My husband wants to put in a laundry shute from our upstairs bathroom to the main level laundry room. He was talking about it last night, and I said, "Do you want me to post a question on that home repair group I visit?" He said yeah and see if any of you have done this, designed it, materials you used? Ideas? Anything?
Thanks, Nancy
Not "shoot", not "shute"....chute.
Shotgun blasted jeans were popular in the late 80's. Maybe that's what she meant.
This could be pretty hard to do. You need a straight vertical shot to the laundry location. The wall cavity will not be large enough for large articles. Usually the liner is made of sheet metal. Once you cut the floor there may be structural beam in the way. You can cut them at the risk of your house falling down.
Call a pro and see if they say it can be done. Or buy an new laundry basket and plan on a chute when you build the next home.
Been there, done it, got the t-shirt's stuck in the chute. Gotta have a straight shot, no bends, angles (even gentle ones), and a SMOOTH inner surface with NO SEAMS. Check this FIRST- is there a straight vertical drop from upstairs bath to laundry room? What's directly below your proposed upstairs location? Laundry work surface? Washer top? Floor?
Did not want to go inside the wall, as there can be problems with load- bearing plates, structural members, etc.
I made the hole between joists, about 14" and came off the wall about
12". Using a length of seamless heating duct, it stood 30" above the floor, and 2' below the ceiling. Attached to the joists and wall with pan-head screws. The top can be bevelled- 30" to back wall, 28" at front for appearance.That's the basics. Finish the upper part with a decorative cover- a few cedar boards to surround the duct and a hinged cover or get a wicker hamper and cut to fit around the duct. Same under for consistancy, or cover to suit the room decor.
You want to make sure that any screws inside are ground and polished so nothing catches, same with the duct ends- watch for anything that can snag and ruin the clothing dropping thru.
Good luck /vic
Unfortunately, they don't go in the walls, as you probably already figured out. If...big if!...there is a place in the general location where you want to put it that is clear on both floors and doesn't pass over any floor joists, it's simply a matter of cutting the floor (between joists, remember!) and framing the "box" that goes around it. The part in the laundry room need not go all the way to the floor, but you'll want the part in the bathroom to be as inconspicuous as possible. If you need a linen closet, that could take up the spot next to the existing wall, and/or above the laundry door. You'll want the inside of the chute to be free of any edges that might snag clothes, of course.
Very crude attempt at a visual aid...
**** = existing wall _ | = added walls (making the box) ************************************** * |[-------]| * ??? |[-chute-]| * |[-------]| *__/\ /\__|__door___| * ??? is the area you need to "waste" in order to match up with the floor joists. If it's very small it can just be wasted, covered with drywall. Or if it's worth saving, it can be a closet with a couple of bifold doors on it.The absolute key to the placement is where you can find that 14 1/2" wide opening in the floor for the width of the chute. If you drywall the interior of it that takes you down to 13 1/2 wide, which isn't a whole lot. Make the chute about 20" deep if you can afford to lose that much floor space.
I did one in a house several houses ago. The kitchen was directly over the laundry which was in the basement. I cut a hole in the bottom of a kitchen cabinet and used a big spring (taken from a rat trap to hold the access panel closed. Down below was an open laundry bag that was just waiting to be filled. No chute involved so no worries about curves,angles or snags.
Charlie
If you are going through the building permit process, be aware that some municipalities don't like laundry chutes. Fire can rage through the floor-to-floor penetration.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Keep the whole world singing. . . . DanG
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I just finished this project. My wife really wanted a chute from the third level to the basement laundry, but there was no way since the two levels are not over one another (4 level house plus basement...sort of a split on steroids).
As part of remodeling a third level bath, I was able to shift a wall far enough to create a path from the bathroom to the basement bathroom next to the laundry. We keep a rolling laundry cart under the chute and just roll it to the next room on laundry day.
I used 8" x 12" retangular furnace duct. Previous posters have indicated you must have a straight shot; not true. My chute drops about 4 feet, then has two horizontal 45 bends to shift it over about
8", then drops another 4 feet before a vertical 45 bend. The last 3-4 feet of chute are sloped at 45 degrees to take the chute through the basement bathroom wall at ceiling level, where a wooden housing with a door flap causes the clothes to drop into the basket. All these bends occur inside a closet that's underneath the upstairs bathroom and adjacent to the basement bathroom. I took over 1 foot of the closet to run the chute through.Despite all the turns, the clothes sail through and drop into the basket; even wet clothes make it without trouble. 8 x 12 is larger than the normal chute; I chose that on purpose because I knew the bends might be a problem. Don't get me wrong, a straight shot would be best, but all is not lost if a minimal bend is needed. I had to weight the chute door in the basement because the clothes were traveling so fast down the 45 degree slope they were sailing halfway across the bathroom instead of falling into the basket.
As previous posters have said, avoid cutting framing members unless you know how to replace the lost structural support.
Go for it!
Paul
Oh however!! I knew I would get it wrong! At least I didn't write "shoot!" Nancy :-)
Wow, a lot of great responses, thanks! Forwarded them all to my husband (except my spelling lesson!!) and am saving them in a folder too. Will post back with questions and updates and stuff. I'm thinking he'll start this in a month or so, when I finish my school year. (teacher....music, not grammar/spelling!! shoot/chute/shute!!) Nancy :-)
Don't beat yourself up too bad over that one, you just kinda merged all the variations together. There are plenty of people on Usenet who honestly don't know there is a difference between "your" and "you're". Those are the ones we *really* need to worry about! :-)
Check code requirements -- it may require a self closing lid on the top to prevent things/small children from falling into it and/or a spring loaded lid at the bottom to block fire. The interior needs to be smooth and snag free. It would be handy though.
You could look into a dumbwaiter as an expen$ive but useful (can lift things upstairs) alternative.
Nancy:
N > My husband wants to put in a laundry shute from our upstairs bathroom to th
N > main level laundry room. He was talking about it last night, and I said, N > "Do you want me to post a question on that home repair group I visit?" He N > said yeah and see if any of you have done this, designed it, materials you N > used? Ideas? Anything?
Make sure the seams are overlapped facing 'down' -- don't want anyone's underwear getting caught in the chute!
- ¯ barry.martinþATþthesafebbs.zeppole.com ®
Of course, if you're re-arranging things enough to put in a laundry chute, you might want to think about whether you've got enough space to put the washer/dryer upstairs, which is where the clothes are, anyway. After all, the chute only works in one direction...
Yes, you're right. When we first got the house, we talked about that. There really isn't a place to put the w/d upstairs, though it would be convenient. From what my husband is describing, he would use part of our walk-in closet, I guess to make the drop from the other side of the wall, which is our bathroom. Directly below that is our laundry room, so it would drop into a laundry bin, as someone else described. He's pretty excited after reading all of the posts I forwarded. I'm sure this weekend he'll be crawling around the space above the garage, looking at the rafters and such.
Nancy :-)
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