Since we bought our house here in Cairns, we've had ongoing problems with the kitchen sink plumbing and the dishwasher. Namely, it was all wrong.
In that very messy pic, you can see how it had been set up originally. Basically, the problems were:
1) The dishwasher drain hoses were plumbed in on the sewer-side of the water trap
2) The dishwasher drain hoses didn't go right to the top of the cabinet before turning around and going back into the plumbing.
Because of these two things, there was no water trap between the sewer and the dishwashers. Ergo, every now and then the kitchen would stink up and smell like, well, the sewer. It wasn't all the time though, luckily, just every now and then. It was one of those jobs that I knew I'd have to fix, and it was quite disgusting, but was also easy to put off, since it wasn't a constant problem.
However, after chatting to my mate Josh, who's a plumber and now based in Adelaide, he was horrified about how it was set up, and had some choice words to say about the fellow who'd originally done the work. So he gave me a list of supplies to buy, and a rough guide of what I'd need to do. It all sounded so easy!
Firstly I had to order some replacement drain hoses for the dishwasher, since the original ones had been cut to the right length to suit the wrong position. So after a 2 min conversation to their very helpful service dept folk, and $80 later, Fisher & Paykel shipped me out a drain hose extension kit. Then, armed with my shopping list, we hit Reese Plumbing here in Cairns, to the grand total of about $16.
So, come Sunday morning, I had no excuse not to get on with the job. Easy, right? Remove the current setup, trim the two PVC pipes back a bit, connect up the new trap, and voila - all done.
Easy, in theory.
I removed the old stuff fine, after being thoroughly disgusted with the build up of gunk therein. Trimmed the PVC pipe coming down from the sink fine, and glued on the screw connector for the trap. All going well.
Next, I needed to cut a bit off the PVC pipe that goes out through the wall and down into the sewer. Easy, again! Fit up the new trap, mark the pipe, measure it. Do that about 3 more times. Keep coming up with the right answer, so go ahead and cut.
Cut the pipe off too short, by about an inch and a half.
Seriously - how did I manage that? Swear, curse, throw hammer, storm around for 20 mins. Muck with it again - nope - wayyyyy too short. The new trap has no chance of reaching the now-too-short drain pipe, let along being able to seal onto it. Swear, curse and stomp around for another 15 mins.
Wonder how I'm gonna fix this. Go outside, thinking maybe I can undo the pipe on the outside of the house, and stick a brand new length of pipe into the kitchen, and then cut it to the right length. no good - all external fittings are glued on, not screwed on, so that's not an option.
I had a spare screw-on connector from Reese. So I ended up cutting the screw-part off the connector, which left me with the inch-long sleeve that fits over the PVC pipe. Now we have a plan.
Cut the drain pipe off even shorter (since I needed more room for my makeshift joiner to fit), and attach the collar to the drain pipe using a friendly rubber mallet. Get an off cut of PVC pipe, and push it into the front face of the sleeve. Voila - a makeshift PVC extension.
Fit up the combo trap again, mark, measure, repeat. Do this about 6 times now, mindful to do it right after the last time. Cut the new piece of PVC to the right length.
And the bloody thing's too short AGAIN.
Swear, curse, stomp, throw hammer, throw hat, curse some more.
By this time I'm out of PVC off cuts, and don't particularly want to go and buy a 1m length just to cut a 5cm bit off the end. Muck around with it, and figure out that, whilst it's not the perfect length, it's only short by about 10-20mm. Not ideal, no, but not likely to be a real problem. Fit it all up with all the rubber seals on, and it looks to be OK.
So, assuming that if it looks to be OK, it probably is (heck, what could go wrong?), we decided to give it a shot. So out with the blue-glue, and about half the tub went onto the dodgy-bros PVC joiner contraption. I blue-glued the hell out of it. internally, externally, doesn't matter - it's glued. Left the glue to set for a couple of hours, then came back and attached the new trap.
The dishwasher extension hoses was an easy job comparatively. The hardest part was drilling a new 50mm hole in the shelf for the hoses to pass through. And that was only difficult since my drill wouldn't fit between the bottom of the sink and the shelf, and that my hole saw was an el cheapo unit that I bought about 5 years ago and have abused ever since. Sharp, she's not.
In the end though, we got it all replaced, even if it's not particularly elegant at the back.
And the verdict? After leaving it overnight for all the glue to set, we tested it out before work this morning. We filled both sinks, and a bucket of water, then pulled the plugs and tipped the bucket in. Not one drop of water, not a leak at all!
So I'm pretty chuffed with that. We'll see how it holds up, but I was expecting it to leak in one or two spots. If in fact it's all good, then I'll be very happy. We'll keep an eye on it for the next couple of weeks, but so far, so good!
All I know is that I'll never be a plumber, and after the fun I had yesterday, I don't think Jess will let me anywhere near a stilson wrench ever again!
