Former back porch / Current bathroom

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danfman

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I am remodeling a recently purchased home. The previous owners converted the back porch into a bathroom. (good idea) They fed the plumbing through the floor joists, put some foam insulation below the joists (most of which is falling off) then they added electric baseboard heating, cut some vents in the floor and crossed their fingers (bad idea).

Currently I have the floor, subfloor and all walls removed. What do I do now? I could try more foam boards under the joists, (there is about 3-4 feet of open air before the ground former porch remember), force air in between a joist and vent up through the floor? This would be ok for the water pipes in that joist but what about when they cross over to other joists that don't have air forced through them?
 
Can you post some photos of the plumbing, underside of floor.
This thing is sitting on piers, what is the frost level for your area and how deep are the piers planted in the ground?
Do you have a heated basement? What kind of heat?
 
It will not allow me to attach a photo because it says I am at the limit for image size. The problem isnt the potos are too large, the problem is I posted 4 photos a few months back and it says those photos are putting me over the limit. I have gone to 'Manage Attachments' but do not see a way to delete them.
 
It won't let me attach an image. It's not that these photos are so large, but I had attached images to a post a couple months ago and it is now telling me those photos put me over the limit. Is there a way to delete the photos or something?
 
danfman said:
It won't let me attach an image. It's not that these photos are so large, but I had attached images to a post a couple months ago and it is now telling me those photos put me over the limit. Is there a way to delete the photos or something?
Click to expand...

I asked Oldog to look into it.
 
danfman said:
It won't let me attach an image. It's not that these photos are so large, but I had attached images to a post a couple months ago and it is now telling me those photos put me over the limit. Is there a way to delete the photos or something?
Click to expand...

Try it now, Oldog upgraded you, there is a limit on new members to combat spammers.
 
Here are 3 photos taken from the door. First one is an overview the other two close ups of the left and right sides. They installed the blue foam boards under the joists, and you can see on the right side where it was falling down. The current plumbing will be re-arranged, but don't think this fact matters.

I live in Wisconsin so it can get pretty cold.

IMG_4199.jpg

IMG_4197.jpg

IMG_4198.jpg
 
Just a few thoughts.
I would just add plywood below to hold up the foam board.
The notched the joists for the copper pipes, big no no but short joists and it hasn't caused a problem yet so I would ignore that.
I would change out the copper be pex and drill holes for that 2" from the top of the joists so you can add more pink and keep the supply lines on the warm side
As you don't have a bottom plate on some walls, blocks between studs on the flat to give drywall backing with insulation behind that.
If you are doing a shower base move the blocks up so you have blocks at the top of the unit for the backer board. For tubs and showers and we weren't sure of heights we just used 2x10 for the blocks
 
Remove the pipe covering it is insulating the water lines from the heat. You should have insulation on the cold side of the water lines. Keep in mind insulation doesn't create heat.
 
I agree with Neal I would switch the copper out for PEX and get them higher into the warm side of the cavity. I would also if possible add more foam board to the bottom below the joists and then cap it with plywood. The one spot I would worry about the most is the trap as that holds water and is one of the lowest points. After I added as much insulation as I could to below the joists and brought the supply lines as high as I could into the warm side I would then add insulation to the spaces between the joists up to the pipes. As John pointed out insulation doesn’t make heat it stops heat transfer.

I would cut and fill with pieces of foam board where I could and then use can spray foam to fill the cracks and get into the hard to reach places. I would also consider a dense pack insulation like Fibercor they use in hot tubs over the pink spun insulation.

The goal is to let the room heat keep the pipes warm and block the cold side from getting to the pipes. The added benefit will be nice warm floors.
 
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