This is step one of removing the ridiculous open-to-the-laundry toilet and shower arrangement. They carted off the broken basement floor chunks, removed the old plumbing and then did the underground rough in for the new 3/4 bathroom.
In one morning, the basement went from this tidy, blue-tape layout of the new space (with weird misplaced fixtures still in the middle of everything:
To this crazy archaeological dig:
Strictly speaking the plumbers didn’t need to make quite such a big hole to place five new fixtures (you can’t see the new floor drain location off to the right above) but since the slab had already been cut up and repaired in the 90’s to put in that odd shower and toilet arrangement, more concrete came up with the jack hammers than they had expected.
That turned out to be just fine since it gave me room to have radon remediation started at the same time. The installer was able to lay a length of drain tile – round black plastic corrugated pipe with little holes in it – through the disturbed area of soil that will collect radon from under the slab. A pipe comes up above slab level next to the floor drain and I’ll attach it to a vent line running up to the attic at a later stage.
So once the plumbing drain lines AND the radon venting was tucked in snugly I was ready to fix that big hole in the concrete. Here it is with the soil dampened and settled, all a consistent 3 1/2 inches or more below floor level and ready to pour. Next step: haul a thousand pounds of concrete mix home from Home Depot!
