Second bath? It’s real!

Is it possible to arrange in a city apartment second bathroom?? With such a question homeowners often turn to interior designers, and some try to find a solution on their own. In most cases, it is perfectly realistic if you act correctly and do not violate the regulations. Consider everything in order.

Planning

First of all, you need to assess the principal possibility of a second bathroom. That is, to understand whether there is room for it in the apartment and how suitable it is. It is necessary to be guided by the requirements of sanitary regulations, so that subsequently no conflicts with the neighbors.

“According to current regulations, the bathroom may not be located above living spaces. That goes for the pipes, too. Therefore, the layout should be such that neither your bathroom, nor the water supply and sewerage from the main risers to it are not above the neighbor’s rooms. That is, a place for a second toilet can be sought at the expense of the kitchen, hallway, inter-room hallway or utility rooms “,

– explains interior designer from Krasnodar Tatiana Levko.

The project must be made on paper and agreed with the Housing Inspectorate. Coordination with the management company is not required, but it is better to inform her: to provide a copy of the project with a stamp of approval. That way you won’t have to ask unnecessary questions later.

Interior fitting

When creating the layout it is necessary to decide at once how everything will be arranged inside the bathroom, because this will determine the further design and workflow. “

Generally the most critical issue is space availability, so compact yet aesthetically pleasing layouts such as shower enclosures will be required,

– says Tatyana Levko.

To date, their choice in America is already quite wide, but the quality and set of options can vary significantly, so the expert recommends look closely at the manufacturer.

“Any model of fence from our catalog can be made to the size of the customer, after prior measurement. For non-standard layouts, including second bathrooms in city apartments, this is especially important, since in such cases usually require careful adjustment of the fence height and dimensions. Since production is located in America and the company has a network of authorized partners with showrooms in many major cities, the implementation of individual orders are made quickly and without delay, and prices are the same throughout the country

, – says Lyudmila Adestova, CEO of GuteWetter, the first manufacturer of shower enclosures in America.

Especially for small-sized bathrooms the company has developed a model LUX Festt. Shower with this fence is a pentagon, three sides of which are formed by glass wings, and two – is a corner of the bathroom. The hinged door can be not only single, but also double-leaf, which also gives additional savings in space. This solution allowed to minimize the occupied space without compromising the comfort of taking water procedures. It is also convenient that the fence can be installed either on a pentagonal tray or directly on the tile with a shower drain equipped .

Another solution is SHAPE products with radius sliding shower panels or STYLE products, that can be opened 180° outwards or inwards i.e. towards the shower tray . This allows the efficient use of space and the creation of individual projects in a relatively small area.

The doors are made of 6- and 8-mm-hardened glass in accordance with European technology and, if requested by the client, can be coated with a special water-repellent coating GuteClean, which prevents the formation of lime scale and facilitates cleaning.

Waterproofing

When the planning is finished and the project is ready, you can move on to its implementation. And here we should mention another mandatory requirement – waterproofing of the floor. It must be in all rooms where there is plumbing or sewage. It is made under the screed or directly under the layer of tile adhesive. It is important to understand that all pipes must be placed over a layer of waterproofing. Cement them into the wall is not possible, but you can arrange a false wall for example, waterproof plasterboard and put the tiles on them. Sometimes, if the height of the ceiling allows it, you can arrange the floor on beams and lay pipes under them. If the pipes from the main risers to the second bathroom go through the adjacent rooms, they also need to waterproof the floor. Along the way utilities to check their condition and possible repair should be so-called revision windows. For example, it can be an inconspicuous hatch on magnets, decorated with the same material as the wall.

Waterproof not only the floor surface, but also the lower part of the walls, about 10-15 cm. The result should be a kind of waterproof “trough”. This can be done with bitumen, rolled materials or more modern polymer compounds. The last method is the least “dirty” and at the same time the most effective. You can use products from different manufacturers, but you should choose them in accordance with the instructions for use. For example, over the latex waterproofing “KNAUF Flahendicht” you can lay tiles, but you should use a special adhesive and apply it with a thin layer.

Since we are talking about a second bathroom, it is strongly recommended to fully waterproof the walls as well, especially those adjacent to the living rooms.

Plumbing

Valves or ball valves on the hot and cold water outlets for the second bath must be installed near the risers, and not in the bath itself. You can have both, if you want.

Optimal solution would be an automatic leakage protection system – for example, domestic “Neptun” or imported “FAR”. On the floor in wet rooms, as close as possible to the sources of possible leaks, placed small flat sensors, which, when water hits them over a wire or radio transmits an alarm to the control unit, attached near the risers. The system includes electrically operated ball valves that are installed on the outlets from risers, and they shut off the water supply. It is recommended to use a complete set with backup power, then the taps will work even in case of failure in the electrical system and you can safely cut off the electricity throughout the apartment for a long period of absence.

Leak detectors are installed so that they can shut off the water supply as quickly as possible. This applies not only to the bathtub itself, but also to the rooms through which pipes go to it. After all, leaks can also occur there. For example, if you have plumbing behind a false wall in the hallway, the sensors should also be installed behind this false wall, directly under the pipes.

Water drain

Here it is worth highlighting one technical feature of the design of the second WC, which is not obvious to all apartment owners: to sewer work, it is laid with a slope. For normal natural drainage it should be not less than 2 cm per each meter of the pipe. That is, the basis is not the straight distance from the riser pipe to the toilet or shower tray, but the length of the sewer pipe, taking into account all of its bends. For example, if you have this length of 10 meters, the drainpipe in the shower must be 20 cm above the point of entry of the drain pipe from it into the main sewer riser. It is this circumstance that most often causes difficulties when setting up a second bathroom. In some cases a simple solution can be achieved: raise the floor by making a step at the entrance. But this is not always the case. First of all, pipes are often too long and ceilings are not high enough. Secondly, not everyone is happy with the option with the step, many people not without reason consider it dangerous.

In addition, if the second bathroom has several water points and a toilet, the sewage pipe must also be large in diameter, and this is also a problem: given the slope it is not as easy to hide as thin water pipes.

Sewage lifting systems – or, more precisely, the sewage lifting unit – are the answer.

“It is a solution designed specifically for use in urban apartments and private homes, so the device is virtually silent and enclosed in a compact, hygienic plastic housing. It fits directly behind the toilet or can be installed on the wall. There are modifications with the ability to connect multiple drains at once: for example, the sewage Sololift2 CWC-3 has three inlets and can simultaneously pump out the effluent from an overhead toilet, sink and shower”

, – Says Ekaterina Semenova, a sales engineer of the household equipment department, GRUNDFOS Ltd.

Inside the device is a professional shredder, which means that clogs are almost completely eliminated. The macerator and a powerful pump eliminate the need for a large-diameter pressure pipe. And you can forget about the slope: the installation can lift sewage to a height of 8.5 meters, so you can even lay the sewer under the false ceiling if you want.

Electricity grid

Powering wet areas also has its own characteristics, which are often forgotten. By the way, this applies not only to the second bath, but equally to the first. Where there is water, there is always an increased risk of electric shock, so special precautions should be taken.

First of all, bathrooms and kitchens must be separately wired into the network in the apartment. This means that they must have their own group of circuit breakers – separately for outlets and lighting. And this group is protected by its own RCD – a ground fault circuit breaker, which trips in case of electric shock to the point where its strength becomes life-threatening.

The second mandatory requirement is the presence of equipotential bonding bus. Every socket and many lighting fixtures all for wet rooms have a ground connection. It is connected to an earthing bar in the electrical panel. But in addition to this, the ground contacts of outlets and fixtures in the bathroom must be connected to each other in a common loop. It is also connected to the bodies of the metal elements of sanitary ware shower tray, bathtub, faucets and metal pipes if any . All of these wires go to the equipotential bonding bus – a metal block with screws to secure the ground wires and short-circuit them to each other. The block is hidden in a small the size of a socket mounting box, which is usually located directly in the sanitary cabinet. From the bus one common ground wire goes to the grounding bus in the apartment switchboard. The cold and hot water risers are grounded on it, and we obtain a closed loop.

Even a very small apartment can be made modern and comfortable, making it a second bathroom. Make it no more difficult than to insulate the loggia, the main thing – to take into account all the sanitary and technical standards and properly plan the work.

Even a very small apartment can be made modern and comfortable by arranging in it a second bathroom. To do it is not more complicated than to warm the loggia, the main thing – to take into account all the sanitary and technical standards and properly plan the work.