How to Install a Shower in the Basement

LESLIE: Now we’ve got Antoinette in Ohio on the line looking to put a bathroom in the basement. How can we help you with that project?

ANTOINETTE: Is there possible – a shower? I think it – when you were on earlier – that you don’t have to go through the – if it’s in the basement, you don’t have to go through the cement to put a flow of the water that comes out of the shower to the drain?

TOM: So, Antoinette, am I hearing that you’d like to add a shower to your basement?

ANTOINETTE: Yeah.

TOM: And you’d like to do that without the use of a jackhammer, correct?

ANTOINETTE: Yes.

TOM: OK. So, you can do that. There is a way to add a shower and have that shower drain to a reservoir, which then pumps the water up high enough to drop it into your regular drain-waste vent line that takes all the waste out of the house.

ANTOINETTE: Oh, that way – because I’ve got drains down in the basement, see. And that’s where – my washer goes to that drain. That’s why I wanted a shower, so that when the water – the dirty water – comes through the shower part, that it’ll go right into the same drain.

TOM: And where is that draining eventually?

ANTOINETTE: Well, it goes through – well, just where all the water of the – your bathtub and your kitchen water, they all go the same place.

TOM: If the drain is low enough where you can do that with a basement shower, then that’s how you would do it.

ANTOINETTE: Yeah. But do they have bases on the shower – you know, your base of your shower that has it that you can do that?

TOM: You build up the shower so it’s not flush on the floor of the basement. It would be on – stepped-up a few inches to a foot or so, so you could get the plumbing in there. And then you would make sure that you drain that, if possible, to a lower point where the house drain can pick it up. But if not possible, you drop it into what’s called a “lift pump.” The lift pump lifts the water up and then drops it into the main drain line for the house and carries it out and away.

ANTOINETTE: OK. Well, that’s a good idea. OK. Thank you for the information.

TOM: You’re welcome, Annette. Good luck with that project. Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.