We are splitting the (only) bathroom in our 90-year-old house into two full baths.
Our plumber asked for a 2 x 6 wall along the same side of both bathrooms to run supply and DWV lines. We did that and also built a 2x4 curtain wall to divide the space into two bathrooms.
Without telling anyone, the plumber changed his mind and ran his vent lines through the 2 x 4 curtain wall. He also ran a drain line through and exterior, load-bearing wall. As you can see from the photos, he removed way more than 60% of the wood in these walls. In one spot, be bored through the corner post of the original house.
One of the vent pipes in the curtainwall actually sticks out from the stud, which will require us to dig out some of the cement backer board to get it to fit flush.
As a result, we flunked our city framing inspection. The inspector offered to work with us, suggesting that we could install some 1" x 12" metal straps on the edge of the studs to bridge the holes created by the plumber.
I looked at our building codes, and it looks like metal straps can be used horizontally to reinforce plates that are cut to accommodate plumbing. However, I can't find anything that says it's OK to do this on vertical studs that have been bored out with less than 1" of wood remaining.
If we tell the plumber to make the curtainwall a 2 x 6 wall, he will also have to relocate all of the Roughton plumbing for the walk-in shower, which would otherwise be off-center. If we tell him to move all of the vent pipe into the 2 x 6 wall, he will also have to redo all the work in the basement.
I guess my question is, what should we do here? If the city is willing to allow us to pass our framing inspection with those metal straps, can we reasonably required the plumber to redo all that work? I am a little concerned that the city is actually being too flexible and the structure of our house will be compromised as a result.
Thanks in advance! |