Kitchen Sink Clog with Bonus feature.

[FullySprinklered]

Had a service call on a clogged kitchen sink. Double bowl with disposer on the right and dishwasher drain connected on the extension down tube on the left side. She had a water filtration system with a little spout to the right of the faucet, and a three-gang cartridge array screwed to the left side of the sink cabinet. There's a pressure tank under there also, but I don't know what for. Ain't my gig. Always eager to learn, but...................

The lady demonstrated the fact that when she ran the disposer, water squirted out the side of the little filtered water spout, the sink being clogged.

Looking under the sink, there's a drain line coming down from the little-bitty filtered water spout and draining into the tubular sink drain via a saddle valve with a push-type fitting for said drainline.

So, when the sink is clogged up, running the disposer forces nasty water up through the drainline for the filtered water spout and out the venthole on the spout.

Don't know what the drain line is for exactly. Maybe to draw off unused filtered water?

I used the Reach 4 method to unclog the sink. Unscrewed the Studer vent and ran a cup of Dawn down the pipe. Replaced the studervent and ran hot water down the drain. I ran water into a pail in the sink until it got really hot, then directed the flow into the sink so that the beneficial effect of the hot water would materialize sooner. Did that three times. Third time the sinks started draining, and I ran the hot water for an additional ten minutes wide open.

Customer contacted the water filter people while all this was going on. She suggested that I move the d/w drain over to the disposer and reattach the filtered water spout drain on to the left drain since the nasty water from the d/w might tend to clog the filtered drain as it was set up.

No shirt, shylock.

Calls for an air gap in my opinion.

Every day's a new adventure.

 

[hj]

You mean you have NEVER seen or connected a reverse osmosis system? OR, snaked a drain line?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[FullySprinklered]

Water filter systems are a franchise trade for non-masculine individuals who can't do real plumbing. I snaked it three times and nothing happened. Who the hell you think you're talking to? Disclaimer: PWI. (posting while intoxicated) .

 

[hj]

I am talking to someone who "snaked a line three times" and did NOT unplug it, then resorted to a Martha Stewart drain cleaning method. AND, "real plumbers" do know how to install "water filter systems" and should be the only ones doing it. P.S., sober up.

 

[FullySprinklered]

Martha Stewart 1; Howard Johnson 0.

 

[FullySprinklered]

All right, HJ. I drilled three self-healing holes in some fatberg with my little lavatory snake, and nothing happened. FYI, the kitchen sink drains goes from 2" to 3" just above the sink cabinet floor. Then it goes under the slab. I should have brought my sleeping bag I suppose.

I did get the drains working, but the question remains: why didn't the technology of the filtration system allow for the possibility of a sink clog forcing dirty water up the overflow to the dispenser, totally negating the purported beneficial effects of the whole damn system.

I eagerly await your carefully reasoned reply.

 

[Reach4]

I did get the drains working, but the question remains: why didn't the technology of the filtration system allow for the possibility of a sink clog forcing dirty water up the overflow to the dispenser, totally negating the purported beneficial effects of the whole damn system.

That spigot is a combo spigot and air gap. The air gap part is not feeding sewage to the faucet part. The blue tubing in this picture is the RO water going to the faucet part. The red tubing is the waste/rejected water from the RO system.

 

[FullySprinklered]

My response was disappeared by modern technology.

When the lady turned on the disposer while the sink was stopped up, water squirted out the vent hole on the dispenser.

People go to a great deal of effort and expense to make sure the water they're using is clean and pure.

So, if last night's leftovers are sent down the drain into a major sink clog and the only way out for all that pressure is the vent pipe for the reverse-osmosis system mini-faucet, where's the benefit? The little clean water dispenser is totally contaminated, plumbing code be damned.

 

[hj]

You are jousting at windmills. The "clean water dispenser" is NOT "contaminated. The air gap feature in it is where the water comes out and that has NOTHING to do with the drinking water from the faucet. I am glad you are an electrician and not a plumber because I would worry about the jobs you did.

 

[FullySprinklered]

You might want to proofread that last entry. I'll wait.

 

[hj]

I hope that does NOT mean you ARE a "plumber" does it? Saints preserve us if that is true.

 

[FullySprinklered]

Howard, thanks for taking the time to explain why dirty sink water squirts out the side of a dispenser that should be dispensing clean drinking water. I know it's hard to explain stuff to a noob such as myself in a one sentence blurt in capital letters. Also, I'd like to say that I need your blessing on my last thirty years of plumbing work like I need a tit in the middle of my back. Keep up the good work, Ace.

 

[OnlyinCali]

HJ explained it quite well, actually.

 

[FullySprinklered]

I haven't done a RO system. No one seems interested in explaining how it works. Looks like a contamination risk to me. Why does it need an air gap? Air gaps are for separating nasty water from clean water, are they not? I'm quite capable of understanding this were it to be explained to me by someone without excessive egoboostical needs. Otherwise, let's stick a fork in it and call it done and move on.