How to Add Hot Water Lines in a Bathroom Installation

There are a lot of reasons why you would need to add a hot water line in your bathroom. You may be installing a new shower and just need to move it higher or lower or perhaps add a vanity and make things roomier. 

• First you will have to locate your current hot water line in the house. If this bathroom is newly added on you will be running a water line from the closest hot water in the home. That could be a bathroom elsewhere or from the kitchen. All of this will also hold true for the cold water line.


• Once you locate where your supply line will be you should turn off the water supply to the hot water line. This will be nine times out of ten the line coming out of your hot water heater. Just turn the valve and shut off the hot water to the house.


• Cut into the hot water line closest to your new bathroom installation. Here you will be putting in a ‘T’ in the piping. One will go where it was going before and the other part of the ‘T’ will go to your new bathroom.


• Cut holes into your wall studs to accommodate the piping. It is a good idea to use pipe protectors while doing this so that any nails driven into the wall won’t hit your new piping as well.


• Locate your pipes (both hot and cold) where you need them in the bathroom. Most likely you will have at least a sink, a toilet and a shower. Run your piping to these locations in preparation for installation of those fixtures.


• You will most likely end up having one hot water and one cold water line coming into the bathroom and then you will ‘T’ them off in different directions to go to the fixtures wherever they will be. Keep them in the wall studs for protection and use the pipe protectors where you go through to prevent nail damage later on.