Piping in the bathroom, toilet, combined bathroom, in the kitchen

Independent wiring of hot and cold water pipes in an apartment or house is not an easy task, but real. Even if you are going to hire a specialist, you should know the main points yourself – control will not hurt. 

How to develop a plumbing layout

First, determine the places where all consumers of cold and hot water will be located. It is better to do everything on the plan, but you can also mark it “on the spot”. Not only the geometric dimensions of the devices are important, but also the exact location of the place where the water must be brought.

Many devices are connected to the water supply network using flexible hoses. Then the outlet from the line can end 10-20 cm before the device. The main thing is that the connection point is easily accessible. This is necessary for convenient and fast connection maintenance. This connection method is easier to implement – there is no need to accurately calculate the length of the pipe.

There is also a hard water supply to plumbing fixtures or household appliances – pipes to the very entrance. Such a connection is more difficult to perform, therefore this type of wiring is less common. Basically, gas water heaters (columns), bathroom faucets that are attached to the wall are connected this way.

Outdoor or concealed laying

First of all, it is worth deciding on the type of pipe laying – will they go on top or hidden in a wall or floor. Hidden wiring in the bathroom, toilet is good from an aesthetic point of view – nothing is visible. But the pipes are not available, to fix the leak you will have to break the wall, which is not at all pleasing. Therefore, they try to lay only whole pieces without joints in the wall – there is less chance of leakage.

There is another difficulty with the hidden laying of water supply – the need for channels in the wall (strobe) into which pipes are laid. Firstly, not every wall allows you to make strobes in it. For example, in panel houses, where the wall thickness is only about 10 cm, it is definitely not worth making a channel 5-6 cm deep. The slab will lose a significant part of its bearing capacity. What it threatens to explain, probably, it is not necessary. Secondly, laying a strobe in the wall is not the easiest job, even with a puncher it takes a lot of time. So there are more than enough cons for this option.

Another type of hidden pipe connection is behind a false wall. To do this, stepping back some distance from the main wall, a frame is installed, and drywall is placed on it, on which tiles are then laid. The second option for false walls is made of plastic panels.

From a practical point of view, external piping is better – everything is in sight, available for repair at any time. But the aesthetic side suffers. To hide communications, all of them – water supply and sewerage – are trying to lay closer to the floor, then they build on a plasterboard box with a removable lid or top. So all the pipes have free access, and they themselves are almost invisible.

Laying method

In an apartment or house, plumbing is done in two ways – by connecting all consumers in series or by installing a collector, from which a separate pipe goes to each of the devices. Both options are not without drawbacks.

When pipes are connected in series, it takes little, but if more than two plumbing fixtures are connected in a row, the pressure may be insufficient when they work simultaneously. This type of wiring is also called a tee – all branches from the main main pipe are made using tees (sometimes crosses or corners).

With the collector wiring of the water supply system, a lot of pipes go away, in addition, additional equipment is required – a collector for the water supply system. So this piping scheme is an expensive undertaking, but the pressure on all connected devices, regardless of the number of workers, is the same.

There is one more nuance: a large number of pipes have to be laid somewhere, and compactly, and this is not at all easy. Therefore, this type of wiring is more often used for hidden or open laying, but in those places that require such a connection or can be closed by furniture.

For example, in a bathroom or toilet, only two devices are connected. There you can do serial wiring. In the kitchen, a column (boiler), a sink faucet, a washing machine and a dishwasher are connected. In this case, it makes sense to put a collector in the kitchen, and from it separate branches of water supply to all consumers. This connection method is called mixed – part of the water supply is diluted with tees, part – from the collector.

Please note that if cold and hot water are distributed at the same time, the pipelines are laid in parallel. With a hidden liner, it makes sense to wrap the DHW liner in thermal insulation – then the water will really be hot and you will not heat the walls. If the pipes are polypropylene or plastic, this is not so critical – polymers have a low heat transfer coefficient. For metal (any – steel, stainless steel, galvanized, copper), thermal insulation is very desirable.

Piping: rules

As in any business, plumbing has its own rules. They are also used for plumbing. If you are going to do the plumbing for yourself, it’s up to you to follow them or not, but it’s better to do everything right. The rules have their own logic, which is followed by the majority:

• Pipes should run parallel, it is better that they do not intersect. It is better to lay them not obliquely, but vertically and horizontally. This rule is especially important for flush mounting – so you will know where the pipes go and do not make a hole in them when you try to hang / fix something on the wall.
• It is desirable to have free access to the joints and joints.
• Each outlet in front of a plumbing fixture or household appliance ends with a shut-off (ball) valve. It is necessary so that you can remove or repair the device without cutting off the water supply to other consumers.
• When distributing the water supply in the apartment, after the riser, be sure to install a coarse filter (further filters are optional, but this one should be).
  

• When distributing a water supply system, each branch is made one step smaller in diameter. This is necessary to maintain a stable pressure. For example, the circuit is sequential, assembled from polypropylene. The riser is 32 mm, the outlet from it is 20 mm, and 16 mm goes to consumers (appliances and plumbing equipment).

If you look closely, you will see that most of the water pipes are made according to these rules.

Which plumbing pipes are best

It is impossible to say unequivocally which pipes are best for wiring – there is no ideal material, there are more or less suitable for these conditions. Let’s dwell on the most popular options, their advantages and disadvantages:

Polypropylene pipes

The option is good for everyone, except for a large thermal expansion – up to 5 cm per 1 meter, and this is a lot. With a long route, it is necessary to install a compensator or use reinforced pipes. They have much less thermal expansion, but the prices are higher. For hot water, it is definitely necessary to use reinforced pipes, but with fiberglass or foil – it’s up to you. The distribution of cold water pipes can be done with a conventional PPR pipe for cold water – here thermal expansion is not so critical.

Read about the choice of pipes made of polypropylene here. 

Another point that is relevant if you do the work yourself, you are going to do a hidden laying of communications – the quality of the connections. In principle, there is nothing complicated in soldering polypropylene, but without experience you can “screw it up”, as a result, after a while the connection may leak. In the absence of experience in welding polypropylene, it is very undesirable to hide the joints under the finish. In this case, it is better to choose an open laying method.

The layout of polypropylene pipes in the bathroom and toilet has many positive aspects:

• a correctly made connection turns out to be monolithic;
• there is no narrowing of the pipeline diameters in the places of soldering;
• high maintainability;
• long service life;
• ease of installation.

In general, it is not for nothing that this material has been so popular lately.

PVC for plumbing

When laying PVC pipes, an adhesive joint is used. There is a special glue that dissolves the top layer of the polymer. Both parts to be glued are lubricated with it, pressed against one another and held for some time. As a result, the connection is almost monolithic, strong and reliable.

There are two types of connection: butt, when two pipe sections are joined and using fittings. Fittings are easier to work with, but the joints are narrower. With a butt joint, there are no narrowings, but it is much more difficult to make it qualitatively.

In principle, all the pros and cons are the same here, a few minuses are added – it is only suitable for transporting cold environments – no more than + 40 ° C, that is, other pipes will have to be used for hot water supply. Scratches and chips reduce the strength of the pipe, therefore, a threaded connection is excluded.

Reinforced plastic

The layout of the water supply from metal-plastic pipes is also suitable for hot water supply – it can withstand temperatures up to + 105 ° C. A positive difference from all of the above is its high plasticity – these pipes can be bent with a fairly small radius. This simplifies and reduces the cost of installation (fittings are expensive).

The disadvantage of using metal-plastic pipes for plumbing is a strong narrowing at the joints – in fittings. This results in a significant pressure drop in the system. This is what limits their use.

Circuit examples

The piping in each apartment, even in a typical house, is individual – plumbing and household appliances are arranged differently, of course, the scheme will be different. In reality, everything is not so complicated, you just need to decide on the main parameters of the circuit – where you need to supply water and the type of wiring – will you pull in parallel or in series. Further, everything is dictated by the position of consumers. To make it a little easier, let’s add a few more diagrams and photos.

The peculiarity of this scheme is that a thicker pipe from the hot water supply goes to the heated towel rail. This is done to ensure the best heating.