patser: The home is 1880, but that side of the house is more like 1950. The second floor seems well constructed. Currently there is no tub in that bathroom. We want a 6 foot soaker tub (looking at Kohler Archer, tub weights 80 lbs, 72 gallon capacity). I would see us filling it half full maybe 1-2 x a month. I'm not aware of any work that would have cut into the floor joists. The second floor looks like it was added in the 50's or 60's, was immediately decorated in rust colored shag and old time car wallpaper, then not touched since. Currently floor is carpet. Right now there is a shower, about 3x4, that is tiled. Our overall goal is to bring in the two closets that are behind the bathroom, relocate and rebuild shower, add tub, relocate sink making it a double vanity, leave toilet where it is. We plan to gut the walls (paneling) and remove subfloor to eyeball the joints and to move plumbing. Thanks!

Hey bud, I'm not going to get into a "who's greener" pissing contest. However, I will tell you that my monthly gas bill for a home in central Indiana - with all gas appliances - is $33 a month - without any exceptional sacrifices. This is a plumbing forum. Too many people are thinking it's cool to install a multi-head shower or a 80 gal tub and they have no clue what that really requires in terms of energy, water, water heaters and drains to make that happen. Evidently your builder is one of those people; he planned on running this setup on one tankless. Just having the capacity to do it, even if you don't use it often, requires commercial sized water and gas supply, water heaters, etc. We are going through a period where a lot of people have lost their homes, in part because nobody was willing to make value judgments. Nobody was willing to say that what was going on was completely unreasonable. It became "normal" for people to buy more house than they could afford and carry stupid amounts of consumer debt. I am not one of those people. I'm not going to pretend that what you are doing is okay. What you are doing is completely unreasonable. It's wasteful, it's ugly, it's distasteful, it's gluttonous. The fact that you can afford it doesn't make any of the previous statements untrue. The fact that you drive a car that can go 180 mph doesn't impress me one bit - it just confirms a pattern of ugliness. To be clear, you have your values, I have mine. But I contribute to this forum for free - and I reserve the right to make value judgments when needed. If you don't like that, you can take some of that money that you are throwing around and hire a competent builder to design your plumbing system - the one that you have doesn't have a clue.

The plastic wall anchors protect the tile from the screw. The wall screws bite into solid wood as do the curb screws. Each plate has three holes and they are set in a triangular fashion. I pulled pretty hard on the grab bar the day after it was set and it's solid. My client is not going to pull it out. Not at a Buck 40 in weight. A floor to ceiling bar might have worked in this case but would not have looked as nice as a custom grab bar. We wanted some style and safety.

FWIW, I live in a high rise condo in Los Angeles and recently finished a gut remodel which included taking the shower to the studs and some reframing of walls. The Code in Los Angeles for a multi-family high rise requires steel framing and studs so there isn’t any wood. The framing in the shower and everywhere is metal. I imagine Code for a high rise in any jurisdiction also requires steel. I got a bit of education in construction as I also learned that the metal framing has to be placed at specified spacing. I would imagine this is for fire safety as well as structural integrity but a structural engineer would no doubt have the exact reason. Just another reason why hiring a designer and/or general contractor familiar with high rises specifically is a good idea to minimize screwups.