2nd Floor Laundry Room question

15 years ago

I am adding a laundry room to our second floor. I am supposed to have a drain installed. The contractor and plumber are both telling me that they have heard horror stories of bathroom sewage backing up the LR drain. They would rather make a waterproof floor with a lip of 2-3 inches (like a shower base) and have some sort of sensor on the floor that will turn off the water if it senses water. What do you think - drain or shower floor with sensor??? Thanks so much!

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Comments (4)

regus_patoff
15 years ago
Why would the Bathroom sewage back-up into any drain ?

Does it back-up into the Bathroom sink ? or any other sink ?
washer_man
15 years ago
I confess to being as puzzled as Regus.If you can have a drain in bathtub, why can't you have a drain in the floor. Given this, it seems like a floor drain is a very reliable way to go, because there's no water to clean up after a leak, and you don't have unreliable electronics and switches that you have to depend on. What happens if you lose power, and a washer valve starts leaking?
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At first glance the floor drain idea sounds like a pretty good idea, but when you think about it, the only thing seperating the inside of your lovely home from a filthy sewer, is the U-bend water trap in the floor drain. No problem if you flush it regularly, but if you let it dry up you're going to be waking up to the lovely smell of sewer gas. However, this would work if it can be connected to another drain, and then have both drains flow into a U-bend trap. That way the other drain would presumably keep the U-bend closed off. I'm not a plumber though, so please treat this as speculation, not a suggestion. As far as putting the washer in a tub is concerned, I tend to agree with your sales person. The risk is that it will lower the friction between the washer and the floor, and your washer will start walking all over the place. It's true that a washer on a pedestal is going to weigh 250 lbs plus, but the problem is resonance between the washer and the floor, not that the washer isn't weighing enough, because these resonances are specifically caused by the washer being so heavy. So, if you have a vibration problem with the washer, it's specifically because the 250 lb weight of the washer is interacting with your flexible floor. Weedmeister's suggestion regarding manual single handle water valves actually has quite a bit of merit, because if you think about it, you realize that you're dealing with probabilities here. Let's say for aurguments sake that the odds of you having a broken water hose is 100,000:1, and the chance that you would forget to turn the hose off is 100:1, you can calculate the chances of you having a flood as 10,000,000:1, and you've effectively turned the remote possibility of a flood from a broken hose into something that's impossible for all practical purposes. The trick lies in being able to train everyone who uses the washer to turn the valve handle to the off position after every wash load.
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We did our 2nd floor laundry about 5 years ago. About the same size as yours. We have top loaders, so not the same concerns as the higher rpm front-loaders. My recommendations are to install a nice bathroom-type fan to run so your bedroom won't smell like bleach or detergent. Good lighting. Enough electrical and floor space for an iron and ironing board with convenient electrical outlet. And hanging closet rod for hanging up clothes from the dryer. And floor space for a "clothes horse" to air dry sweaters and such. Ours was also a new build-over our 4 season porch. We did 2 closets, laundry/dressing room, and office. I don't know what your Master Bath situation is. Our home is from 1931 and our bath is tiny. So now I use the bathroom to shower, but do my makeup and dry my hair in the laundry/dressing room. This has been really great. Like having his/her bathrooms almost. So we have a basic 5 foot length of formica counter with a small but deeper type of SS laundry sink in it at one end. We used basic grade unpainted kitchen cabinets, which were painted white. This give fantastic drawers and under sink storage. My drawers are actually big enough for my hair dryer and hair products. We have a large mirror and vanity lighting, as well as ceiling can lights. Also put in a medicine cabinet on the end wall for more storage. Geting back to your construction questions, our code did not require floor drains. Our machines are standard top loaders and don't have the RPMs when spinning that front loaders have. So our floor is engineered for the weight but nothing special beyond that. We did have architect/engineer on our build. Good luck.
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chefnewbie
15 years ago
I have a floor drain with a lip - think shower floor - somewhat like you described. I do not have a sensor, however. The drain should be enough if there is an issue. Having a drain and waterproof liner will give you a great measure of safety should there be a leak or plumbing problem.
As far as back up, any backup is usually at the lowest point in the house, so you'd have it in basement or first floor drains before it ever reached upstairs.
deke
15 years ago
Ask yourself how confident you be of any drain if there were a burst hose pouring out 500 gallons an hour. Do you think a burst hose will cooperate and pour all that water into your nice new drain. Imagine that happening when you are at work, out for the evening or away on vacation. Will the drain promise to stay open and clear if it is handling 500 gallons an hour for 8 hours, two days, a week? I'm sorry, but anyone who says it is enough to have a drain has not lived through this, thinking through this and/or done the research.

Second to ruptured refrigerator ice maker hoses, ruptured washing machine hoses are the most common home owners insurance claim. When this occurs the water damage is unbelievable. 5 figures in damages easy, then all the hassle and worry about mold, mildew and drying out your house.

The key to any upstairs laundry installation is in redundancy - multiple preventative measures - with a drain being perhaps the last line and not at all the most effective.

First, you want a manual shut off handy so you can turn off the water supply to the valves/hoses when you are away for long periods. Second, you want the best hoses you can get. I have a Miele washer and despite its $2000 price, I threw the hoses that came with it right in the trash and use these - Floodcheck. They are unbelievably well constructed and not expensive. http://www.safehomeproducts.com/shp2/sm/flood-chek.aspx

Third, you need an electronic shut off valve with leak sensor. I use the Burst Buster. I had tried the Watts Intelliflow, but it failed after one year. It was junk and the Burstbuster is much better. http://www.aymcdonald.com/burstbuster.cfm

Forth you could install a pan. The pan may or may not have a drain connected to it. However, despite the back up problem your plumber brought up, what about the drain trap drying out? All drains need to have a p trap. The trap serves an important purpose in keeping sewer gas out of your home. How does it do this? There is always a small amount of water in the trap that acts as a barrier. In a laundry pan drain you will never run water through that drain so it will dry out and as a result sewer gas will enter your home. Ask your plumber how he can give you a drain that wont back up AND won't dry out AND be in code?

I'm sorry to sound preachy, but I see the same bad advice on these forums over and over. Drains present many problems and expense, but their purpose is to deal with a failure (leak). You need to concentrate most on multiple ways of *preventing* that failure in the first place. Right?

Actually "leak" is the wrong word. "Torrent" is more appropriate when it comes to washing machine hoses. Do you have a washer in your basement?Just for fun, take off the hose and turn it on while pointing it into the sink. Picture that happening in your upstairs

2nd Floor Laundry Room question

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regus_patoff

washer_man

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