Sourcing our plumbing equipment for first fix

[JanetE]

We are getting the bulk of our bathroom ceramics and taps etc from Megabad.  We need to sort out the pipework for first fix, planning to use JG speedfit for the pipework manifold system and also need to source the waste water kit. Wondering wether you have any recommendations for suppliers of these?

We also have three wetrooms (yes, it's a lot). I recall Nick recommended a supplier called Diamond on eBay. They seem to be cheaper than the better known brands, wondering if anyone has any other recommendations?

Thanks in advance for your help

 

Edited June 5, 2016 by JanetE

[PeterW]

Hep2O is much better than speed fit ..! There are manifolds - Nick posted a link to them last week but I will find it. 

Waste is waste - usual rules of no joints where you can't see or work on them, and use solvent weld where possible as seals leak 

[Nickfromwales]

JG would be my last choice. Sorry.

Hepworth push fit is the best I've come across to date, and even with its higher price tag I'd still think twice about going for JG SpeedFit. The inserts for JG are very thick walled, especially their 'super seal' ones, whereas Hep ones are slim stainless sleeves which don't infringe on the internal bore diameter anywhere near as much. Quite important when you're designing for 10mm runs to basins / other outlets and you don't want a trade off between delivery losses and flow rates. 

 

The diamond tray I fitted was a one piece jobbie that had the waste outlet offset with a simple / clever design that meant to miss a joist you just rotated the tray by 180 degrees. 

It's currently and happily nestling away under those mosaics as we speak. . Been in for 6 - 8 months or more now and zero complaints. I'm in regular contact with my customers so I get real life feedback which is helpful. 

That pic shows the 300/500mm offset, and the joists ran parallel with the length of the tray, so an 800mm wide tray with a centre outlet would have landed 3/4 onto the second joist. Impey are the innovators though as they do a rotatable 'double off-settable' outlet which is second to none. 

This pic shows ( look carefully ) the MBC pozi joists ( with the metal webs ) and then the ~15 lengths of graded CLS timber ( 3x2 ) that I retrospectively added to provide support for the Impey former shown. Impey say that they're happy with less, my OCD says otherwise ( and CLS is pennies in the grand scheme so I choose belt and Bracey-McBrace ). 

The mosaics got grouted with an anthracite grout and looked great alongside the Amtico. Word of warning, the bars in the Amtico ( where the joins are ) want to suck the grout wash-up residue in with capillary action. Mask the edges well as it's a right pita to be cleaning that until 3am, ask me how I know  .

Solvent weld waste of any decent make will be fine. Most important discipline is cleaning the swarf / burr from inside the pipe after each cut. Failure to observe that will leave a rough 'crown' inside each joint where hair will snag and cause issues later down the line. From an ongoing self-maintenance POV I always run 50mm waste to any shower / tray / former etc and always make sure the pipework can be got to for rodding later down the line. Always try to avoid 90o bends, and use 2 x 45o bends instead, slightly separated, which will make rodding / clearing much easier and make the run 'further penetrable' during such action. 

[JanetE]

This is very useful, thanks. The pics look great Nick. We will look at Hepworth.  Out of interest should we use the pipe that is inside a sleeve for our runs?

I seem to recall that Jeremy used marine ply glued to his bathroom floors, would we need to do that? We shall probably be using ceramic tiles on two of the floors and Amtico on the other.

Edited June 6, 2016 by JanetE

[Jeremy Harris]

I laid large format travertine stone (600 x 300) 12mm thick on our bathroom and the 18mm OSB flooring (on top of Posijoists on 400mm centres) was already down.  I fitted a relatively low profile, very large (2000 x 900) shower tray cemented directly to the sealed OSB.  I then screwed and glued 9mm marine play over the remainder of the floor, up to the edge of the shower tray (which fills the whole width of the bathroom).  I sealed the edge of the marine play to the edge of the shower tray (just belt and braces) then laid the travertine on that.  The travertine has ended up around 10mm below the shower tray upper surface, so it was nice and easy to run yet another bead of sealant to seal that to the tray.

We ended up with a shower room that is close to being a wet room, but without me having to take the risk of getting a wet room former right etc, something I'd not done before and didn't have the confidence to do well in a first floor shower room (had it been on the ground floor I'd have gone for a wet room, I'm sure).

The downsides were the high cost of the large shower tray and the size and weight of the thing, which made fitting it on my own more than a little bit interesting.  It looks OK though, in my view:

[ProDave]

12 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

It's currently and happily nestling away under those mosaics as we speak. . Been in for 6 - 8 months or more now and zero complaints. I'm in regular contact with my customers so I get real life feedback which is helpful. 

That pic shows the 300/500mm offset, and the joists ran parallel with the length of the tray, so an 800mm wide tray with a centre outlet would have landed 3/4 onto the second joist. Impey are the innovators though as they do a rotatable 'double off-settable' outlet which is second to none. 

This pic shows ( look carefully ) the MBC pozi joists ( with the metal webs ) and then the ~15 lengths of graded CLS timber ( 3x2 ) that I retrospectively added to provide support for the Impey former shown. Impey say that they're happy with less, my OCD says otherwise ( and CLS is pennies in the grand scheme so I choose belt and Bracey-McBrace ).

 

Quick question.

You added the strips of CLS for extra support.  So did you "put up" with a step up into the bathroom? or did you add strips of CLS throughout the whole first floor to raise the entire upstairs floor slightly to avoid a step?

Having a level threshold from room to room is perhaps the one place where I am a bit OCD?

[ragg987]

13 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

The mosaics got grouted with an anthracite grout and looked great alongside the Amtico.

These look great, Nick. Can I just ask about some detail...

We will have flush-to-floor shower trays (Bettefloor) and are considering Amtico or Marmoleum flooring, plus tiles on wall and boxing of baths.

What did you lay below the Amtico? Aquapanel? We will need to raise the level to match the finished floor in adjacent rooms.

How do you waterproof the junction between Amtico and shower-tray? Would a bead of silicone suffice, as with floor tiles?

And how would you treat the junction between Amtico on floors and tiles on vertical surfaces? Silicone bead below the wall tile?

If it matters one shower tray will be on ground floor, so anhydrite screed below, and the other will be first floor so we would cut out the boards as per your pictures for shower tray.

[JanetE]

Have another question for Nick.  How do you seal between the shower tray former and the floor? Also I notice from your picture that you have turned the mosaics up to the wall, wondering why?  If I recall you paint the walls with the waterproof sealant. Thanks

[Nickfromwales]

4 hours ago, ProDave said:

Quick question.

You added the strips of CLS for extra support.  So did you "put up" with a step up into the bathroom? or did you add strips of CLS throughout the whole first floor to raise the entire upstairs floor slightly to avoid a step?

Having a level threshold from room to room is perhaps the one place where I am a bit OCD?

Look again at the pics

All that 3x2 was retrospectively fitted to the existing MBC pozi joists but all under slung, perpendicular first to create a cradle, then overlaid with more 3x2 run parallel ( spacered accordingly to allow for the thicker timber of the pozi joist ) so all the timber I added never added a single mm to the existing entire floor level. The Weyroc you see in those pics is the original monolevel deck laid by MBC. I cut out that section of 22mm Weyroc and dropped the Impey tray in flush +3mm. The company that fitted the Amtico first overply'd the entire first floor with ply this raising the floor to my anticipated final height, and then I just used tile adhesive to give me the mil or two of fine tuning to get the mosaics completely flush to the amtico.

I don't 'do' steps so my OCD is on a par with yours! . And yes, it wasn't easy.

[Nickfromwales]

49 minutes ago, JanetE said:

Have another question for Nick.  How do you seal between the shower tray former and the floor? Also I notice from your picture that you have turned the mosaic's up to the wall, wondering why?  If I recall you paint the walls with the waterproof sealant. Thanks

The dark strip you see returned up the walls is the Impey tanking strip, not a row of mosaics . The tray to floor junctions were all tank stripped too prior to the Amtico going down.  

That job had mermaid panels fitted so no need to tank any further up the wall than the remainder of the width of the tanking strip, eg 120mm ( or so ) wide strip = 60mm flat and 60mm vertical. 

[Nickfromwales]

2 hours ago, ragg987 said:

These look great, Nick. Can I just ask about some detail...

We will have flush-to-floor shower trays (Bettefloor) and are considering Amtico or Marmoleum flooring, plus tiles on wall and boxing of baths.

What did you lay below the Amtico? Aquapanel? We will need to raise the level to match the finished floor in adjacent rooms.

How do you waterproof the junction between Amtico and shower-tray? Would a bead of silicone suffice, as with floor tiles?

And how would you treat the junction between Amtico on floors and tiles on vertical surfaces? Silicone bead below the wall tile?

If it matters one shower tray will be on ground floor, so anhydrite screed below, and the other will be first floor so we would cut out the boards as per your pictures for shower tray.

Some answers are in my previous two posts. Check through and come back with anything I've missed. 

The junction between the tiles and floor covering is done in CT1, NOT silicone. CT1 doesn't have a short life like silicone and doesn't go black / mouldy. 

[ragg987]

Hi Nick, thanks for that tip - never seen CT1 before, from doing a web search seems it is a form of modified silicone. Shall get hold of some.

One open question, I think partially answered - what to use in the junction between Amtico flooring and flush shower tray. Bette recommend silicone if it were tiles, perhaps is the same with Amtico? I am just a bit concerned that Amtico is not as rigid as tile so this may create a weaker joint if the Amtico is not fully adhered to the floor at the junction and is "flapping" around a bit. And I guess CT1 would be better here than silicone.

Rajive

[Jeremy Harris]

FWIW, all the MSP (modified silicone polymer) sealants are a million times better than RTV (especially acetoxy cure) silicone, in fact close to being as good as moisture-curing PU sealants in terms of adhesion and long term stability, but less harmful (no isocyanates) and easier to use.  There are other brands, too, and to some extent it depends where you live as to who stocks what.  I used the Sikaflex 95 MSP adhesive to bond our flooring down, and that seems to be near-identical to CT1 (apart from the colour) in terms of bonding and sealing performance.  I've not found anything yet that matches CT1 exactly, but some of the other MSP/silane sealants are very close in both performance and appearance.

[Jeremy Harris]

Quick question for Nick.

Is it OK to use Karndean of Amtico over UFH?  I've just been asked the question and thought you'd be the one person here to know for sure.

[Nickfromwales]

Sorry J, only just seeing this now. 

The flooring won't be problematic, it'll be more down to the type of adhesive, and if the floors were primered properly before the smoothing compound was laid. 

If these floors can withstand direct sunlight through glazing panels etc then a bit of Ufh should be fine. I really would only be concerned about possible smells from the adhesive, and then only if the floors are being run at an excessively high temp tbh.

If the floors are screeded, rather than a reinforced slab, I'd make sure that expansion gaps at door thresholds etc were observed and that's about it. 

[Jeremy Harris]

Thanks Nick.  It was a question that came up during a discussion about low temperature UFH, and both Karndean/Amtico had said no higher than 27 deg C.  I'd already given a reassurance that there's no way that the floor would get this hot from the UFH (it's a build similar to ours) and that I thought it'd be OK as our floor never gets above about 23 deg C.

I just wanted to check with you, as this person's flooring supplier was a bit twitchy about laying this stuff over UFH, which is fair enough if they are only used to conventional systems at high temperature, I suppose.

[Nickfromwales]

Maybe an option to look at capping the max flow / floor temp to ensure it cannot ever be 'inadvertently' ramped up. 

[Jeremy Harris]

Good point.  Should be easy to do by setting a stop on the TMV (I've found that the one we have accepts the same sort of stops that are used on radiator TMVs).

[Nickfromwales]

Yes, they're just little plastic pegs which slide in as upper and lower stops, and the pins click in so you have to purposely remove them. 

[TerryE]

I note that Hep2O comes in two variants:

• Standard for plumbing only, and
• Barrier Pipe, for plumbing and central heating use.

The BP variant includes a oxygen impermeable membrane.  A few of the online plumbing suppliers only stock the BP variant.  As far as I read it, this is certified for potable use.  Does anyone know of any reason why we shouldn't just buy the BP variant?

[jack]

Is it the same thickness/stiffness?  I used barrier pipe for a long run from our ASHP and it's surprisingly inflexible.  It also tenaciously wants to hold onto the curve it acquired while coiled up.  Perhaps non-barrier would be the same, but I didn't use any of that myself, so can't say.

[TerryE]

Jack, not sure since I haven't been able to compare them. AFAIK, they have the pretty much the same mechanical properties.  Maybe @Nickfromwales or @JSHarris knows the answer to this one.

 

PS.  On some of the websites the standard variant is described as "exceptionally flexible" so there might be a difference.  More research needed over the weekend.

[Nickfromwales]

1 hour ago, jack said:

Is it the same thickness/stiffness?  I used barrier pipe for a long run from our ASHP and it's surprisingly inflexible.  It also tenaciously wants to hold onto the curve it acquired while coiled up.  Perhaps non-barrier would be the same, but I didn't use any of that myself, so can't say.

 

Which make of pipe?

[Nickfromwales]

2 hours ago, TerryE said:

I note that Hep2O comes in two variants:

• Standard for plumbing only, and
• Barrier Pipe, for plumbing and central heating use.

The BP variant includes a oxygen impermeable membrane.  A few of the online plumbing suppliers only stock the BP variant.  As far as I read it, this is certified for potable use.  Does anyone know of any reason why we shouldn't just buy the BP variant?

I'd just get barrier tbh. Working out differences and quantities would drive me to drink. 

 

Oops, too late ??

[jack]

4 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

 

Which make of pipe?

22mm Hep2O barrier.