What is the best drain grate choice for a Kitchen's stove Pot Filler

[JohnfrWhipple]

A month or so ago I was asked what the best drain grate choice is for a Kitchen's Pot Filler Drain. I have very limited experience in this area and to my knowledge I'm the only person with a drain in their kitchen under there pot filler.

Here is a peak at my pot filler drain under construction.

In the photo I'm setting the Bull Nose trim at the face of the liner drain. The linear drain is made by ACO systems and the line I promote and sell. The Bullnose a needed step because the water hits the grate and was running off the drain and spilling into my kitchen when I tested it.

I need to make a little dam or lip to stop the water from escaping. I did this with the white bull nose tile and also with a piece of flat bar stainless steel.

This is the complete job. The Grate design is the FLAG and I would have to say after testing the LINEAR grate it sucks compared to the Linear version. The linear version is an Australian inspired Wedge Wire with anti slip nubs. The grate works so well I might have skipped the little dam measures I incorporated into the build.

I'm going to hack up my ACO drain grate sample and test each version of the ACO drain grate. Of course I'll skip the tile insert grate since I think I know what would happen there.

I took some good shots yesterday. The ones above are old ones. Let me upload some new pictures and show more clearly the testing I did.

 

[JohnfrWhipple]

Baby Dam or lip created with metal and bull nose tile.

You need to look close but look at the black marble tile. See the gap at the drain. This is the height of my baby dam.

I used Hydro Ban to waterproof the niche walls and installed a Plain Edge ACO linear drain simply with a no-hub coupling. ssssh - don't tell ACO. Their drain is designed for a shower build and this drain not installed the way it's suppose too.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[JohnfrWhipple]

Adding flat bar stainless to ACO shower drain. Pot Filler dam part one:

I used my mini C Clamps to ad pressure will the adhesive set up.

 

[JohnfrWhipple]

Water pressure from Pot Filler

I get lots of pressure from the pot filler. It's piped directly to my home's cold water supply with 1/2" Pex piping. The flow rate would have improved if I lined up the water dump over the 2" drain hole. But I didn't because I like the look of the off set location I choose.

With the grate in place you can see water skirting to the edge over the grill top. This is what happened in testing and why the mini dam was built.

But look at this Linear grate test. I had the sample after hacking up a Linear grate for a custom install in California. (Linear Grate and Quadra grates cut up the best)

The water does not skip a wedge wire grill. Amazing. I kind of like the look of this grate better as well. But my wife would have a bird if I took away her flag grate. She bitched about me installing the drain in the first place. But now that she has it - she loves it!

Hands down the Lienar grate outperforms the Flag grate. I have five more grates to test and hopefully found time this weekend to look into this more. I can not see any grate outperforming the Linear but I'll try for the sake of just knowing....

 

[Jadnashua]

The reason the flag grate design lets water go out is simple if you think about it...there's a continuous flat surface from the inner edge to the outer edge that the water can follow. Something with offsets on the slots to break that continuity would solve that. This also applies when selecting a grate for a tile shower - you wouldn't want to use that type of grate on the entrance to your shower since it would allow water to cross over it into the room, but it would likely work fine on an inner wall.

 

[Eurob]

John , this

is just awesome . Great job and details on the backsplash and the integrated drain .

 

[JohnfrWhipple]

Thanks Roberto. If you want to get really anal. The arch is the same (exactly) as the hood fan cover detail.

Those 1"x4" Marble Finger Tiles we cut and re-edged from 4"x4" Italian Marble.

Did you know that the glass shelf is side lit with LED's.

One of the harder projects to build - no unmodified setting materials where sacrificed on this job. Did you get the care package I mailed you? Should be there today I think....

 

[Eurob]

I really love the details in this project . I am sure you didn't compromise while adding them up . The ACO drain -- grate -- really makes good addition to the design and You definitely top it up with the side lit LED's.


I didn't get it -- the package -- yet , probably in the beginning of next week . I will let you know when I have my hands in it ..... you didn't have my safety in mind ..... sending me the rough edge cut ... you Bad Boy LOL

 

[8claw]

Well done. I haven't seen anyone do what you do.

 

[JohnfrWhipple]

Well done. I haven't seen anyone do what you do.

Thanks. That was the first ACO Pot Filler drain installation I'm aware of in North America. I found my sample grate yesterday and still plan to cut it up for testing.


....whoops. I forgot the disclaimer. When I say testing. I mean that the test will be non official. Garage Style. Whipple Style. By testing I mean I will add a section of grate under the tap and turn the tap on. This kind of testing is not preformed in a lab but in my kitchen with a working ACO drain and pot filler. The room temperature might change from test to test depending on if my kids let the cats in or out.

Manufactures get a their noses out of joint if you don't let people know this.

I made the mistake of filling up a "Waterproof niche" (shown above) with water and telling people it leaked after a few days. Silly me. My test was to severe! I even repeated that test with two new niches. One more leaked and only one of three did not.

The reason why you might not have seen an install like mine before is many people online like to repeat manufactures specifications like gospel. My install is not ACO approved - they have no install instructions for their liner drains. Schluter does not test their niches like I do so how could they know about this problem in their design. I fixed the two leaking niches with a product called Ardex 8+9. I waterproofed my kitchen pot filler with Hydro Ban. Crazy I know. But I'm so reckless....

 

[hj]

You are positively paranoid, or sloppy, if you need a drain under your pot filler, (something I have never seen so far, except here). In addition, it would need a trap AND a "trap primer" because you are probably not sloppy enough to dump water down it every time you use the filler.

 

[JohnfrWhipple]

I have a ptrap under this pot filler.

No primer.

We use it all the time.

When I'm adding water to a hot pan for soaking I just turn it on.

If I'm cooking with it or getting a glass of cold water I run the line for a minute. The drain is a huge luxury and awesome upgrade. I'm glad I took all the time to install it.

 

[Smooky]

My first thought was this drain is useless but the idea of being able to flush the line is good and it looks great.