I have ripped out the incredibly disgusting, broken, 30year old acrylic alcove shower that came with my fixer-upper in preparation for replacing it with a tiled one. The alcove is very small (~36x36).
I have discovered that the builders exploited the geometry of the old acrylic shower (it narrowed at the base) to do this - these water lines protrude about 2inches from the floor plate. However, they are T'd into another line that feeds another bathroom and the vanity in this bath. You can see that line going off to the left in the photo. I am not sure these lines are pressurized from the bottom - when running the hot water in the other bath the hot line does not get hot.
My questions:
- Is there a way to see if the line is pressurized from the slab without cutting the pipe? I'm thinking no, but people on here are more knowledgeable than me.
- If it is pressurized, is there a way to cap it off below grade so that I can tile over it (it will actually be the shower pan, but still). I have an active feed coming in from the the left that is already piped.
- Assuming I'm stuck with this setup, can I just screw a 2x4 + 1/2 in furring strip perpendicular to the existing studs and hang my backer board from that? This is not ideal because the shower is so small already, I really don't want to give up 2+inches of width.
(Bonus 1998 gatorade the builers left in my wall. Still orange.)