mid terrace want to move bathroom from extension downstairs back of house to front of house upstairs has anyone done this?? Idea of cost??

[berrycott]

Hi all, I live in a mid terrace, its basically a 2 up/2 down with the front bedroom currently split in 2 with a stud wall, giving three bedrooms. Its the smaller of these two front bedrooms that i want to convert. The single story extension on the back gives me a gully kitchen with a bathroom at the end. I am desperate to move the bathroom upstairs. Theres nothing worse than needing a pee at three in the morning, by the time ive got to the bathroom and back im totally awake and work the next day is hell because of lack of sleep. I've had the idea to use the small bedroom at the front as a bathroom as its tiny anyway and just used as a storage area at the mo. But, as im starting to do more research into it, I'm finding that it may not be as straightforward as I thought. For a start I'm finding that in a lot of cases, people in similar houses are moving their bathroom upstairs at the same side of the house as the existing drainage already sits, for me this would be the back of the house. Yet the room i want it in is at the front. (otherwise I feel its going to get REALLY expensive with refiguring the back bedroom into bathroom/bedroom/corridoor).There is no drainage at the front that i can see, for my house or anyone else on my row. Is it possible to remove waste all the way from the front to the back when you live in a mid terrace?Or is it possible to dig a new drain at the front, bearing in mind i have a very small space at the front of the house-and a shared access with next door directly below where i want the bathroom. Has anyone done this before, and what issues did you face? I was also wondering about the costs involved Any advice would be greatfully recieved.

I suspect it would be far far far cheaper to knock up a stud wall in the back (they're really cheap!) than to create a new drain or have a massive pipe running to your existing drain.

There's a reason your neighbour's have bathrooms where the drain is.

My guess would be that it would be prohibitively expensive.

The waste from the toilet would need to go to the same waste as the other houses on the street, which is at the back. So the drainage would have to run at an angle from the front of your house, through to the back, and then out. This would leave you with a drain pipe running through the middle of your downstairs rooms from ceiling to floor height.

You could only have waste going out to the front of the house if there's already a drain there. Otherwise you're looking at having to dig a drain all the way along the street until it meets another drainage system, as it can't go under the houses' foundations.

There's just no easy fix for this, and it would cost a ridiculous amount for no gain.

the only possible idea is if your back bedroom is big enough, can you partition off a section and have the back room have an en suite which is just a toilet & tiny hand basin?

Or - completely switch around the upstairs so that there's one big room at the front, and two small rooms at the back, one of them being the bathroom.

Cheapest and easiest option would be to partition off a very small en-suite shower room in the back bedroom (and keep downstairs bathroom).

Our neighbours have just moved their bathroom upstairs to the very small 3rd room. However it's the back room above where their bathroom is now. I'd second switching rooms around and make the front room the big room.

macerator toilet? hides

Why not knock on a few doors and ask to see their upstairs back bathroom arrangement and see what you think. You'll then have a good idea if this option would work for you.

I have no idea about moving drains. Sounds expensive.

Moving the drainage system is going to be hugely expensive and disruptive. I would also think long term about how it would affect a sale - if none of the other houses have a front bathroom / drain and you've lost a bedroom to make one then I would say that would definitely impact on sale value.

Is there no way you could create an extension downstairs for the kitchen and make room for a small toilet alongside it? Or move the bathroom backwards alongside the house?

Pee in a bucket on the landing ?

What about extending over the kitchen to create a bathroom? That's pretty standard for mid terraces, and generally leaves the bedrooms a good size.

Would definitely avoid moving drainage if at all possible. We put in a downstairs loo and even joining toilet drainage to waste pipe that ran right past the outside wall was a royal pita.