Kevin P Varrasse
Ledge
Will try to explain in words but also took pictures and sketched up my idea.
Remodeling. Adding a second bathtub/shower with secondary rainfall showerhead. (So, bathtub faucet, regular showerhead and an overhead/ceiling rainfall showerhead).
Looking at the scope of the project I decided to run ¾" pipes to the new bathtub faucet then do a tee with ½" to the two showerheads.
Cold water supply is ¾" most of the way, so not a huge issue branching off of that. But... the hot water heater's inlet gets reduced to ½" right before the inlet and the outlet is a ½", and the rest of the house's hot water is ½". I have a relatively small house so i can understand why they did that but now that I'm adding another fixture it is time to move it to ¾".
The main hot water branch is pretty inaccessible to try cut and rework the current lines to put in some ¾" x ½"x ¾" tees to the current x lines.
After researching a bit and thinking of ways to tackle this I thought that the easiest things to do, if these are even possibilities (I cannot find it online (maybe it's my lack of plumbing terminology)), would be to:
1.) Change the hot water heater to ¾" inlet and outlet.
2.) Put a ¾" x ¾" x ½" tee right at the water heater's outlet.
And from here either:
3a.) Just run a ¾" line from the new branch to the new shower. (Would the "Balance" be messed up if someone else uses a faucet from the original ½" supply?) OR
3b.) (Sketched a diagram below) Run a new ¾" hot water line parallel to the ½" line, add the ¾" tee to the new shower, and later down the line tee to a ½" x ¾" x ½" and join them back together. (Extra hot water being used/wasted, yes, but maybe better then the former for balance?)
3c.) (Sketched a diagram below) similar to above but cap off the ½" line at/near the water heater, run the ¾" pipe parallel as the main supply for the feed, and join them back together where it is easy to access.
Ideally, I know I should rip out the walls and ceilings to just have one ¾" supply with everything feeding from it, but... Do I have to rip it all out? Does one of my shortcut ideas work?
Remodeling. Adding a second bathtub/shower with secondary rainfall showerhead. (So, bathtub faucet, regular showerhead and an overhead/ceiling rainfall showerhead).
Looking at the scope of the project I decided to run ¾" pipes to the new bathtub faucet then do a tee with ½" to the two showerheads.
Cold water supply is ¾" most of the way, so not a huge issue branching off of that. But... the hot water heater's inlet gets reduced to ½" right before the inlet and the outlet is a ½", and the rest of the house's hot water is ½". I have a relatively small house so i can understand why they did that but now that I'm adding another fixture it is time to move it to ¾".
The main hot water branch is pretty inaccessible to try cut and rework the current lines to put in some ¾" x ½"x ¾" tees to the current x lines.
After researching a bit and thinking of ways to tackle this I thought that the easiest things to do, if these are even possibilities (I cannot find it online (maybe it's my lack of plumbing terminology)), would be to:
1.) Change the hot water heater to ¾" inlet and outlet.
2.) Put a ¾" x ¾" x ½" tee right at the water heater's outlet.
And from here either:
3a.) Just run a ¾" line from the new branch to the new shower. (Would the "Balance" be messed up if someone else uses a faucet from the original ½" supply?) OR
3b.) (Sketched a diagram below) Run a new ¾" hot water line parallel to the ½" line, add the ¾" tee to the new shower, and later down the line tee to a ½" x ¾" x ½" and join them back together. (Extra hot water being used/wasted, yes, but maybe better then the former for balance?)
3c.) (Sketched a diagram below) similar to above but cap off the ½" line at/near the water heater, run the ¾" pipe parallel as the main supply for the feed, and join them back together where it is easy to access.
Ideally, I know I should rip out the walls and ceilings to just have one ¾" supply with everything feeding from it, but... Do I have to rip it all out? Does one of my shortcut ideas work?
