Under sink & dishwasher plumbing

[Naqers]

Hi All - Would be great to get some advice. The pic is of under my kitchen sink. It is a double sink, with a dishwasher to the right.

I know the drain hose for the dishwasher is incorrect (there is no high loop). I was thinking of getting the drain hose connection moved to either (A) where that silver tape is on the horizontal pipe or to (B) under the other sink where the vertical pipe on the right) and then having a high loop. Alternatively, I was thinking of leaving the drain hose where it is and trying to buy an extension, attaching that and creating a high-loop. Trying to figure out which one. Any help would be appreciated!

Also, I was told that the drain pipe after the P Trap was too high. Is this true? Any thoughts would again be appreciated.

 

[frodo]

to fix it correctly, the pipe coming out of the wall, needs to be lowered, it looks to be 6--8'' to high.

 

[Zanne]

Yeah, it looks like someone put a J bend on the trap to make it go up much higher than it should. Water flow goes by gravity and I think the top of the trap arm needs to be about the same height or lower than where the fixtures enter the trap.

 

[Naqers]

Thanks Frodo - that's what I suspected. i was hoping for a different answer.


Any thoughts on the drain hose for the dishwasher?

 

[Naqers]

Also, instead of moving the drain from the P-Trap down 6-8inches, what if i moved the P-Trap and associated pipes up 6 inches? Basically got rid of the copper colored pipe on the right?

 

[Zanne]

Also, instead of moving the drain from the P-Trap down 6-8inches, what if i moved the P-Trap and associated pipes up 6 inches? Basically got rid of the copper colored pipe on the right?

Just from eyeballing the picture, I *think* you would then have to shorten the length of the black pipe on the left coming out of the left basin so it would still have the proper slope. You wouldn't be able to entirely eliminate the metal pipe on the right.

Left basin's horizontal run still needs to be 1/4" per foot slope downward toward the right basin's drain. It doesn't look like you have too much wiggle room and I'm not sure that shortening it would get it high enough.

As far as I know there is no minimum required distance for the P-trap from the bottom of the fixture. I'm going to take a guess that the plumbing was originally done with sink that wasn't as deep and that at a later point a deeper sink was added but the trap arm was not moved down to the appropriate height to compensate.

Maybe you could put a J bend on it's side coming out of the left basin and shorten the metal pipe on the right a bit.

Am I making sense here? I just had major brainfreeze.

Edit, you could get something like http://www.lowes.com/pd/Plumb-Pak-1...ontinuous-Waste-with-Branch-Tailpiece/1094317

You could then cut it short enough to put the trap on-- but even then, the entry level to the wall is so high, I'm not sure if would be high enough. If you could find a part with the dishwasher inlet that was higher, maybe it might work. If you move the dishwasher drain to the right basin it can make the run shorter, but still not sure on the height. You might still need to cut open the wall and adjust where the trap arm meets the pipe inside.

 

[frodo]

I have a fix, maybe, only way to know if this will work is to try it.

sorry best i got,

take every thing out, buy a http://screencast.com/t/Q4HJBeCH5 and http://screencast.com/t/1abUYOIp1K5


if this does not work, open the wall, lower the drain.

 

[Zanne]

LOL. Frodo, I think we had the same idea! Great minds think alike.

The one problem is that the dishwasher inlet seems a bit too low. The plastic tailpipe is a good idea though. The metal one would be a total bear to cut.

 

[Naqers]

Thanks Zanne and Frodo! So I called someone in to help with the problem. They moved the dishwasher inlet to where the silver tape is (horizontal pipe) and also moved everything up, very similar to what both of you suggested. Issue is that the horizontal pipe is still lower than the drain. Seems like I'm going to need to get the wall opened and lower the drain. Not fun at all, since I just had the kitchen reno'd and those are new cabinets. Hopefully this can be done by just cutting the back of the cabinet as opposed to needing to remove the whole cabinet housing and countertop. Which would be a nightmare.

 

[Zanne]

You should be able to punch a hole in the wall under the cabinet without messing up the cabinets and stuff above.

Hopefully the pipe in the wall is plastic so you can just cut off the portion that needs to be changed and put on couplings to attach things properly.

 

[Naqers]

Thanks Zanne - unfortunately the pipe in the wall is an old copper pipe!

 

[Zanne]

Thanks Zanne - unfortunately the pipe in the wall is an old copper pipe!

Ugh. That's not good. I wonder if you could use a Fernco fitting to splice in. Not sure if that is allowed or not.