Home improvement in Philadelphia, PA

Local homes

What Philadelphia bathrooms are built on

In a typical South Philly or Fishtown rowhome, the floor joists run side to side between the brick party walls and sit in pockets in the masonry. The lumber is often older, full-dimension stock, which is good news, but over the decades it has usually been notched or bored to get drain lines through. When we open a bathroom floor, repairing that damage with sistered joists or blocking comes before any new tile goes down.

Many second-floor bathrooms sit in the rear addition, the back building, directly over the kitchen. That makes the kitchen ceiling the access point for drain work, and it means a slow shower leak shows up as a stain downstairs long before you notice it upstairs. Cast-iron stacks, galvanized supply lines and old lead bends are still common in houses from Kensington to Point Breeze to Cedar Park, and a gut remodel is the least expensive moment to have a licensed plumber replace them.

Venting is the other recurring issue. Plenty of Philadelphia bathrooms were built with a window and nothing else. With humid summers and months of closed-up winter, a properly ducted exhaust fan that exits through the flat roof or the rear wall is worth planning in from the start rather than adding after the tile is up.

Communities we cover from Philadelphia

• Fishtown
• Northern Liberties
• Passyunk Square
• Point Breeze
• Graduate Hospital
• Queen Village
• Manayunk
• Mt. Airy
• Mayfair
• Fox Chase
• Society Hill
• Bella Vista
• Fairmount
• Brewerytown
• East Passyunk
• Port Richmond