain hose to the dishwasher and run it to check for leaks as well.

Depending on the number of fixtures you have in the house the rough in plumbing will take between two and a half to five days, and the finish plumbing will take between one and two days.

If the house has gas lines then the plumber you hire might be able to run the gas lines as well. These can be propane or natural gas depending on where you live. Most houses have a water heater, furnace, and a fireplace. Then other houses also have a gas range or cook top, BBQ line, second furnace, second water heater, patio heater, second fireplace, outside fire pit, garage heater, radiant tube heater and boiler.

The plumber you hire does not normally do heating but will do hot water heating or in floor heating in the house. Some places you can use the water heater for both domestic hot water and for in floor heating if the heating is a secondary heat. Check with your local plumbing codes on this to be clear.

That is about it for plumbing in a house.

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