This story begins on Thanksgiving. My wife and I invite my father in law, my sister in law, and her fiance to our house for a Thanksgiving feast. I prepare the turkey using my shiny brand new Char Broil Big Easy Oil-less turkey fryer, my father in law makes the mashed potatos, we all pitch in on the stuffing, and other items for the meal.
Just before it is time to carve the bird and sit down and eat, the sink fills up with water. I try a few things to unclog it, check the traps, run the garbage disposal; nothing works. I decide to leave the sink as it is and enjoy our meal. While we eat the water slowly goes down so we decide to avoid the sink as much as possible for the rest of the night and I will fix it in the morning.
The next morning I go to our local hardware store, Tooltime, and get a drain snake. I spend about a half hour snaking the pipes from underneath the sink; nothing. Time to dig a little further. I open up the pipe in the basement under the kitchen and discover that our 50 year old plumbing has some considerable buildup. I could just fit a 1/2″ drill bit into the 1 1/2″ pipe. The decision, replace the pipes from the kitchen to where it enters the concrete floor in the basement. Back to the hardware store.
I get a new drain kit for the sink and garbage disposal, ten feet of 1 1/2″ PVC pipe, and miscellaneous fittings and joints. I remove all the old drain system from under the sink, drill a hole in the floor for the new drainpipe, and then get to work removing the old galvanized steel pipe. The steel pipe is not going down without a fight and I am unable to remove the last piece that goes into the floor. Back to the hardware store for a bigger pipe wrench. The bigger pipe wrench does the trick, and the steel pipe is gone. I install the new PVC, tie it into the old vent pipe so everything drains and we are good to go. Until last weekend.
While cleaning up after a meal last weekend I run downstairs to get a beverage out of our second fridge. My wife is running the water and when I get downstairs I hear water running, not water running in a pipe, but water running outside of a pipe. I investigate, and the water is running out of the floor underneath the sink and down the side of the drain pipe. My drain kit installation has a leak.
I discovered that my drain kit installation didn’t go as well as I thought. I had used one piece of pipe that was to short and the vibration from the garbage disposal had exposed the weak point and water had been leaking under the sink for a couple days. I am fuming at this point. It was a simple fix to the plumbing, just replace the short piece with a longer one, but as a result, I have to tear out the bottom of our under sink cabinet because it is water damaged.
So, my advice to anyone completing a plumbing project on your own is to always be sure and do it right the first time. It will save you time and money later.
Nate
