Raising some slate flag stones.

Ader1

A house I recently bought has these slate flag stones on the kitchen's floor. They aere in fact covered with several layers of carpet etc accumulated over decades. Anyway, I'm installing a new kitchen and I need to lift up some of these flag stones in order to run a waste pipe and water pipes. How whould I go about doing this? I would imagine that the floor was laid when the house was built so probably 100 years + ago. So I don't think they're held in place using cement. Thanks.

firefox1956

They are probably just laid on bare earth or sand.
Just use a pry bar of some sort.
I personally would not be laying pipes in the floor.....big problems if you ever have a leak !!
HTH

Ader1

Thanks. But it will be impossible to service a sink unit etc in the middle of the room without running pipes along the floor.

firefox1956

Thats why sinks etc were normally put on an outside wall !!!
Think about putting the pipes in a large enough duct so that you could possibly remove them without pulling up all the kitchen floor.
HTH

SailorSam

firefox1956 wrote: »

Thats why sinks etc were normally put on an outside wall !!!
Think about putting the pipes in a large enough duct so that you could possibly remove them without pulling up all the kitchen floor.
HTH

I think that's a good idae to have it in ducting, and to go one step further rather than use copper pipe as a supply to the sink use plastic. That's going to be easier to push through the ducting and remove / replace if there was a problem in the future.

Ader1

The kitchen used to be in a rather small room in an extension. However, the larger room which I now want to put it in (which may have been a kitchen at one time since it has the remains of a large fire-place) has so many doors etc leading from it or built in cup-boards that an island with a sink in it is my intention. I don't suppose either that in the old days they had as many kitchen units to find room for? Anyway, the kitchen is bought and and island with sink and dish washer is planned so I've got to geth the flag stones lifted.

Ader1

I did lift a line of flag stones and they are laid on soil with a kind of lime morter in between them to hold them in place. Should I have the all lifted and put a dpc in place? Is this expensive? The floor seems quite dry although thee was a little dampness up one of the walls but this could be down to the ground outside being slightly higher than that in-side.

They're very fragile and one or two of them had chips coming off. Is it possible to use some kind of stone 'sander to just smooth these down once in situ? Also, is it possible to purchase flag-stones a certain length and width say I damage any irretreivably if I do lift them all up?

Ader1

Is it really uncommon then?

Ader1

Bump.....In case somebody around who might know tonight.....

Ader1

OK.....ast time bump

cyclonebri1

No, not totally uncommon, but you may have gathered it is ill advised given you are making alterations.

I don't know your rational for wanting to go this way but if you do then you will need a breaker drill of some sort, and then you still have to drill through the exterior wal to get outside.

Whatever you do do not set 1 1/4" plastic pipes under your floor, it would need to be a proper 4" drain.