Bathroom Remodeling in Redding, CT

Without a public system, water quality in Redding is whatever the well delivers, and the Connecticut Department of Public Health is plain about what that can mean. It estimates that 23% of Connecticut residents rely on private wells, that about 3.9% of private wells statewide carry arsenic above the EPA maximum contaminant level and 4.7% carry uranium above the standard, and that certain bedrock types are more likely to yield both. Its recommended private-well panel runs from total coliform bacteria and nitrate through iron, manganese, hardness and pH, with arsenic, uranium and radon tested at least once and ideally every 5 years. For a remodel the practical results are three: hardness, which DPH describes as limescale, off-white chalky solids, on hot-water plumbing and fixtures; iron, which leaves rust-colored stains on fixtures and laundry; and manganese, which leaves yellow, brown or blackish stains. A test taken before we settle the design tells us whether a softener or an oxidizing or ion-exchange filter belongs in the plan ahead of the new valve and tub.

Radon is the Redding-specific wrinkle, since the Health Department names it among the subjects it advises residents on. DPH explains that radon dissolves into water from underground sources such as wells and enters the air of a house when the water is agitated or heated, during showering, laundry and cooking, and it estimates that for every 10,000 picocuries per liter of radon in the water, about 1 picocurie per liter is added to the air. A new shower is where that release happens, so a radon-in-water test, run through a lab approved by DPH, belongs on our pre-remodel list. Staining water also shapes the finishes we recommend. On a well that runs iron or manganese, a white porcelain sink and a light grout show the stains first; our vanity and countertop page covers the materials that resist them, including engineered quartz, which Caesarstone describes as nonporous and unable to take a sealer, against granite and marble, which have pores that need sealing on a regular basis.

Septic governs the other end of the pipe. Danbury's Water Pollution Control Plant takes an average septage load of 14 million gallons a year and names New Fairfield, Redding and Bridgewater as the towns it accepts it from, which is where Redding's pumped tanks go. Updating a bathroom in place adds nothing to the system, but adding one can. Section 19-13-B100a of the Public Health Code treats any structural, mechanical or physical change that raises a building's design flow or required leaching area as a change in use, and no such change may proceed until the local director of health determines that a code-complying area exists on the lot for a subsurface sewage disposal system; the director may require the system to be expanded when design flow rises by more than 50%. In Redding we get that determination from the Health Department at 100 Hill Road. The regional affordable housing plan adds that without public sewers a minimum lot of one dwelling per two acres was generally necessary to protect water quality.

Redding's housing splits two ways. The 2019 ACS table counts 3,399 one-unit detached houses, 86% of the stock, and QuickFacts puts 2.54 persons per household, the lowest figure QuickFacts reports for any town we serve, which together describe large houses with few people in them. That is where the master bathroom remodel lives: a primary bath in a detached house with room for a separate shower and tub, a double vanity we set with lavatory centerlines at least 36 inches apart by the NKBA guideline, and a hot-water run sized for a 2.0 gpm showerhead and a 1.28 gallons per flush toilet. The same table counts 337 units in buildings of 20 or more, 9% of the stock, and 103 two-family units. Those are our small bathroom remodel jobs, where a 60 x 30 alcove tub, a round-front toilet, which Kohler calls the space-saving choice, and a 20-amp receptacle circuit have to fit a room that cannot grow. Both carry the same well and septic questions.

Redding's post offices are Georgetown, Redding Center, Redding Ridge and West Redding; Town Hall and the Health Department are at 100 Hill Road; and the State Register and Manual lists the town as served by Metro-North. Redding was the Continental Army's winter encampment in 1778-1779, when General Israel Putnam held three brigades there, and Mark Twain's last home, Stormfield, was built in town; the Georgetown section once produced wire screen. The 1991-2020 climate normals from the Danbury station put the January mean at 28.0 degrees Fahrenheit with 126 days a year at or below freezing, which is why a water line protected from frost and an insulated, air-sealed wall cavity behind any tub or shower on an exterior wall matter here as much as the tile.

See Redding, CT on Google Maps — we cover the whole area from Danbury.