posted
Didn't want to derail celia's thread. Due to the previous owner being a moron, we have a height problem between one of our bathrooms and the utility room (formerly a car port) that it is built off of.
The moron actually has the electrical fuse box next to the toilet. But, the other thing he did was he poured the bathroom floor of solid concrete. It is an inch higher than the utility room concrete floor and as a result there is an uneven step at the doorway.
Is there something you can do on a small scale to grind the concrete down to make it more of a gradual ramp? Or should we try some sort of wedge to make it more gradual?
Steve knows about large scale concrete machines that will do this sort of thing but we aren't at a huge highway construction site, they aren't rentable and one of those wouldn't even fit through the doorway in question.
Would there be something you could do with a large belt sander that could grind it down?
posted
Not a belt sander, no, but a metal grinder would work. I think it would be easier to pour a ramp then to grind one down, but I'm certainly not an expert.
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posted
We were just brainstorming last night about what to do in there. With a bit of paint, probably a new fiberglass insert on the shower, new lighting fixtures a new mirror and medicine cabinet and a storage cabinet over the toilet, oh yeah, and a pedestal sink. It would look like a different bathroom!
AJ
Other than the fiberglass shower insert. I think we could probably get it done for $500-$600 as long as we supplied the elbow grease ourselves.
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posted
A floor sander (both belt and rotary can be rented) would do the job. Besides wood, they are also designed to flatten stone tile flooring: ie level out the minor variations in edge heights of tiles created during the laying process. But it would be a BIG mistake to use one. Way way way way way too much ultrafine dust being blown about to start with. Sanding a floor without leaving warps and woofs takes a lot of practice. It would be absurdly difficult to sand 1inch-to-0inch of concrete from the desired-ramp area so that the ramp is flat and squared.
And a ramp inset into the floor will present a tripping hazard on its own.
The major problem is that the previous owner may well have been a moron. Which could mean that s/he had a problem with the water lines, and replaced them by laying new piping on top of the old bathroom floor, then poured an inch of concrete to cover the pipes. So mucking about with the concrete floor may be risking cutting the bathroom's water lines and/or breaking the waste lines. Then again your bathroom may have been an add-on built onto the original laundry/utility area. Either way, it is common enough in houses built on concrete slabs that the main water line and main sewage line first enter from the outside through the laundry/utility area. Even when the outside main water line and main sewage line hit the house in another region, they often pass under/through the house's/garage's/carport's concrete slab to the laundry/utility area, from which the pipes are distributed to the rest of the house. It is also common that the distribution pipes pass from the laundry/utility area through an adjoining (including on the other side of a wall) guest half-bathroom to the rest of the house. So there may be a risk of cutting the water lines and/or breaking the sewage lines to your entire house.
As you can tell, I am completely in the dark as to what type of subflooring (and therefore piping) you have in your house. Tell me a bit more, including the size and shape of your desired inset ramp, and I may have more to add inregard to how *I* would go about creating an inset ramp.
posted
Better yet, post a picture of a drawing of your bathroom along with measurements: including where the door, sink, toilet, and shower is located, as well as the proposed dimensions of the ramp. The dimensions and fixture locations may well make an inset ramp a bit too hazardous.
posted
There is no danger of running into the fixtures where the sanding needs to be done. The house is actually over a crawlspace other than these two rooms. The bathroom was added on to the former carport that was enclosed to be a utility room. It's pretty clear where the pipes are since you can see where they emerge out of the concrete into the crawlspace underneath the house and they should be in no direct danger from a bit of sanding in the doorway. Why he concreted it all in without a subfloor in that area is beyond us. But he was quite proud of it, even when he was selling us the house!
posted
I'll dig out the engineering paper, and try to actually do measurements, and a layout but I'm not promising anything before the weekend!
Actually Steve's much better at drafting than me, though I doubt I could talk him into Auto Cading it. If I do it, it will be by hand, and then I'll scan it in and post it on my website.
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