Bathroom remodeling in Oak Park, IL

Oak Park strips the plumbing chapters out of the International Residential Code and uses the current Illinois State Plumbing Code for all plumbing work. Even a plain toilet swap has a local rule: a new replacement toilet must meet the Illinois code.

The permit drawings need to show existing and new plumbing, with an isometric of the water, drain, waste and vent lines and pipe sizes for each fixture. If you are adding fixtures, a second sink or a separate shower, the village also wants a water service and meter size calculation.

The village's plan review checklist asks for bathroom exhaust fans vented to the outside, not into the attic. Glazing in bathrooms, including a shower screen or a window by the tub, must be tempered or laminated safety glass.

Plenty of Oak Park owners use a bathroom remodel to move laundry upstairs. If the washer goes above the basement, the village requires a drain pan or similar secondary drain tied to a trapped and vented drain. We plan that into the floor before the tile goes down.

One bathroom will not trigger Oak Park's whole house sprinkler rule. That rule kicks in when more than half of the wall finishes in the house are removed to the studs or the work area tops half the building. If you are doing every bathroom at once in a two flat, we count it before we start, because the 50 percent is measured across the building.

With roughly 60 percent of the village built before 1940, old cast iron stacks, galvanised supply lines and plaster on wood lath are normal. We open one wall, look, and price the rest on what we find.

A basement bath means fixtures in or under a concrete floor, and the village then requires at least one trapped and vented floor drain. Oak Park's sewers are combined, so a drain low in the basement is also a backup risk in a heavy storm. We pair a basement bath with backflow protection or an overhead arrangement rather than leave a new shower drain open to the main.

Many older Oak Park bathrooms have a small leaded or art glass window. The village's preservation guidelines expect decorative glass like that to be kept and repaired. If a bathroom window is visible from the street on a contributing house, replacing it needs photos of deterioration, repair and replacement estimates and matching details. Interior only bathroom work in a historic district can be approved by staff.