Ground rough-in
This is the plumbing that goes in before the concrete does. Once the slab is poured, every one of these pipes is under four inches of concrete and whatever is wrong with it stays wrong.
What is actually in the ground
The whole drain and vent system below the floor: the building drain running out to the sewer or the tank, the branches off it, and a stub-up at every fixture in the house. Everything is sized and graded before anybody digs, because a drain works on fall and nothing else — no pump, no pressure, just the slope you built into it.
Why the location matters more than anything
A closet flange is not a hole under the toilet symbol on the plan. It is a measured distance off the finished wall, and a wall sitting on a grade beam is not in the same place as the line the architect drew. Getting one of them a foot out means a toilet that will not sit, found by a framer in six weeks with a concrete saw as the only way back.
It gets tested, then it gets inspected
The system is filled and held — a ten-foot head of water on the highest point, standing there while the inspector looks at it. A joint that is going to leak leaks then, in the open, instead of in year three under somebody’s kitchen.
Grade beams and sleeves
On a Texas slab the engineer puts beams under the bearing walls, and pipe crosses them constantly. Crossing a beam is fine and gets a sleeve. Running a drain lengthways INSIDE one is not, and it is the kind of thing that looks like any other line on a plan view. We check it against the engineer’s own sheet before the ditch is dug, not after.
Questions we get asked
Can plumbing be changed after the slab is poured?
Only by cutting the slab, which means a concrete saw, a ditch through the floor of a finished room, and a structural repair afterwards. It is done when it has to be, and it is the reason the rough-in is worth getting right the first time.Who sets out where the fixtures go?
The plans do, but somebody has to read them against what is actually staked on the ground. We take our measurements off the architect’s and the engineer’s sheets together, because the two do not always agree and the concrete does not care which one was right.The rest of the job
Where we go
Parker, Wise and Tarrant County, out of the shop in Springtown. Springtown, Weatherford, Azle, Boyd, Decatur, Newark, Millsap, Fort Worth and the country in between.
Call 817-487-8866