Hi, I would like to completely remove an unwanted sink from my bedroom of a new house I have just moved into. I have no plumbing skills, but would like to try to do the job myself. Could someone advise the step-by-step process that I should follow to safely remove the sink and make safe the pipe-work?
Please note, immediately behind the unwanted sink is the partition wall between the bedroom in question and the bathroom. In fact, if you imagine the wall not being there, the bathroom sink and the bedroom sink would be almost 'back-to-back'.
Obviously, when the job is complete, I would like none of the pipework that was required for the bedroom sink to be left in the bedroom.
All help would be greatly appreciated. Also, you will need to advise what tools are required to do the job.
First, find the main cold water shutoff for the entire house or shutoffs that may exist on the hot and cold lines that serve this area of the house. Turn off the water and open hot and cold faucets somewhere that are lower than the area you will be working on to allow enough water to drain out so the pipes you will work on are empty.
The faucets are disconnected from below. Since you're going to remove the sink, the easiest way is usually to just disconnect the riser pipes where they join the stop valves under the sink area. Disconnect the drain by loosening the nut on top of the trap. Find any bolts, etc holding the sink from below and remove. Then work the sink free and lift out. It will have some caulk around it, so it will take some prying, starting with a plastic putty knife or similar, to get it free. Remove the drain trap and be aware it will have some water in it.
You now have to deal with what's left. If the area is going to be hidden, you can just cap off the end of the drain pipe and leave it as is. If you want to completely remove the pipes and have a regular wall, then you need to open up the drywall and get inside the wall. Presuming the drain pipe is plastic, you want to cut it off at a point so that you can cement a cap on it and have it not interfere with putting drywall over it. For the hot and cold, which presumably are copper, you want to use a tubing cutter to cut them off and then you will need to solder caps on those. Turn the water back on, and check for leaks.
I'd also find a website that goes over how to correctly solder and then buy a short piece of pipe and a couple cheap fittings to practice on. Make sure there is nothing easily flammable in the area you will work on. And fill a 5 gal pail with water just in case, as you'll have the water shut off.
You may be in over your head already. (No offense)
Besides having to chop out a great hunk of drywall (and carefully repair it), you will be cutting pipe and (if copper) using a torch inside the wall to make solder connections which (you hope) won't leak for a lifetime. And dealing with drainage connections which (given the back-to-back) may be difficult.
At a minimum, maybe seek out a neighbor who has some of the skills noted.
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