Plumbing Rough In

[nofishfisherman]

I have a question about roughing in a bathroom. My wife and I are looking at buying our first house. We found a house we like but the attic space needs to be finished.

There is a framed in bathroom with some of the plumbing done. The waste water lines and vent are in place and copper pipes run from the attic to the basement but nothing is hooked up. I am wondering if someone might be able to give me a guesstimate at what it would cost to finish the rough in. If I can get the water lines and the drain lines placed I can finish the rest of the drywall, tile, etc, myself.

I am just trying to see how much extra $$$ I need to have before I can tackle something like that. I spoke with one plumber over the phone and he gave me a guess of $3600-4000, I am hoping that is high.

[sparcebag]

That sounds high to me! I do know plumbers are in demand and the ave. age of plumbers is over 50 yrs,no youngins want to do it! So they can get big bucks,but even at 200.00 an hour I dont think your lookin at more than a day.So my GUESS?? is 1600 or less shop around.Was this quote from a home visit or over the phone?Is the plumbing thats done up to code? or does it need redone?

Its also a buyers market now why not include it in your terms of buying?

[Chad Halvorson]

Copper has become very expensive, that I know. Do you simply need to connect everything to the main hot and cold lines? Doe s the toilet, sinks, shower, need hardware or simply fitting to connect?

[MNice]

Ask around, because many plumbers are very slow right now and the prices should go down. If there is any construction activity in your area, just stop & talk to a few, many are willing to do side jobs. Check my profile, and if you wish, contact me next week and I can try & help you find a good one.

[TNFL]

That doesn't sound very difficult at all. If the pipes are exposed and accesible. I did my plumbing (basement bath) myself, and no leaks so far. It can be scary tapping into your main water line, knowing if you mess up no water until it gets fixed, but its not too hard. soldering pipes is actually very easy to do, and inexpensive to get started.

[dakotakid31]

ok so you have all the waste and vents hooked up and the water lines ran up to the space but not tied in in the basement? was his est. for finishing the rough,finish and faucet fixtures? either way that seems high. i mean tapping hot and cold 3/4 lines, stubbing out for the lav and w/c and setting up the shower valve and not having to do any waste and vent and having the 1/2" runs already up there- wow that would be a good pay day. i could take a look or answer any Questions ya have if ya feel like taking a crack at it yourself but it dosent seem like a big deal.

[nofishfisherman]

THanks for the replies. I did get the estimate over the phone so he may have thought there was more work that needed to be done. Basically it just needs to have the water lines connected and placed in the proper locations and then you would need to place the drains and tie them into the main line. The walls are all open and the floor could be opened in about 5 minutes since it is just old floor boards.

For now we are still looking at other homes, i looked closer at some of the other work the home owners did and it was not done very well. They were in the process of turning the attic into a large master suite and it has dry wall up but not mudded or taped and from the looks of it I would need to rip out all the drywall and start over becuase they did it completely wrong. The seems are wrong and there are some that are not landing on the studs. Also the entire outside of the house needs to be repainted badly, lots of exposed wood. I figure there is $20,000 worth of work that needs to be done when you add in some kitchen updates and some extra exterior work. It just was getting to be too much.