"Farmer plumbing", sand under concrete question

[farmhouseboondoggle]

Hi there and thanks for reading my question!
We have ripped up our farm bathroom floor in order to put in a curbless shower and tile the whole thing. Because we don't want any step-up this meant taking up the whole floor and redoing all the plumbing. Now we have a hole with PVC, PEX and forced air heating conduit in it. Our understanding is that now we need to bury it all in sand, and then put the concrete subfloor over that. Do we tamp the sand? If we borrow or rent a vibrating tamper, would that run the risk of damaging the pipes? Would it be better to compact it by wetting it down? (and then run a space heater in there to get that water evaporated)?

(by the way, in the picture below, things look curved because of how the panorama was taken - it's not a crazy house)

Thanks for any good advice.

 

[Reach4]

I don't know the answers to your main questions.

I will say that your washer standpipe is wrong. The AAV is the wrong place. Using 2 90 degree fittings three may or may not be OK but 2 45s would have let you jog in a much better way.

The distance down from the box to the trap may be too long for UPC also.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[farmhouseboondoggle]

Thank you for your comment! Yeah - we know that part is not quite right and not up to code. We tested it out and it works (meaning the water stayed in the trap). The plumber friend who helped us with the PEX looked at it and said "Well, what you're doing is what we call farmer plumbing, I don't have time to come here and do it up to code, but if it works it works." (he's not a private contractor, he has a corporate job and was consulting for us in his spare time for free, god bless him). My brother (who is also leading this work while kind of on leave from his job) says, and I quote "I don't know what somebody could tell me that would make me change the drains again"...

Do you foresee disaster from that misplaced AAV, or do you basically agree with our plumber friend that although it's not ideal it should work well enough? (Don't worry, I won't hold you to it).

Also, let me get your opinion on another thing: My brother and uncle (yeah, the uncle is in on this too - when he comes around) agreed to put a second drain in this bathroom. So it will have the shower drain, but then also a drain in the middle of the floor. I think this is ridiculously unnecessary. If you get a puddle on the tile floor, you can A) mop it into the shower drain, or B) use a damn towel. Plus it means we have to slope the hole concrete subflooor, instead of just the shower. Am I crazy for thinking this is so extra?

We're sort of in the frame of mind of "it doesn't have to be up to code, but we'd like to not have to re-do it in 5 years". We got into this situation because Dad broke his hip and we wanted to put in a curb-less shower. So we took out the bathtub and one thing led to another led to a huge project that nobody actually wanted. But now we want to do it well. Lol if you tell me that that stand-pipe really needs to be re-done in order to prevent disaster, then I think I, who am even less knowledgable about diy stuff than my brother, will wind up being the one that takes it on, because he is well and truly sick of the thing.

There's a reason my username is Farmhouseboondoggle.

Again, thanks.

 

[Terry]

A washer drain.
What you have now is horrible. Before you cover it, it should be cut out and redone.
The AAV can go on the vertical if you're not going through the roof.
Where is the vent for the shower drain? I don't see that in the picture.

 

[farmhouseboondoggle]

What you have now is horrible. Before you cover it, it should be cut out and redone.

Thank you for your advice.
We just ran both the shower and the washing machine at the same time. No back-ups, it drained fine.
I fully accept your assessment that we did it wrong, though.
What I would like to ask (and please forgive me for asking) is, if we leave this in place, what is the worst that we should expect? Is it a disaster because of how badly it violates code, or because eventually the pipes will explode, or because it will cost us something when we someday sell this old farmhouse?

If we decided to get this house up to code, I suspect it will probably wind up costing us $80,000 instead of the $5,000 we wanted to spend on just making the bathroom more accessible for my dad.

Everything you see is an ad hoc solution to some problem or other,
- the angle of the drain to the septic in the corner of the bathroom is weird.
- We chose not to remove the rest of the concrete that was partly removed 15 years ago by the uncles.
- The washing machine and shower supply and drain lines were put where they were 15 years ago. Moving them would run into other problems.
- Part of the remaining concrete (by the door) covers a cistern that would be in the way anyway,
Ok, thanks for your responses.