Moving bathroom pipes without gutting the room

Which methods are there for moving pipes?

Every bathroom renovation comes down to one question: how do you get that pipe from A to B without demolishing the floor or the wall? There are two main routes, and which one fits depends on the distance, the wall, and whether it carries drinking water or waste.

Chasing is the usual choice over short distances. I cut a channel into the wall or the screed, set the pipe into it, and close up with plaster or tiles. That saves a great deal compared with breaking out. With a waste pipe you hit the limits sooner: it needs fall and a minimum diameter, and that does not always fit in a channel.

Surface-mounted pipework runs visibly along the wall, and a batten or a boxed edge finishes it off. Nothing is broken open, but you lose a few centimetres of room. In a small bathroom that can decide it; in a larger one you hardly notice.

Moving a toilet is the heaviest job of the lot. Without changing something in the floor build-up it almost never works, simply because the waste diameter and its fall need room that a shallow channel does not have.

Keeping the breaking out to a minimum

Most of the mess comes not from the pipe itself but from a plan made halfway through. This is how I work:

1. Draw the existing situation. Where the main runs go, where the soil stack sits, which walls are load-bearing.
2. Shut off the water at the stopcock, and carry on only once there is genuinely no pressure left.
3. Take the shortest route. Vertical ducts and old channels are often already there. Use those before cutting a new one.
4. Chase or mount the new pipe, with enough fixings, so it cannot tick behind the tiling.
5. Run a pressure test before anything is closed up. This is the moment a leak shows itself, not three months later behind the tiles.
6. Finish the wall or floor and check every connection for damp once more at handover.

Planning a renovation? Bring the pipework in early. Once it is buried a pipe is hard to reach, and putting it right afterwards nearly always costs more than doing it within the same job.

Materials and standards

For drinking water, multilayer and PEX are now standard in renovation work, while copper comes back in older homes and anywhere it runs hot.

• Multilayer and PEX: flexible, quick to lay, suitable for chasing. Fewer joints means less to leak.
• Copper: long-lived and stable at higher temperatures, but it needs soldered or pressed joints, so more labour.
• PVC and HT pipe: the standard for waste. Fall is not negotiable here, or the water will not clear and you get smells or a blockage later.

Drinking water carries strict requirements. The Dutch practice code for laying pipe networks, which rests on NEN 1006, sets out how a system is laid safely and hygienically. KIWA-approved materials are the norm: that mark says a component is fit to carry drinking water.

What it costs and how long it takes

Price depends mostly on scale, and on whether only the water moves or the waste as well. These are the ranges common in the market, not a quote:

Figures like these often leave out making good. So always ask whether plastering, tiling and taking the rubble away are included, because that is where the surprise usually comes from. For moving a bathroom outright, vtwonen sets out what else it brings with it.

On time: one relocation is often done within a day. Renewing all the water and waste pipes usually takes two to four working days.

On a small job of uncertain scope an hourly rate is fairer; on a complete run of pipework a fixed price is easier to live with. On site I charge €114.95 incl. BTW per hour, with no call-out charge. It is all on the prices page.

Doing it yourself, or bringing someone in

A visible pipe you can isolate and test yourself, a radiator connection for instance, is within reach of a confident DIYer. As soon as drinking water, waste or gas is involved, that shifts. Not because it is so difficult, but because a mistake here lands hard: water damage, a health risk in drinking water, or an unsafe gas connection.

A good quote for pipework makes five things clear:

• Which material is used, and why
• Whether a pressure test is done, and whether you see the result
• How much guarantee sits on the work
• How long it takes, making good included
• Whether breaking out and finishing are in the price or come separately

At handover, check three things yourself: are the joints reachable or at least recorded, is there no damp anywhere around connections, and was a pressure test done with a result you can ask about.

What goes wrong most often

The commonest mistake is not the moving itself. It is skipping the pressure test because the programme is tight. A leak you find after tiling costs many times the test you could have run beforehand.

The second is underestimating how much the soil stack decides. That one pipe often settles whether a toilet can shift at all, and you want to know that before the tiles are ordered, not halfway through.

If a gas connection moves in the same job, for a hob or for a boiler in a new position, allow for it in the plan. Gas work falls under stricter rules, and it is covered on the page about gas pipework.

Getting it done

Send me a few photos of the bathroom and of where the pipe needs to go, with your postcode. I will tell you which route avoids the heavy work, roughly what it costs and how many days it takes. You deal with me directly, you get a clear price before the work starts, and my work carries a 12-month guarantee for leaks and issues.

There is more on the approach on the pipework and chasing page. If your pipes are mostly old rather than in the wrong place, read when old pipes really need replacing first. And if a radiator moves in the same job, that is on the radiators page.