Relocate Basement Plumbing

Moon Martin

Starting a basement finish job and need to relocate the bathroom rough-in approximately 16 feet. Should I jack-hammer the trench or use a conrete saw.

precisionbuild

Use the concrete saw to cut the sides of the trench and then use the jackhammer or a sledge to bust it up. So both.

D.Foster

I've used a grinder with a vaccum before too, in case dust is an issue. Then jack hammer the cut edge.

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Do what you would do, as if i won't Do anything after you Did It!

rbsremodeling

I would use a plumber...........................................




















They come in handy to block the debris from the jack hammering

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lapkus

Use a jackhammer,using a cutting tool only messes up the furnace,waterheater, basically dust all over, also when you use a saw you get a straight line, looks good but when you pour crete in ,it wont hold as good ,with a jackhammer you get rough edges for the new crete to hang on to, after you crete it up,pour a thin layer of jiffset over it to smooth out, sounds dump to have rough edge but i have seen many crete seperating with a straigh edge

Aggie67

Something small like that, we use a crappy circular saw with diamond blade, pail of water, and a shop vac. Then we bust it up with a Brute. Bigger runs we'll use our walk behind saw and garden hose attachment. But our work usually gets lino, tile or carpet over it, and we never see a joint. Never left it bare, so I couldn't say what's better.

jarvis design

I learned a good trick from my plumber a number of years ago. He will use his jackhammer to make a hole large enough for a square edge shovel, excavates under where he wants to go and uses a sledgehammer to break the concrete. Keep excavating where you are heading and you've got yourself a nice trench!! A lot quicker than using a jackhammer for the entire thing and a lot less dusty than cutting.

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threaderman

Don't quit your day job Rory!

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Joe ---International Code Council Member

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neolitic

To keep dust down on small jobs
I use a rorohammer & ¾" bit to
describe the out lines.
Then "connect the dots" with
a sledge or breaking hammer.

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IHI

Alot easier to bust concrete when it does'nt have a base under it.

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Tinstaafl

Wet saw, shop vac and sledgehammer. Preferably, the sledge comes with a young beast attached.

IHI

Better make that an electric quickie saw plugged into a GFCI LOL!!!! My first house i made the mmistake of letting my mason try his quickie to cut my egress opening...BAD BAD BAD descion LOL!!! but it was worth a shot.

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Tinstaafl

I did that. Once.

IHI

Nothing like CO2 so thick you can cut it and every detector in the hosue going off

The last one we installed i "tried" a concrete chain saw but i think the blade must have been completely shot, i was cutting through a cement block wall, no metal in it, and i cut 7 LF and it was done I had a guy inside with the shop vac sucking up any slurry coming off the blade and was happy since it was clean cutting all the way through with only slurry to clean up, and then it stopped....then i called to beeotch at the rental place for giving me a junk blade and he said it was my fault and i would be charged $450 for a new one..i freaked out and told him to get out here asap so he could see it was'nt apoured wall, there was'nt steel in it and if he ever wanted my business again he'd better get the notion of charging me for a blade out of his head right now. So then he said i burnt it up by not using enough water, so i told him, i cut 7' and am standing in water almost to my knees in this pit, and have already emptied my 5 gallon wet/dry vac on the inside of the house, so dont tell me i did'nt use enough water, maybe i used to much and washed all the diamonds off the blade

He never showed up and said we'll work it out, but i was hot since when we first got it i told the grunt who picked it up it did'nt look like there was very much diamond on the blade.

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Tinstaafl

I hope you were paying him well. Seems like that'd be the equivalent of staring down the bore of a loaded shotgun.

I've never tried a chain saw, but I've rented quite a few wet saws, been pretty hard on some of them and never been charged for excess wear. OTOH, I once rented a jackhammer that turned out to be just totally mechanically worn out and more frustration than it was worth to use. Did the work with a sledge (too far away to go get a replacement), and then got stonewalled and charged full price on the rental when I returned it. What a racket!

IHI

For this application is was like the perfect scenario, completely unfinished and they wanted the egress cut in before they started framing, so i took some great stuff and made a border starting 3' on either side of the work/cutting area and extended it roughly 4' away from the foundation. let it get hard while we dug the pit in front of the foundation, went downstairs, hung plastic stapled to the floor joists like a shower curtain so it draped inside my circle of foam, and then the guy basically just stood out of the way of the zinging water spray with the shop vac and sucked up the slurry/water mixture as it pooled up. Once we were done cutting, sucked up any remaining water, then used our flat bars to "pry" the foam off the floor-DUN

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Tinstaafl

What a great idea! I'm stealing it for my next job like that.

We usually do most of the framing before cutting the wall, so we can button it up quickly. But yeah, it's a real PITA on many levels when the basement has a bunch of stuff in it that can't be removed. Give me a naked one any day.

IHI

Cliche typical says the same thing about women, but being here in the midwest you really have to watch what ya say cuz it just might happen

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jaros bros.

In the past I have usually cut it with a wet diamond saw and jackhammered it. One of the GCs I worked for hired a company that specialized in it. They had all the fancy equipment and dust control and they were reasonable. They could be in and out and were reasonably priced. It's not a fun job to do.

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IHI

Luckily we have a company here that does it too, but to the tune of $1500...but, they do dig the hole, and haul away most of the dirt leaving just enough for backfill...kinda hard to get cheap HO's to go for that kinda change on top of our normal charge, but when the interior is finished i have no choice but to bid it that way since like you said there is minimal mess...otherwise i just get the electric quickie and do it the hard somewhat messy way

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