plumbing questions

[CathyA]

Seems like things that should be easy for homeowners, end up being not easy at all! You Tube videos are helpful....but they always go so easy on them!

DH removed a garbage disposal that hadn't worked for a very long time. We have a double sink and he just put in a new sink basket and tubing and hooked it to the other sink's drain. It's leaking a little...........of course........why wouldn't it? :~) Anyhow.....I think that will be easy to fix, but it leaves me wondering why the PVC "tailpiece" that attaches to the sink basket seems to be a fraction of an inch too small for the drain. When you look into your sink, do you see the pvc pipe edges inside your basket outlet? I think it's off just a tad, and that might be where the leak is coming from.

But....the question I have now is........if you have a dishwasher, where does it drain to? We moved into this house about 33 years ago and it has a dish washer that we've never used. I use it for other things. But in looking under the sink with this recent change, I'm realizing there isn't any sign of a dishwasher hose/drain. Could it have a drain somewhere else.......like right below it, through the crawl space? Maybe the drain was removed before we even moved in??

Also.....the sink drains slowly at times. Does it have to have a vent close by? Would I see a vent connected to the plumbing under the sink? I know we have vents over our bathrooms, but maybe this drain feeds into one of those?

For those of you with a septic tank, how often do you have it drained? Have you ever used that RidEx product in it?

The vast majority of our plumbing is pvc pipe.

Thanks for any help you might give.

[nswef]

I can answer the septic tank question...we get ours pumped every 5-7 years. There are two of us and we do have a dishwasher but not a disposal. The septic has never been "full" when they pumped it. It did need a new baffle when the cement one disintegrated and was replaced with a PVC one. Our house was built in 1963.

The dishwasher drain goes to the pipe under the sink. You might have had it attached to the disposal. Our pipes are copper,getting gradually replaced with pvc as they become riddled with pin holes and leak.

[SteveinMN]

The sink: the baskets/their surrounds should be a little smaller than the sink's openings for them so a gasket of putty can be included. It also is possible that the baskets are generic or cheaply-made or the sink's openings are a bit out of tolerance. In any case, the basket ring/sink interface is not solely friction- or compression-fit.

I'm not quite enough of a plumber/sewer guy to say for sure why the drain is slow, but it's possible it's sclerotic and needs to be cleared (chemicals -- even something as simple as vinegar and baking soda if you can seal the drains during application -- or mechanically with an auger). The drains eventually should feed other waste pipes and a vent stack. But it's probably not the vent stack unless other drains or the toilet are slow to drain.

Some localities require an air gap by the dishwasher for proper operation. If it's clogged or obstructed, it could cause problems in operation. In our area, air gaps are not required by code; the DW hose actually is looped between the DW and sink to form a trap and prevent backflow.

Our dishwasher hose empties into the drain pipe just above our disposal. I guess it's possible that your DW drains to bottom, but that's a bad idea and I would think you'd know if from the smell of rancid grease and foodstuff that hasn't flowed out of the drain hose. Your best bet would be to remove the bolts that hold the DW onto the cabinetry and pull it out far enough to see what's going on with its drain outlet.

[ToomuchStuff]

I am wondering if they used a bathroom tailpiece, verses a kitchen tailpiece. Typically a kitchen is 1 1/2" and a bathroom can be 1 1/4" in diameter. There are also two tailpiece gaskets/rings and the wrong one would cause a leak. Another place to look is did he get the new drain basket in the sink with enough pipe dope?

"We moved into this house about 33 years ago and it has a dish washer that we've never used. I use it for other things":confused:

What have you used it for then? The way it is written, makes me wonder if this was a "portable" dishwasher, which drain's differently then a model that fits into the cabinetry and UNDER the countertop. Typically portable dishwashers have their own countertop and they have a hose that goes into the sink.