Maybe this is, but I do not know the answer to it.
In order to remove a bathtub to replace it, you have to undo the drain. Now can you do that somehow from inside the tub, or do you have to go through from the ceiling below it. How the heck do you get at the fittings without doing that? The tub goes righ to the floor at t he front and there is not enough room at the back to do anything....
???
Through the wall from the room? They should install removable panels there.
Years ago, plumbing was easily accessed from a panel in the room next to the bathroom. Usually a framed in door of some sort. However, if you are building a $300,000 house today, you have to cut corners and not spend that extra $20 in trim work so it is just sheetrocked over. It is probably easiest to cut a hole in the wall and then frame it out with a simple removable access panel.
If you absolutely cannot make an access door thru the wall in the adjoining room, then it is "possible" to undo the drain from inside the tub.
Remove the trip lever/overflow faceplate. Unscrew the drain fitting in the bottom of the tub. How you do this depends on how the mfr made it. If it has crosshairs, there is a tool to fit or you can improvise. Some mfr had 2 grooves in the side of the fitting. Make tool to fit. The drain fitting is probably very tightly screwed in to the tub shoe (underneath) or is corroded in place. Expect defeat.
Making all those surafces seal again to the new tub will be a challenge too.
Of course, you can always cut the ceiling out.....
Jim
You do not need to access the plumbing from underneath. Unscrew the tub drain with a drain tool. Remove the overflow trip lever plate or overflow plate with a screw driver and take out the tub.
Same way you put it in.
You MIGHT be able to remove the old drain from inside the tub if it is not too corroded. Its near impossible to put in the new one that way. Id just make an access panel and eliminate the frustration.
Near impossible! Wow, I am doing a lot better than I thought. I just did two tubs that way last week. It seemed to be pretty easy. I did have to lift one of the tubs up to get my cell phone out from under it as it fell out of my pocket while setting the tub in place, but other than that, there were no major problems. What kind of problems could you have with this installation?
Now I will agree that if the rough plumbing has not been set correctly, you could have hell, but since we are talking about removing and replacing, it would seem that those types of problems would have already been corrected.
Maybe I am wrong...perhaps I am just that good...and I'm not even a plumber.
Hire a pro? The drain flange could probably be unscrewed from above...if you had the right tool for the job. HTH Tom Work at your leisure!
On Sun, 06 Feb 2005 15:17:29 GMT, Robert Allison scribbled this interesting note:
LOL!:~) See, the reason you are so good is precisely because you aren't a plumber!
When building a house once, we made the mistake of hiring a licensed, master plumber to do the rough in. It was rough indeed. And he charged full price. Not only did he have the hot and cold sides switched on the water heater location, he also got the toilet too close to the bathtub. This was a slab foundation. After paying him full price for this kind of messed up job, he would not come back out to fix his mistakes. So we had to rent a jackhammer to break out the concrete around the toilet drain and move it where it should have been to begin with.
Don't get me started about plumbers. Seems most think their professional license is instead a license to steal.
-- John Willis (Remove the Primes before e-mailing me)
Did this job last week. Tried to unscrew drain as it went in; it simply broke off the pipe leading to the bottom of the drain when turned. Ended up having to painstakingly cut it out with a dremel disk cutter. YMMV.
Many of the nice whirlpool tubs were placed and the house built around the tub. It can cost thousands to knock a wall out to get the tub out and in.
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