Monkey House

You would think a powder room would be easy. Small. Only 3 fixtures (lights, sink and toilet).

But no.

It’s always something.

So we finally got the vanity cabinet and top all sorted out to sit in the non-90-degree corner, finally patched over our bumpy spots in the wall to (at last) produce a smooth surface, etc.

Then it was time to install the vanity top and plumbing once and for all.

Now, we’re not dumb… or at least not completely. We had mocked everything up, and felt that we did not need to redo the drain pipe. It was a tight fit, but a fit. However, after caulking up the vanity cabinet (using caulking as adhesive is not only the manufacturer’s instructions but also smart if you ever plan on taking the top off) and putting it in place we realized it wasn’t staying in the corner properly.

Only real possibility… our “tight” fit was a bit too much of a cheat after all. That 2mm we needed to “force” the pipes into alignment was 2mm too much. The only thing to do?

Off to HOME DEPOT AGAIN! (of course)

For the umpteenth time there, I was once again very lucky to find someone knowledgable. Y’know, I don’t care what anyone says about the “big box store” that is Home Depot… almost every time I go there I get excellent advice. Within minutes the guy had loaded me up with the parts I would need (PVC plumbing is cheap, so I decided to get all new stuff) and gave me the only lesson you really need.

The finished job (note that the P-trap (#3″ is symmetrical in reality… but the pipe coming out of the wall and the drainpipe coming from the sink are not at the same front-to-back depth):

All done

1. threaded er.. thingy… Coupler? for securing the chrome sink drain into the drain pipe
2. length of PVC pipe (1.5″ diameter? Whatever the standard is…) for this part and also #5
3. new P-Trap
4. elbow with nifty swivelly ball-in-cup thing for a wee bit of wiggle if needed… I don’t think I needed this fancy one; the measuring and installing is so easy you could use a regular elbow; but it was my choice
5. just for the purposes of the illustration, another length cut from the length listed in #2
6. coupler
7. PVC plumbing glue

So, I didn’t take a “before” picture, but look at the above and imagine: there was no #6, just a straight length of piping leading to an elbow like #4. So, the idea is to hack off to the left of the old elbow, going far enough to make room for both the #6 coupler and a length of PVC piping like #5. That’s the important bit… all other parts are more or less out of your control or arbitrary… the key is the length of piping at #5. Here’s how to get it right.

First, brief instructions on how to glue pieces of plumbing together:

1. Use some sandpaper to scuff the inside of the “female” parts to help with adhesion. (what I mean is the inside part of, for example, part #1… the pipe (#2) slips inside #1 and is held there with glue.)
2. scuff 0.75″ or so (it doesn’t really matter if you go more) around the outside of the piece being inserted.
3. Put a generous amount of glue around the inside of the female part and the outside of the scuffed end of the pipe being fitted
4. Push the pipe into the part you wish to bond to, and give it a quarter-turn or so (while still pushing in) to ensure positive contact and 360 degrees of glue

You’ve got about 10 seconds before it’s bonded!!! Luckily, it’s not rocket surgery, so it’s hard to mess up. If you do mess up, PVC is cheap, just get more.

Here’s the steps I took in measuring and gluing, remembering that the key is the length in diagram part #5:

1. Cut piping part #2 to length. The length is arbitrary. Just make it so that a decent length of the chrome drainpipe goes down into it and you have lots of up/down movement for positioning the assembly
2. Fit parts #1, 2, 3, and 4 together with NO GLUE. I will call this whole chunk the “P-trap assembly”
3. Put part #6 in place
4. by sliding the P-trap assembly up and down while pivoting the elbow (#4), eyeball the correct alignment of #4 with #6– the idea is to visualize where #5 will go once you cut it
5. tighten everything up so that it doesn’t move, but don’t go silly tight
6. measure from the edge of #6 to the edge of #4, which will be the EXPOSED length of #5
7. take the “exposed length” of #5 and add 1.5″. This makes up the “inside” length, since each fitting will only allow 0.75″ of entry. So if the “exposed” #5 is 3″, you need to cut a length of piping at 4.5″
8. cut the PVC piping to length
9. put this new length into the “mockup” and make sure it aligns the way you eyeballed it. Loosen everything up a bit, shuffle it all into place, and tighten. You should not have to “force” a single part of it. If #5 is the wrong length, re-cut

Now to get’er done for real:

10. Glue #1, 2, 3 in any order.
11. Glue #4, 5, 6 to each other in any order (but NOT to the original piping yet!)
12. Do a quick mini-mockup again with the 2 now-glued assemblies. It’s too late to salvage glued parts, but new ones are cheap if you’ve goofed up.
13. With the mockup still in place and all perfect, draw a horizontal line with white grease pencil or a silver marker or even a pencil (graphite is shiny) through the original pipe and also #6. When it’s time to glue, you will re-align the parts using this line!
14. Glue the #6,5,4 assembly to the piping, using the line you just made to recreate the proper alignment
15. Slide the #1,2,3 assembly up onto the chrome pipe, until you make positive connection between #3 and #4. Tighten the connection between #3 and #4.
16. tighten #1 onto the chrome pipe

Done!

Too much detail for a simple job? Maybe! Problem-solver types who enjoy puzzles could probably recreate the above steps quite easily and it wouldn’t seem like nearly as many line items. But some people learn with linear written instructions; hopefully this helps them!

Greg