Plumbing in Slab Home

[Michael]

We've made an offer on a house on a concrete slab down in Florida. We've always owned houses with a crawl space. We want to move around a few walls and make two bedrooms into one and make the bathroom bigger. Also, we need to add some drains in the kitchen for a sink in a different location.

I was a carpenter for many years, so I can deal with any issues involved in shifting interior walls and their impact on loadbearing, and I understand that I can get a concrete saw and carve in a new drain, but how do I avoid plumbing that is already laid in the floor? Do I need to get a detailed layout of where everything is in the floor? If this doesn't exist, what do I do?

Thank you, Michael

[Sacramento Dave]

You just cut threw the concrete. You don't have to bury the blade. Also you will have to find existing drains to tie into; I doubt there would be detailed layout of plumbing. Housing plumbing is pretty much what the plumber wants to do. Think straight lines. Also you might try a pipe locating CO.

[Walter R.]

For $ 235, a pipe locating service (yellow pages), charted where all water pipes and the major drainage lines run under the slab. We needed to drill in several locations to mitigate termite problems.

[Italian Mason]

[Michael]

Thanks to everyone for posting. I suspected that there might be some service that could plot out the lines, but I had no real knowledge of it. And the part about the steel reinforcement is spooky. Florida ground is notoriously sandy, and my guess is that when wet, it needs whatever reinforcement it has.

Thanks again, Michael