Welcome to Right There Plumbing!
When you sign up for your first day as a plumbing apprentice, you might expect to hand over wrenches, glue PVC pipes, or maybe crawl under a sink. You probably don’t expect your very first day to involve a cutting out a concreate slab and a bag of quick-set concrete!
Customer Issue A general contractor in Richmond was remodeling a bathroom on a concrete slab foundation. The original toilet rough-in location didn’t match the new floor plan layout, requiring the main drain line to be moved through solid concrete.
What We Did One of our licensed Journeyman plumbers showed our newest Plumbing Apprentice the ropes—starting with breaking out an existing concrete slab, digging down into the gravel bed, re-routing a 3-inch PVC drain pipe, backfilling the base, and pouring a fresh concrete patch level with the existing floor.
Result The drain stack was perfectly positioned, fully supported beneath the floor, and sealed with a smooth concrete finish ready for tile installation.
Why Concrete Work Is Part of Plumbing Many homeowners are surprised to learn that plumbers regularly break and pour concrete. On slab foundations, drain lines are buried in the ground beneath the floor. To move or repair them, getting your hands dirty with concrete tools is completely unavoidable.
However, cutting into a slab isn’t the only way to relocate plumbing. Here is how concrete trenching compares to other slab plumbing workarounds:
-Cutting the Slab & Re-routing (Method Used Here):
–Pros: Maintains full ceiling height, allows standard floor-mounted fixtures, and creates a permanent code-compliant solution.
–Cons: Creates concrete dust, noise, and requires jackhammering labor.
-Building a Raised (False) Subfloor:
–Pros: Avoids breaking concrete by running pipes inside a or raised wood platform.
–Cons: Eats up vertical ceiling height and creates a step up into the room.
-Macerating / Upflush Systems (e.g., Saniflo):
–Pros: Uses an above-floor pump unit to grind waste and push it through small wall pipes without floor trenching.
–Cons: Requires electrical hookups, adds mechanical pump maintenance, and can be noisy.
-Rear-Discharge / Wall-Hung Toilets:
–Pros: Eliminates floor drains by venting waste straight out the back wall.
–Cons: Requires thicker wall framing or soffits to conceal the waste stack.
Here to Help Shoutout to David and Hunter for this one piece of the Richmond (40475) final work today! Whether you need a simple fixture swap or major slab work, visit our Services Page or call Right There Plumbing today!