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May 27, 2024

Here's How: Add a toilet with no drain

Dear Pat: My husband does many dirty car projects in thegarage. We would like to install a toilet and sink in the corner ofthe garage, but it is built on a slab with no drain. How can we addthis? ----

Dear Pat: My husband does many dirty car projects in thegarage. We would like to install a toilet and sink in the corner ofthe garage, but it is built on a slab with no drain. How can we addthis? ---- Charelle P.

Dear Charelle:There is nothing worse thantrying to clean old black motor oil and grease mixed with grit fromthe doorknobs and floors, not to mention the odor. The very finegrit from brakes and other car parts works its way into the poresof many sink and vanity materials and is difficult to ever getclean again.

Adding the plumbing to run cold water to the garage is thesimplest part of the project. A cold water pipe can be run from anyof the bathrooms up through the ceiling and over to the garage.Install at shutoff valve at the source so the water to the garagecan shut off from inside the house. To provide hot water in thegarage, install a 110-volt inline instantaneous water heater at thegarage sink.

There are methods to install a toilet and sink in a room with aslab and no drains below. First, you must consider how cold thegarage gets on the coldest winter nights. If it gets belowfreezing, you will either have to heat it or turn off the water anddrain everything during the winter. Making sure the gaskets aroundthe garage door seal well can help a lot.

Installing the toilet is probably most important. Your husbandcan take his time to use a waterless cleaner on his hands beforecoming indoors, but the need to use the toilet does not always givethe luxury of extra time to first clean up his hands and shoes.

Check the plumbing layout for your home. If you are lucky, youmay be able to locate the toilet and sink against a house wall thatis near a drain. A little digging through the floor may give youaccess to a drain. This also will be a warmer location to avoidfreezing pipes in a cold climate.

If you cannot get access to an existing house drain, you willhave to install a toilet that flushes upward or a no-water toilet.They look similar to a standard toilet. Saniflo, 800-363-5874,makes many models of upward-flushing toilets. Some of these toiletsalso offer the option of functioning as a drain for the sink(called gray water).

Upward-flushing toilets are also called macerating toilets. Whenthe toilet is flushed, an impeller grinds up the wastes, and theyare pumped up and out to a drain. These are powerful pumps that canpump the wastewater up 12 feet vertically and more than 140 feethorizontally.

That should allow you to reach an existing drain. Your othertoilet option is an incinerating toilet. Research Products,800-527-5551, makes several models. These toilets operate onelectricity and use no water. The wastes are incinerated at hightemperature by electric heating elements. There is no odor, and theashes are sanitized by the very high temperature.

Either way you go on the toilets selections, this is going to bea fairly expensive project. It would be wise to get a buildingpermit and have your local inspection departments review yourplumbing plans initially.

Send your questions to Here’s How, 6906 Royalgreen Drive,Cincinnati, OH 45244 or visit www.dulley.com.