Can I move this tub drain over by one inch?

[ajtisseve]

Hi All,

Thank you for this great site! It has been a great help for the plumbing projects I have been doing around my house!

I'm currently remodeling my bathroom and the bath tub I would like to use has a center drain placement that is 1 inch further to the right than the current layout. The existing trap is set up exactly as the picture below.

Can I move this over? If so how? Do I simply loosen the middle joint with a wrench, re-position, then re-tighten?

I wanted to double check before I put a wrench on the joint in the middle and started applying a lot of pressure.

Thanks!

 

[CountryBumkin]

Is this is a freestanding tub (i.e. clawfoot or similar) - is this trap located in the floor? Of course you can loosen the nut and pivot the trap left or right. That will give you the one inch your looking for, but obviously the drain won't be along the center line of the piping anymore (as shown above).

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Reach4]

'm currently remodeling my bathroom and the bath tub I would like to use has a center drain placement that is 1 inch further to the right than the current layout. The existing trap is set up exactly as the picture below.

To move the trap, as pictured, to the right and without changing the center line, wouldn't you have to shorten the trap arm or somehow angle the trap arm?

If the trap arm is smooth and 1-1/2 inch OD, it seems to me that a slip joint union could be useful in the line to bridge a cut and to make the cut length less critical. I am not a plumber.

 

[hj]

Rotating the trap to either side, will cause the opening to move away from its present distance from the end wall. There can be many ways to connect the drain to the trap, and some do not require that the trap be moved. It depends on what make and model the tub's drain assembly is. (P,S., it is NOT 1 1/2" o.d. and those fittings pictured would not work, and I would not use them even if they did).

 

[MKS]

I took a similar bathtub drain off of my tub and it fell apart. Those compression connections will loosen. If they are not accessible it is a bigger problem. From my reading here I believe the preferred connections would be solder or glued pvc. I also believe the plumbers here would not reuse the old bathtub drain assembly. They build the new drain assembly to fit the tub drain and overflow before setting tub.

A carefully placed 22.5 elbow may solve the offset problem.

 

[Jadnashua]

IF the existing trap is heavy bronze or brass, it may be as good as new. SOme of them are quite thin, and over time, as soon as you try to move them, they can fall apart. The trap does not have to be all in a line...you can swivel any of the available joints. Now, without seeing what it is connecting to, can't say if you can make it fit without other modifications.