Do Not Try This At Home

Home inspectors at Pacific Coast Inspections get excited when they open a cabinet door below a sink and see a drain pipe plumbing maze. Not only is it a photo op, but you have to say to yourself… “Are you kidding me?”

This unusual plumbing configuration was spotted at a recent home inspection.

If you follow the water path from the sink drain… it drops 18” into a water trap which is okay… Then the water from the lowest trap is pushed up 8” into a second water trap… From this trap, water must flow straight up another 10” into the trap arm (the pipe that goes into the wall).

Typical installations call for a water trap to sit 2-4” below the trap arm… not 18” with a double trap.

Remember that the draining water from a sink isn’t under pressure, but counts on gravity. This plumbing configuration worked, but as you can image… the sink drained slowly… and with the 7 fittings between the sink and trap arm, the probability of water leakage goes up with the number of pipe connections.

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