Water tight hatch on bathroom floor

azward

The bathroom floor has ceramic tiles. If I remove one tile, make an opening through a wood substrate, do some plumbing work. After that, instead of mortar a new tile in, I want to make it a port for future repairs. Possible to install a water tight port cover on top of the opening?

mattmia2

water on top of the floor is not coming from beneath the floor. if the plumbing under the floor were leaking you would see it in the ceiling below. your leak is either the toilet or in the wall above the floor.

usually the easier way to access plumbing below a bathroom is through the ceiling below because plaster or drywall is much easier to repair than a floor.

azward

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1886912#Comment_1886912

The seeping was seen in the basement toilet, so the floor has to open..

Here this post is about working on washer drain that is on the 2nd floor, so it's possible to work from the ceiling on the 1st floor, and there are two existing access points that were cut earlier.

However, after removing the two sheetrock plates, I saw some complex structures that look like the original plaster ceiling. I need to cut away some of those lath and plaster to figure out where the PVC pipe is. Need to first decide if they are safe to cut

Jamie Hall

The lathe is safe to cut. It held up the original plaster; the drywall should be screwed into the joists, not into the lathe. If they did it right…

But. Was the water visible on the floor? Or was it noted staining the ceiling below? If it was visible on the floor, it did NOT come from plumbing below the floor.

mattmia2

that new ceiling looks like blueboard (drywall with a special coating that lets a thin coat of plaster to be troweled over it)

azward

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1886920#Comment_1886920

It's not for repair a leak, but for some other plumbing work.

But the joists .. the real joists are above the old plaster, the real joists are not visible when they framed the new joists that serve as the mounting base for the new sheetrock.

From top to down:

Old joists - wood lath -plaster - new joists - sheetrock

The new joists could as well be fastened to the wood lath through the plaster, correct?

That's why I have pushed back cutting away the lath and plaster. Want to understand the structure fully before doing.

azward

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1886932#Comment_1886932

It's joint compound that sticks to any drywall.

What make it look like plaster?

Intplm.

@azward Try this company or any similar company closer to your area. Water-tight access way, or man-way is a good idea for future work. You can find them in different colors, or you can tile over them depending on what you want to do.

Jamie Hall

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1886952#Comment_1886952

Good grief. I wish renovators wouldn't do that sort of thing. Without carefully examining the entire structure, you honestly have no idea what the new joists are held up by. They could well have been just screwed into the old lathe — which would hold things up, after a fashion for a while… but won't take any additional load. Or there is a chance that the new overhead assmbly was properly designed an build as, basically, a whole new ceiling not really connected to the old one at all. You have more investigation to do…

If it were mine I might well take the entire new ceiling down and repair the old plaster as needed… but that's me.

azward

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1894617#Comment_1894617

Do you mean removing the old plaster by "repair the old plaster"?

Old plaster refers to the old ceiling as indicated below. Between the old wood lath and the new framework of 1x and 2x that the new ceiling are screwed to.

The old plaster should have been removed if they didn't save the garbage removal cost, right?

EdTheHeaterMan

If I don't see any water on the bathroom floor and I want to repair something else below the floor (electrical, plumbing, cable, structural support) so I cut out a tile I might ask the question:

"The bathroom floor has ceramic tiles. If I remove one tile, make an opening through a wood substrate, do some plumbing work or other stuff. After that, instead of mortar a new tile in, I want to make it a port for future repairs. Possible to install a water tight port cover on top of the opening?"

So I believe that a bathroom floor may have the ability to get wet in the normal course of bathroom use like stepping out of the shower to grab a towel or maybe the sink might have a little over splash and wouldn't want to have that water drip into the space below, so I might ask

The bathroom floor has ceramic tiles. If I remove one tile, make an opening through a wood substrate, do some plumbing work. After that, instead of mortar a new tile in, I want to make it a port for future repairs. Possible to install a water tight port cover on top of the opening?

I wonder it that will put this comment in a better context

https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1886912#Comment_1886912

But that is just me thinking out loud Mat.

My answer to that is that any temporary cover or permanent removable cover would need a gasket to accomplish that. Is it really worth the effort? How often will you need access?

EdTheHeaterMan

I think someone may have added stringers to mount the new sheet rock over the plaster ceiling…

…and at least one of the support screws missed the joist @Jamie Hall.

Jamie Hall

It's so easy to repair old plaster… sigh.