My house in in western New York state. I'm trying to deal with the hack job that the previous owner or flipper did on my house with respect to the water supply lines in the kitchen (hot to sink, cold to sink, hot to dishwasher).
I could use some input on priorities, parts, tools, and best practices.
My house was built a long time ago (city thinks 1900-ish), and building codes have changed since then. The basic situation is the following. The ground floor is held up underneath by metal support columns, main wooden beams, and wooden support joists. I don't know what the sub floor's made of, but above that the floor is covered in grey vinyl designed to look like wood. The water input is a single 1/2 inch Pex cold supply line that splits to go a gas water heater, the ground floor kitchen, and the second floor bathroom. The hot water comes out of the gas water heater, splits once to go to the kitchen and to the second floor bathroom, and then splits again at the kitchen (sink and dishwasher). Hence all of the supply lines have to go through the floor between the basement and the ground floor.
The kitchen supply lines were installed to come through the floor instead of through the wall, so right now the quarter-turn shut-off valves are simply hanging out on top of the vertical Pex tubing that's sticking up out of the floor for the sink (hot, cold), and the dishwasher. I'm not in a position to re-thread them through the wall. It's winter, and the wall is an outside wall.
In addition to all of this the sink has an S trap rather than a P trap, so the sink drains down a vertical pipe into the basement rather than horizontally into a drain pipe in the wall. There's no main house stack so the sink drain needs an air admittance valve. Unfortunately, that was put in the basement well below the level of the sink trap, so moving it involves cutting ans rejoining already-existing PVC.
So far as I can tell there exist three main things on the list of kitchen plumbing that need taking care of under the kitchen sink.
- Protection at the main and sub floor for the tubing that comes through it.
- Some sort of flanges to secure and support the Pex tubing (and the quarter turn valves) after it comes through the floor (in three places).
- Replace the S-trap with a proper P trap and move the air admittance valve during this process.
As an additional note, none of these things is causing issues at the moment, and in the time we've lived here (about eight months) there have not been problems with any of the things mentioned here. I understand that there are risks involved with everything discussed. The S trap could lose its water seal, a sewage backup could cause the AAV to pump out sewage instead of admit air, the Pex could break somehow at the floor, and the Pex could break above the floor. All of those are possibilities.
The main questions here, then are:
- What's the priority list on these issues? What should I correct first, and what can wait until later?
- What of this is something that I can reasonably do myself (as a non-expert), and what is best left to a professional?
- What materials and tools would I need to make the necessary upgrades?
Below is a picture of what the plumbing under my kitchen sink looks like. The clearish tube is the drain for the dishwasher.
