# Slope to floor drain?  How far?



## Yikes

California Plumbing Code (UPC) 411.4 says "Floors shall be sloped to floor drains."  What about non-code-required drains?

I have an apartment project for persons with disabilities.  We have roll-in showers inside each apartment, and those shower floors are of course sloped to a drain.  In addition to this, we also provided a second non-code-required floor drain in the middle of each bathroom, just to capture any nuisance water (for example, if the wheelchair user was toweling off in the middle of the bathroom, or if the shallow shower pan overflowed.)  CPC 411.2 only requires floor drains in commercial bathrooms, commercial kitchens, and commercial or multi-tenant laundry rooms.

We had not sloped the floor to these extra drains, because we didn't have recessed framing there.

The building official is now saying that the non-code required drains must have a sloped floor around them in compliance with CPC 411.4.

Why, if it's a non-required drain?

And if so, how much floor must be sloped?  For example, could it be just a very tiny area around the drain itself, just to satisfy the letter of the law?


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## mark handler

As we have disscused before, if you provide non-required  items, they still need to be installed per code


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## Yikes

Mark, then the question would be, how far does the code tell me I need to slope the floor?  to the extents of the bathroom?  Throughout the entire unit, from the corner of the living room all the way into the bathroom?

Or, if the code is silent, is the answer essentially 1/4" around the rim of the drain enough?


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## mark handler

A reasonable "assumption" would be the room, not adjoining rooms.


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## Yikes

Thanks Mark, I appreciate having someone to bounce this idea around.

There must be some practical limit to "reasonable assumption".

For another example: if I had a 200'x200' warehouse, and I put a floor drain near the roll-up exterior door (for example, to catch any incidental blown-in rainwater), would I then be compelled to slope the entire warehouse floor (40,000 SF) towards that single drain? Probably not a reasonable assumption.

But there's no code guidance in this regard - - so I should be able to slope as little an area as I want?

Back to my real-world situation.  The building has already been framed in.  We don't have vertical allowance to slope the bathroom floor.  At this point, if we have to slope the entire room due to the floor drain, then we would be better off just capping the floor drain rough-in and not having a floor drain at all.  But, what did that accomplish, as compared to having a non-sloped drain where they can at least push/mop the nuisance water?  There's no advantage to anyone by removing the drain.


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## mark handler

the code section does not dictate the amount of slope or equal slope.....


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## ICE

Yikes said:
			
		

> At this point, if we have to slope the entire room due to the floor drain, then we would be better off just capping the floor drain rough-in and not having a floor drain at all.  But, what did that accomplish, as compared to having a non-sloped drain where they can at least push/mop the nuisance water?  There's no advantage to anyone by removing the drain.


A hole in a flat floor isn't going to be worth the trouble unless it is 12" in diameter.



> As we have discussed before, if you provide non-required items, they still need to be installed per code


Up to a point.  That point stops short of requiring a sloped floor for a drain that's not required.  Essentially, the drain needs to function but it doesn't need to work.


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## MASSDRIVER

In resteraunts we typically app a 4 foot sweep around any drain, reasoning being gentle slope to drain for walking ease, with no drastic slopes.

Being as it is Accessable is there a a Ada maximum slope that dictates the drain, similar to a ramp?

Brent


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## Yikes

MASSDRIVER, there is no doubt a maximum slope for ADA (depending on the function, direction of travel, nearby features such as doors or other landings, etc.), but I typically slope to floor drains less than 2% anyway, and that is effectively "level" for ADA purposes.

More specifically, when we DO slope to drain, we actually specify slope of 1.4% max, so in case the installer is actually measuring the 1.4% along a "valley", we don't have to worry that any other floor surface will be exceeding 2% slope.


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