I am replacing a bathroom and the old bath does not go all the way to the wall because the soil pipe runs parallel to it. Going to fit a shower so was planning on building a stud wall in front of the soil pipe an putting the bath up to that.
Having just stripped everything out I find that the soil pipe is further out than I had anticipated. Existing bath is steel with feet at the bottom so can overlap the pipe. New bath is acrylic with a frame so cannot. Result is that with the wall in front of the pipe the bath is going to be about 300mm from the existing wall making the already small bathroom a foot smaller in one direction.
So I was wondering if it is possible to build a stud wall that goes down to the top of the pipe but obviously does not reach the floor.
What I was thinking about was vertical piece of timber screwed to the wall behind each upright. Then a horizontal piece coming out from that with a bracket at 45 degrees below it. Screw the runner to each of these brackets and build the wall on that.
Are you just trying to lose the extra distance of the timber after the soil-pipe?
If not, I can't picture what you want to achieve, as I end up with a stud wall hanging in the air over the top of your bath.
What's the wall? Solid? (bolt studs on to wall) stud? (screw studs on if they aren't too modern and "value engineered"). Horsehair and poo? (you're on your own)
What's going to hang on it - thin paint, thin tile, heavier porcelain, hefty stone?
Yes. The room is only about 7 feet from the door wall to the wall opposite and the length of the bath across. If I build the stud wall in front of the pipe I will loose one foot of that 7 feet so I was wondering if there was a way of building it only down as far as the pipe. Some of the pipe can go under the bath so I should be able to gain more than the thickness of the new wall.
Existing wall is solid. It is the partition wall between two houses. Next doors bathroom is on the other side.
New wall will be covered with Aquapanel and then tiled with 400mm x 250mm ceramics.
Sure, you can do that. A stud wall frame is only a wooden grid, as long as you stop that grid bending about somehow its all good. You do want it very rigid for tiling.
However, as the room's small, would it not look better to make a shelf there instead, and keep the full 7 feet?
There is a shelf there at the moment but the intention is to put a shower over the bath and the concern is that a shelf is just going to get wet and be unusable. A wall means that we can tile right around the shower and have an alcove the other end for shampoo bottles and the like.
Stronger and simpler would be to span the pipe lengthways with a good sized timber, fixing the wall end into a joist hanger and some other appropriate means at the other, then build the partition on that. By all means tie the partition back into the wall to add rigidity but those ties wont now be carrying any vertical forces.
Screwing the aquapanel on with plenty of screws will effectively make the partition into a compound beam, adding rigidity and reducing sag. Support the middle of the partition whilst fixing the panels
I've assumed that the length of the room isn't much over ten feet.
Having ripped the old bath out this morning this now seems more complicated than I originally thought. The two side walls which I thought were stud partitions and which I could remove the plasterboard from, put some noggins in to support things like the shower and then aquapanel on top are in fact two sheets of plasterboard separated by an egg-box. So probably no structural strength as such even though a previous plumber has mounted a combi-boiler on the other side. By moving the bath out the pipes for the shower will have to come from behind the boiler so a little difficult. The wall is only 1700mm long so exact length of the bath.
Currently looking at a complete redesign, rotate the bath 90 degree to put it along one of the longer walls. Build the false wall and use it to hide all the water and waste pipe behind, bringing them out to connect to the bath and sink. This all of course depends on finding a way of connecting into the existing imperial waste pipes.
Any way you can provide a firm 'pseudo floor' on which to build, is OK.
You may find a WBP box beam works as well as a braced truss, which is what you seem to be suggesting.
I did something similar here, and I am in trouble, because I used a baulk of wood that was not stable enough, and tiled over it - if you like I solved the gap by making a shelf a little above bath height. This is handy to keep the 150 different soap like products my wife insists are absolutely essential for her mental and physical well being, but the wood has moved and cracked the tiles. And shower water now gets behind..another round tuit. And the more the water penetrates the more the wood moves..
So I would recommend you carry the plasterboard or aquapanel which is much more stable, behind the bath and maybe use WBP to form the base structure on the basis that is also more stable than a random bit of 2x2 or whatever.
So how you might do this is as follows.
Make a box section of 4 strips of ply, but don't assemble it, a box section that fits between the bath and the wall with enough space to cover it in plasterboard between teh bath and the box.
Assemble the rear and lower sides first, and then screw that to the wall, ..then fit the inner side to that possibly screwing upwards..this is tricky. Or perhaps assemble as a U section first, and simply screw where you can access..towards the top - before fitting the top section in place.
Then build the stud wall off that and plasterboard it.
It is also extremely beneficial unless you want massive ugly flexible silicone sealer to somehow tie the bath to that structure. Car body filler may be your friend. Acrylic baths can have wood glued to them to stop them flexing , and to also tie in to the structure,.Oh I have just re read your post Its a new bath!
In that case I strongly suggest you make that box with a lip going upwards, and car body filler it to the bath edge, BEFORE installing the bath, then screw the ruddy lot to the wall!
If the bath has a lip, the easy way is to strip some timber to fit inside that, underneath, and glue the bugger in. Then screw to that for the box bottom, and build the sides up off that..then fit the modified bath to the wall, and finish the boxing with a top. IF you want to do as I did, and leave it at that with a tiled shelf, it should work anyway, but learn from my cockup and slope the shelf towards the bath to drain shower water off, and silicone all the joints BEFORE tiling.
Or as per your original thought stud to the ceiling and plasterboard over, and tile over that.
Do it my way and there wont be any weight on the eggbox at all ;-). I have seen it used and it is surprisingly rigid, you could still fix battens to it with cavity fixings and give the partition some in & out rigidity by adding ties between the two.
Whatever works for you. Universal compression fittings solve the connections to non standard wastes.
Why not construct a box round the soil pipe, using 1/2" plywood and internal battens, and build the wall on top of that? If you slide the bath up to the box before building the wall, you'll see by how much you can offset the wall from the edge of the box.
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