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Moving laundry room upstairs

16 years ago

Looking for advice on upstairs laundry rooms. Is a drain pan under the washer enough or should I drain the floor of the room, like a big shower floor. I'm starting from scratch so can do just about anything. Also as far as noise should I do something to insulate the floor so you can't hear it running from below. I currently have a downstairs laundry room but all the bedrooms are upstairs, so not very convenient. I will be using a utility closet and part of the closets from 2 bedrooms. The room will be about 10' X 10'

Thanks

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Comments (3)

Zoe52
16 years ago
Mine is installed with just a pan under it. The pans have sides that the machine is place into and the drain is directly under the machine. Our laundry pan drains into the shower drain that is adjacent to it in my master bath. I have had a leak only once in the 12 years we have had it. It happened when the shower drain got plugged up and the water ran back out through the drain and backed up into our washing machine pan. Then bc the pan for the washer was shorter it leaked over the edges. Luckily we caught it before it did too much damage bc we could hear the water dripping over the side. Hubby was unplugging the shower drain while I was trying to sop up the water on the other side in the closet where our washer was. After throwing every towel I owned in the closet to absorb the moisture, then I ended up using a blow dryer. The ceiling below was only a bit damp but dried without any damage. I am sure that if we had had just a drain in the floor the damage would have been a lot worse. It would have leaked out all four sides of the closet and left a huge mess.

If the washing machine had just leaked it would have been no problem as long as the shower drain wasn't plugged. It would have just drained out the hole down the drain safely.

As for the noise, I don't hear anything downstairs when it is running, but we can all hear it when it runs upstairs. And during the spin cycle we can feel some vibrations from the washer in our bedrooms.
mihi
16 years ago
We have our washer and dryer upstairs too. Two things you should be aware of, more potential for water damage and the vibration from the washer on spin.

We just have the pan sitting under the washer for protection from water damage. There is a device that you can buy though, that senses when your washer is not activly using water and will shut the spigot off (I forget what this device was called, but think you could goggle for it and find it). We don't have this device but I have thought about it, especially after one of our friends had water damage from a burst hose and it costs thousands to repair and was a real headache.

The second item is vibration. We got a Fisher Paykel GWL15 and it is the smoothest washer we've ever had. It doesn't shake or vibrate our house like nearly all our previous washers did (we've had old Whirlpools, a Maytag, and a Staber). I really recommend the FP for upstairs applications due to its smoothness.

Good luck!
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tl45
16 years ago
If you are starting from scratch and can place a floor drain, I would say tile the floor and 4" up, add a rise at the door and you are safe against burst hoses and any noumber of other types of leaks.

on "insulating" the floor, so you cant hear it, if you are going to have a front loader it is not about insulation but about: 1) checking your type of joists and subfloor, 2) reinforcing if needed, and c) placing the washer as close as possible to joist ends.

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