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Water tight hatch on bathroom floor

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azward
azward Member Posts: 53
in Plumbing

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?

Comments

  • mattmia2
    mattmia2 Member Posts: 16,356

    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
    azward Member Posts: 53
    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

    IMG20251011175847.jpg IMG_20251011_185136.jpg
  • Jamie Hall
    Jamie Hall Member Posts: 27,188

    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.

    Br. Jamie, osb
    Building superintendent/caretaker, 7200 sq. ft. historic house museum with dependencies in New England
    mattmia2
  • mattmia2
    mattmia2 Member Posts: 16,356

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

  • azward
    azward Member Posts: 53
    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
    azward Member Posts: 53
    https://forum.heatinghelp.com/discussion/comment/1886932#Comment_1886932

    It's joint compound that sticks to any drywall.

    What make it look like plaster?

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