Henry Graham
Member
I poured my deck without leaving any sleeves or conduits for future plumbing or lighting lines. Now I’m wishing I had. Has anyone managed to add them later without tearing everything up?
Anyone regret not running plumbing sleeves under their DIY pool deck?
- Thread starter Henry Graham
- Start date
Kevin Marsh
Member
Yeah, I skipped sleeves on my deck too, and it’s definitely something I’d do differently next time. You can retrofit plumbing or electrical lines, but it’s a real pain. Most people end up cutting channels into the concrete or running lines over the surface and hiding them with trim, neither option is pretty or as durable as having them pre-embedded.
If you haven’t started installing anything yet, I’d consider using flexible conduit where possible and routing around the deck edges for now. Otherwise, any major changes will mean breaking into the concrete. Lesson learned: even if you don’t know exactly what you’ll need, running a few empty sleeves while pouring saves a ton of hassle later.
If you haven’t started installing anything yet, I’d consider using flexible conduit where possible and routing around the deck edges for now. Otherwise, any major changes will mean breaking into the concrete. Lesson learned: even if you don’t know exactly what you’ll need, running a few empty sleeves while pouring saves a ton of hassle later.
William Walker
Member
I’ve regretted skipping sleeves too. If you’ve already poured, the easy move is to run flexible conduit along the deck edge and hide it with trim, so you can pull lines later. When you get a chance to remodel, core-drill a spot or two and add a couple of empty PVC sleeves to future-proof it
Sara Najjar
New member
In my opinion, when you remodel later, just core-drill a couple spots and drop in some empty PVC sleeves to future-proof it.
Giulia Durand
New member
I skipped sleeves too, and I regret it. For now, I’m running flexible conduit along the deck edge and hiding it with trim, so I can still pull lines. When you remodel, core-drill a spot and add a few empty PVC sleeves for future-proofing.
David Harris
Member
I relate a lot to what Kevin Marsh shared. From my experience, adding lines after concrete is set is always more work and never looks as clean. For now, I think you should take the least destructive option and accept that you might clean it up properly later when you’re ready to redo things.
Vikram Ahmad
New member
From what Kevin Marsh and William Walker mentioned about running flexible conduit along the deck edge, that’s the most practical solution in my experience without major demolition. I helped retrofit extra lighting once and we routed it along the outer edge and hid it under coping trim, avoiding cutting through the middle of the deck. It’s not as clean as having sleeves from the start, but it can still look tidy if planned well. Later, during a smaller remodel, that’s when I’d add empty sleeves to future-proof things properly.
Sean Whitaker
Member
I didnt think about sleeves either when I poured my first small deck and yeah… ended up kicking myself later when I wanted to add low voltage lighting around the coping. By that point the concrete was already cured and everything was locked in, so running anything underneath wasnt really an option without cutting.
What we ended up doing was core drilling one clean hole near the equipment side and then running conduit under the edge of the deck where the soil was a little softer. It wasnt perfect but it avoided cutting channels across the surface. The trick was keeping the slope slightly downward away from the deck so water wouldn’t collect in the conduit, especially since deck areas get wet constantly from splash out.
One thing a builder pointed out to me later is even when people do add sleeves, they sometimes forget to oversize them. If you ever plan to pull extra wires or a small water line later, a 2 inch PVC sleeve gives you way more flexibility than the little electrical conduit most people think to install. Not helpful now obviously, but maybe useful if you ever redo part of the deck. Anyone else here ever try horizontal boring under a deck slab for this? I’ve heard mixed results.
What we ended up doing was core drilling one clean hole near the equipment side and then running conduit under the edge of the deck where the soil was a little softer. It wasnt perfect but it avoided cutting channels across the surface. The trick was keeping the slope slightly downward away from the deck so water wouldn’t collect in the conduit, especially since deck areas get wet constantly from splash out.
One thing a builder pointed out to me later is even when people do add sleeves, they sometimes forget to oversize them. If you ever plan to pull extra wires or a small water line later, a 2 inch PVC sleeve gives you way more flexibility than the little electrical conduit most people think to install. Not helpful now obviously, but maybe useful if you ever redo part of the deck. Anyone else here ever try horizontal boring under a deck slab for this? I’ve heard mixed results.