The Risinger Build: Episode 3 – Under Slab Plumbing & Electrical Plan

So that is part of the drain waste vent system. That’s the vent, and then this drain here is going to drain the washing machine, which is in this space here. Now the other two pipes on here, these are not part of the test. This is actually part of the overflow drain system in the house. We spent a bunch of time in pre-planning and talking with my plumber about where we wanted those and what we had for those.

So we’ll get back to the studio in a minute to talk about those, but I want you to take special attention and take a look at, for instance, where this schedule 40 PVC is going through a beam location or is stubbing up through the slab. It’s code to protect that pipe from the concrete. So we’re just using basically a strip of paper-like material and some duct tape to hold that in place. All we’re doing there is making sure that the concrete is not sticking there.

And then you’re also going to notice that the plumbers did a real nice job embedding this into the road base material that we’ve got on the job site. So everything’s laid out. Now a couple of things I want to mention. First off, this slab is getting covered.

Remember I talked about in the earlier episodes from the original slab to the final top of slab is about 5 inches. So when I look at that form board down there, I’ve got a 2×6 basically above here. So the top of slab is going to be quite a bit higher.

We’ve got a full rebar. We’re going to be connecting all this to the original slab and pouring over top of that. So these pipes here, concrete’s going to come up to roughly here or something like that, and then these are going to be sticking up.

When we get done with framing, we’re going to be doing an insulated subfloor detail on top of that concrete. I’m going to have some Atlas foam, and then I’m going to have two layers of Huber Advanc subfloor. So that I can basically insulate and isolate my house from this cold slab in the wintertime.

Now two things that does for me. That allows me to have a problem on the job where let’s say I have to jackhammer one of these pipes and move them because I got off of a wall. It’s not obviously ideal, but what it means is I don’t have let’s say finished concrete in these areas that I’m worried about. Oh my gosh, this pipe was outside of a wall cavity, and now I’ve got a jackhammer. It’s going to screw up my finished concrete.

If I had finished concrete and I was really worried about that, and I have done this several times, I get my surveyor to come back and double check. You honestly can’t double check enough. We’ve done it with our tape measure several times, but I would actually have the survey company come back and double check these pipe locations to make sure they’re exact between the wall because I’d be worried if I had to move this and jackhammer, it would screw up my finished concrete.

Again, I’m not worried about that because I’m covering everything with several inches of insulation subfloor and then ultimately tile and hardwoods which are going on top of that.

Now I mentioned earlier that I’ve got drain waste vent, and then I’ve got an emergency drain. This right here is the exit from my emergency drain. There’s a check valve going on there. So we’ll show you what that check valve looks like.

And then I’m also, I’m a big fan of when pipes come out of the house that are random, I want to take a label maker and actually label that. You know, 20 years from now, when I’m dead and gone, hopefully, I’m not dead then, but when I’m gone, I want people to know, hey, what’s this pipe sticking out from the foundation? So I’m actually going to get a really high-quality label and put it on there saying, hey, this is the emergency drain for this, this, and this room, that sort of thing.

Now walk with me back to the back of the foundation. This was all the original slab, and then this is all the addition. This is basically new construction back here, and you can see the only plumbing I’ve got in this entire space right here is the emergency floor drain for the HVAC system. This just allows me to make a pan underneath my upflow air conditioner in here and make sure that if there was an emergency, I’ve got a drain to drain that out.

So there’ll be a check valve in this location as well. But this is kind of good that we rained this weekend because all this road base that we compacted is now even that much more compacted. And back here, you might as well assume that we’ve got a new construction house. You can see I’ve got board forming on the backhand side, which is going to form the outer walls of my slab addition back here.

And then this has a perimeter beam. So all the way around on the outside of this, we dug down until we hit rock. And then I’d have to double check the engineering, usually The Rock is excavated for like 6 inches to a foot to make sure that we’re embedding into that rock with this new Foundation.

Now if this is a little bit wider back here, you might see a beam in the center of this section, but we didn’t need that according to our engineer. Again, we’ve got pretty rocky soil in this space, which makes for a really nice Foundation. But that being said, that’s the basic tour of what’s happening with plumbing here.

Electrical, there’s really not much when it comes to the slab on electrical. Now in this back corner where the power comes in, we’re going to have to drop a ground rod, and we’re going to have to bond to one of the beams over there. So that’s really the only electric that happens there.

And then I’ve got two places where I need conduit. I’ve got some electrical underneath my Island that’s going to need to come in. So make sure that I’ve got space to run plugs on that island which would be required by code. And in this family room where we’re standing right here, there’s going to be one outlet probably underneath the couch. I have to double check plans for that.

So really, that’s the only conduit. That’s the only subs lab electrical. It was pretty straightforward to plan for that. Really just a quick conversation with the electrician is all I needed. I do want you to know though that I have no water lines under the slab. We specifically didn’t put a sink in the island. The sink is on an outside wall, so we’ll be able to bring those water lines from ahead.

And so when we first started the video, you saw that conduit that I’ve got there. That schedule 40, I don’t know if that’s a 4-inch pipe or a 2-inch pipe, but where that gets run later, we’re going to be running our PEX line into the house. Everything else is going to get fed over ground. I want to try and keep as much as possible, water out of the slab in any locations. If those PEX lines get perforated, have a problem, it’s not good for us. So we want to try to avoid that as much as possible.

That being said, let me go back to the studio. We’re going to rewind time a little bit because we spent a lot of time with our friends at Eagle Plumbing, who are doing this work for me here, to kind of pre-plan not only where’s the underground but where’s the topout plumbing as well going in this house. So let’s rewind time now.

All right, y’all, we got the full team assembled for today’s pre-construction meeting, and you guys are going to get to listen in on what happens. Now, most of the time, we don’t have a really cool Vibe board in these meetings. This is a new addition to my team, but often we’ll do this preconstruction meeting with all of our trade Partners, with all the designers and the building team so that we can figure out, hey, what are we going to need to do when this house gets built? Where are we going to run things?

Now, with BFS’s digital tools, this is going to take it to the next level. Now, you’re going to see a bit of a digital version of a precon today, but when we meet back again in a couple of weeks, everything we do today is going to translate into what I like to call the skeleton of the house. And we’re also on that skeleton going to be able to show where the heart and the lungs and the blood veins are going in the house.

So we’re actually going to be able to show you, here’s what the HVAC system, the plumbing system, and the electrical system, including even the cans, are going to look like on the house. So that being said, let me introduce you to the crew we’ve got today.

First off, my business partner Tim Hill, who makes up the other half of Risinger Build. I’ve got Brent from Eagle Plumbing. Y’all have met Steve before. Obviously, I’ve got Bert from Airite. Bert and I have worked together for almost 18 years now, which is crazy. Chelsea, our architect at Ringer Build, and Lindsay, my sales rep with Builder First Source. Lindsay has been working with us for at least a decade now. Lindsay, maybe it’s been more than that, maybe a little bit longer. We’re getting older, Lindsay, I hate to say.

All right, that being said, let’s jump in with Steve and let’s let you guys plan what the systems are going to look like on the house. Another thing I want to mention here real quick is that the stuff that we’re talking about, Brent, they’re going to be able to translate to perfect dimensions. So when your crew gets out to the slab, they’ll actually be able to say, okay, this toilet line, let’s say, here’s the precise location of the measurements off the forms to get that thing in the exact spot we need it.

Okay, all right, so let’s talk a little bit about what we have. We have the water heater there, we have a toilet, same toilet, double sink, shower, shower, those walls, and we have our washing machine there and then kitchen sink, dishwasher, and then whatever applicable drains.

So in here, so let’s talk a little bit about what your requirements are and what are your thinking. Do you start with the larger pipes first, toilets? Yeah. SC, well, your exit of course over here in the far right, over here. And I came, we’re coming across the slab here at a 22-degree angle then straightening up. Actually, I came across the showers right at the showers all then I did a 22-degree angle out because we’re fighting slope. Oh yeah, make sure you’re going to fall.

Yeah, and as a side note, our sewers are not very deep in Austin, Texas, are they Brent? How deep do you think that is at the street? It’s curiosity. I think it’s about almost 3 feet, not quite. It’s really shallow compared to other parts of the country that have full basements. You know where Steve builds in Boston, yeah, we might be eight or nine feet down in some parts of the street.

So then the next thing I looked at is the upstairs where I’m going to bring my 3-inch stacks for the upstairs bathrooms. I can bring that up. So here again, we have basically a mirrored situation. And so our floor joist, if you remember, they’re in this direction and this direction, kind of split somewhere down through here.

So we’re coming off of these, the toilet, the stuff is just going, going straight down into the floor. What was the plan coming out of here? Well, I got to think about how I’m going to vent each toilet, each fixture up to code. Right, so how I approach the toilet, I got to pick something up, vent it beforehand. But I mean this, we’re picking this up, bringing it up the wall, bringing it into the roof.

Yeah, we got a pretty open truss layout. But ideally, Brent, if we could gang all our roof vents into one penetration, you know, the backside, that’d be awesome. Relatively, I mean, personally, I like to keep them in the top third because they see less water. Oh, that’s smart, right. Closer I get it to the ridge but tuck down a little so I don’t see it from the street. That makes a lot of sense.

But somewhere in here, it sees the least amount of water, you can’t see it, I like that. So the vents, I mean, this one’s pretty straightforward. This one here, it up through there and bringing it up. The vents will be on the sinks, on the laboratories for the toilet. Okay, and then I’ll have a separate vent by the tub wherever, probably this side of it because I think the stack downstairs is coming up, coming up from there by the washing machine.

Yeah, I mean we have 18-inch FL trusses after um B’s done. You’ll still have a significant amount of room up there. These are going to drop right into the floor. Yeah, there so that’s pretty easy. Those are pretty small right, those two and a half, 2-inch vent, 2 in what on the drain, the drain will be 2 in.

Yeah, yeah, so that’s not really taking up a whole lot of space. And then but the drain for the toilets would be the drain for the toilets are larger. So yeah, the good thing is is on the second floor and and I’ll say this in a in the light of it’s better to be lucky than good. Right, when if we have our HVAC coming down through the middle, having the bathrooms on the far side gives you pretty much the last four or five feet of the trusses.

And Bert’s not going to have any work inside those. That’s smart for the most part. So you do that on purpose or is this it’s better lucky to be good, right. But it kind of separates those and gets you all set. So having that, so having that stuff come down and you know those those vents or stacks are coming down somewhere in here, right? No, because those are 2×4 walls.

Okay, so I’m shooting one right there. We’re going to come down away from the light switches or plugs. Yeah, so we’ll keep it inboard a little bit there. And then one in the washing machine wall. Oh, okay, since it’s 2×6, is that a 2×6 wall on the plane? Yeah, so we can, good call, get that one there.

And I made that mistake at my house. I put a 2×4 wall behind my M. So this, I’m assuming this probably goes through that and that’ll drop into that and then I’ll come off and catch all that. All right, so yeah, your stuff is pretty easy. The beauty of this house being a slab on grade, most of your work is probably in the slab. Yeah, and most of his work is in the air above. That’s right, so it keeps it dimensionally displaced by virtue of their.

A bit of a side note, this plan will be available on the BFS home plan library. And Steve’s going to be working on a basement plan that will add to that. So if you end up building this plan in the north where you’re putting a basement on this, would change a little bit because we’re sliding on grade versus basement. But the general idea is the same.

Yeah, so and then what about any other drains just for the viewers, like the drains out of a mechanical system, do you put those in? You guys take care of all your. We usually do everything above the slab. So HVAC, they take care of everything above the slab. If it goes in the concrete, guess whose job it is?

And so where would we normally put the condensate drain for that? Would that go through the slab, you think, Brent, or would we put a pump in for that and pump it up and over to a sink, let’s say, or something like that? Yeah, I mean, it could be either, right. What would you prefer? I prefer it to go out the slab.

Yeah, yeah, is there any code issues? Do we have to treat the water before we drop it? That’s a Bert question on that one. So is there any ruling on when we run the condensate drain out, where does it have to go? Or is there a dimensional coat issue there? Yeah, they like to see it 5 feet from the foundation. Okay, and why is that, Bert? That 5-foot rule, where’s that come from?

Well, my understanding is because we’re so dry here, that it makes the soil wet in that area, and you could have shifting with expansive clays. It could mean that you’d have some foundation problems with wetness in that area all the time. That’s this house is 2 inches of soil and solid rock in this location. I’m not as worried about that, but of course, we have to meet code no matter what.

Guess you can put a sewer hose on it or get something out of it. Yeah, yeah. All right, um, yeah, and I mean, as far as these sinks and dishwasher, all these are, these are all just pretty simple taps and ties into to that. And what about the water service? Do we have any issues with that? Obviously, we’re bringing it in, we have the water heater, we’re coming into the garage right, Brent, for the water service? Did I see a softener on this plan?

Yeah, we’re bringing it into the softener. Okay, and is it right side of the garage or left side? I think we’re thinking somewhere up in here, up in here toward the top or above, or above that, up in here. So then you’d come in, we’d put an interior shut off in probably right, and then we’d go to a softener loop, and then you’d feed the house overhead from there.

Yeah, and need to decide whether the outdoor hydrants, the hose bibs, will be separated from the softened water. Oh, great point. So they’re either on the inside or before the softener, or they after is what you’re suggesting there. Ideally, they would be non-soft, right, because it’s going to mess with your plants and things like that. Although it’d be nice to have a soft one in the garage for car, that’s right. No water spot.

Well, you could still do that, we can still do that, and that’s all overhead. That’s no big deal. And I’d like to point out too that Steve did a nice job not putting a kitchen sink on an island. So we really don’t need anything under the slab except for that one-inch PEX line coming in probably, right.

Yeah, which is kind of nice. Yeah, I don’t like burying water lines in the concrete if we can avoid it. Yeah, other than that, I think one thing to add on that plan too though, Steve, and maybe you can switch colors, but we need to, we need to think about some drains that we’re going to want in the slab.

Yeah, because we want one in the laundry underneath the washer and dryer, right. We’re going to probably want a drain in case our water heater blows up. We need to this is a side note, we’ll come back to this, but we need to think about your TNP on that water heater. I want, I’d like to see a drain where the dishwasher is so we can have an emergency drain there.

And then I don’t think we do it on this job, but it is something to think about, and I want people to think about, you know, do I want a floor drain in my bathrooms? I don’t think we’re going to spend the money on this job, but something to always think about is do I want to do an emergency drain on my kids’ baths?

On my house that was upstairs, I did floor drains and I did a threshold at both their doors so that if my kids were idiots and overflowed the tub and the boys’ bathroom or the toilet blew up in my daughter’s bathroom, there would be an emergency drain. It wouldn’t flood my first floor. I think we eliminate those on this, do you agree?

Yeah, or should we spend the money on that? We’ll have one on the mechanical, we’ll definitely want one on the mechanical closet, that’s right. And now all of these just simply tie into that under slab plumbing. Obviously, well, if they tie in under slab, we got to wet drop them right.

Yeah, whereas if they go out and it’s an emergency drain, we should only have to so they can just go to daylight, we could just P trap and put mineral oil in there. Are you okay with that? Yeah, I’ve done it several times. I haven’t heard anything bad about it. Yeah, what would be your preference? Put a wet trap in and put it to the sewer system or? No, I don’t like that because the wet traps tend to fail.

So then let’s pipe those outside. At least for so these three, I would assume probably get connected to the same pipe, the same drain, and we just run that out the back here or yeah, if we can. Can we put the, can you get access to the TNP? Can we put an access panel like in the slab of the garage or cut it? I’ve never done that before, that’s interesting. I don’t think we need that, do we?

No, why you really need. Well, I’m saying to get all these run and you have the trap there, so you just put the mineral oil in then it does it for all three, for all three. I don’t mind. Yeah, I mean it’s an option. I’d also like to see that run in a two-inch line because I can get a cap for that that’s like a rat cap. Have you seen those? It’s like a stainless steel grate you can pop. So make a little, if you wouldn’t mind, Steve, just at least where you exit, let’s go to a 2 in. That gives you plenty of capacity, right.

Assuming that one is probably its own thing, its own thing, that’s great. I love it. Yeah, I think we’re, that’s bling, I think we’re good there. Yeah, thanks, Brent. Okay, and the electrician will fill in the blanks. Yeah, I think we’ll be able to get with Rick and figure it out. I don’t think that’s going to have too many issues.

All right, y’all, just need Mike, my City of Austin inspector, to come on by, and then we are ready to move to the next stage of construction. These underground utilities are vital at this stage to get right, and having the time to pre-plan and utilize BFS’s digital tools, that is a total game-changer for me as a builder.

Not just in the underground, but you’re going to see as we get a little further on the top-out phase, that’s really what it makes a difference. So stay tuned for those future episodes. We’re going to have the Eagle guys back to do the top-out plumbing. My foundation crew is just showing up now. We got our rebar dropped; we got our Stego Vapor Barrier dropped. We have a lot of work here to get this slab to the next stage of construction.

Stay tuned for the next episode where we’re actually going to pour this foundation. I’m going to run through the rebar, show you all the structural components that go into making a structural slab. Big thanks to our friends at Builder’s First Source for sponsoring this series. I’ve said it, and I’ll say it again: their digital tools are a total game-changer when it comes to the pre-planning for your jobs.

And I think as we get into this top-out phase, you’re really going to see how that 3D modeling we did made all the difference on the structural and the ready frame package. Next up is the foundation. So stay tuned, guys. We’re going to be installing; we’ve got rebar, we’ve got Vapor Barrier, and we’ve got a bunch of concrete trucks coming in about a week.

So the next episode is actually pouring that foundation, and I’m going to run through all the structural details with the rebar. That being said, thanks for joining me on the Risinger Build.