Bathroom Plumbing Schedule (India): Point-by-Point Rough-In Heights & Pipe Sizes

A bathroom is decided at the rough-in stage, not at the showroom. Once the wall is chased, the pipes are set and the tiles go on, the height of every tap, spout and shower is frozen — and a mixer roughed-in 100 mm too low or a basin waste set off-centre becomes a chiselling job that nobody wants to pay for. A bathroom plumbing schedule is the one-page document that stops that: it lists every water point in the room, tells the plumber exactly how high above finished floor level (FFL) to set it, what pipe size to run, and what to watch for. Hand it over before the chasing starts and the wall gets built once, correctly.

This is the companion working document to the complete bathroom plumbing guide for India — that guide explains the why of pipe materials and systems; this one is the what and where you tape to the wall on site. Copy the tables below into your rough-in drawing or BOQ and adapt the rows to your actual layout.

Rough-in heights are to the centre of the point (the stub-out or angle-stop), measured from finished floor level — not the slab. Confirm your tile-plus-bed thickness (typically 30–50 mm) before marking, or every height drifts down by that amount.

How to use this document

The schedule is filled and used at a specific moment. It sits between the design and the wet works:

• Who fills it in — the architect or MEP consultant sets the fixture list; the plumbing contractor confirms heights against the actual sanitaryware cut-sheets before marking the wall.
• When — right after brickwork/blockwork and before the wall is chased and the concealed pipes are laid. This is the last cheap moment to move a point.
• How — for each fixture, read its cut-sheet, transfer the height to this schedule, then mark the wall in chalk. The plumber roughs-in to the marks; the site engineer signs off before concealment.
• Golden rule — always drive heights off the actual fixture you have bought. A wall-hung WC frame, a tall vessel basin or a rain-shower arm each shifts the numbers. The table gives sensible India defaults; the cut-sheet gives the truth.

The plumbing points schedule (copy this table)

This is the deliverable. Each row is one water point. Heights are indicative mid-range defaults for a standard Indian family bathroom with a floor-mounted WC, counter or wall-hung basin, a mixer shower and a storage geyser — adjust to your fixtures.

Standard rough-in heights (quick reference)

When you do not yet have a cut-sheet, these India-standard defaults keep you safe. All are to the point centre, from FFL, in mm — treat as indicative and confirm against the fixture.

Pipe sizes & slope reference

Get the pipe sizing and the drain fall right and the room drains silently and fills at pressure. Undersize a drain or flatten its slope and you buy back-ups and gurgles.

Slope rule of thumb: 100–110 mm drains fall at about 1:60 (roughly 18 mm per metre); 40–75 mm wastes at about 1:40 (25 mm per metre). Too flat and solids settle; too steep and water outruns the solids and leaves them behind.

Fill-in template (blank rows to copy)

Drop these headers into your own drawing and add a row per point, per bathroom. Keep one schedule per wet area so nothing is missed.

Common mistakes

• Measuring from the slab, not FFL — forgetting the 30–50 mm of tile and bed drops every point. Always mark from finished floor level.
• Not centring the basin waste and inlets on the actual bowl — a vessel or asymmetric basin shifts the centreline; check the cut-sheet.
• Shower hot and cold reversed — hot is left, cold is right, at 150 mm centres. Fixing this after tiling is brutal.
• Geyser points too low or with no isolation valve — set nipples at 1900–2000 mm and always give the cold feed a shut-off and the relief valve a piped drip route.
• Flat drains — a floor trap laid without fall, or a soil pipe below 1:60, guarantees odour and back-flow. Grade before you conceal.
• Concealing before a pressure test — never bury CPVC that has not held a hydrostatic test. This is non-negotiable.

These figures are indicative starting points for a typical Indian bathroom; actual heights, sizes and falls depend on the fixtures bought, the layout, local municipal bye-laws and the NBC. Verify every point against the real project, the fixture cut-sheets and a licensed plumber before you chase the wall.

Related resources & guides

• Bathroom design checklist (India) — the room-by-room checklist this schedule feeds into.
• Complete bathroom plumbing guide (India) — the systems and materials behind these points.
• Bathroom fixture schedule (India) — the companion fixture list that drives these heights.
• Bathroom plumbing codes (India) — the NBC and IS provisions your rough-in must satisfy.