Today we test fitted the farmhouse style counter I’ve been working on and built the undersink drain assembly.
One of the nice things about the geometry of the trailer and our particular kitchen is that it made the logical place to bring the drain pipe up just inside of the wheel well. You’d think this would be a bad thing but because the horizontal section on top of the wheel well can essentially swivel until it’s glued, it allows me to put the drain in exactly the location I want at the last possible moment. This is advantageous because we weren’t certain what sink we were going to use until last week and waiting until all the pieces are present lends itself to a much more elegant install than just guessing during rough-in. Undersink assemblies can the frustrating or even unworkable if the planning is poor. Our piping will be exposed so looks are important.
A couple tips for working with ABS pipe: A Japanese style hand saw is surprisingly effective for cutting lengths. Cut and dry fit everything first, then to maintain the fitting orientations when gluing up 3 dimensional assemblies, you can put a piece of masking tape anywhere on the joint and draw a line with a sharpie and then cut the tape and pull the joint apart. The end of the tape shows you how far you need to glue and the sharpie mark gives you perfect alignment! Finally always leave yourself 3/4 of an inch of pipe showing between fittings so you can still cut it and glue on another fitting if you make a mistake.
Our drain stack terminates in an auto-vent. Essentially a small spring loaded one way flapper valve that allows air to enter the pipe so draining water doesn’t get sucked out of the P trap. I feel like these make more sense than a conventional vent stack in a tiny house.
With everything but the last joint glued I can remove the whole assembly for painting and the reinstall will be fast and easy!
– Brian
