Help me connect my dishwasher to hot water
 

OK so this is something that's been going on a long time

When I set up shop here at the loveshack, a plumber came out and hooked up the dishwasher.

Unfortunately he connected it to the cold water and not the hot water, and the result is the dishwasher is ineffective.

I would like to address this once and for all. The reason I haven't done so in a year is because I am paralysed by knowing it should be a simple plumbing matter. I should be able to do this myself.

Plumbing people, should I not be able to do this myself? I could do it in two ways. I could swap the cold and hot before they come into the kitchen. Or I could do a complicated process involving cutting on copper pipes and the installation of a T fixture with compression joints or some shit like that and pretty soon I lack the attention span to see it all. And then I feel bad about myself, and pretty soon I abandon the idea.

I would like your help to prevent this, without requiring expensive therapy.

I see where, in the basement, they have a blue and a red PEX pipe coming directly from the hot water heater. They are tied onto the copper pipes using what looks like a rubber band. It's some kind of PEX clamp or something. I think it means you have to have a special tool to manage this special kind of clamp.

My dishwasher is connected to the water supply by a flexible pipe with a little spinning screw nut on the end, just like the washing machine is. Yours is hard-fixed to the wall?

Could we get some photos pretty please?

Under the sink. The dishwasher is to the left. The previous plumber put in the flexible pipe and that T connector. It's cold water.

http://cellar.org/2014/undersink.jpg

I don't have a dishwasher but don't they have their own heating elements?

Wow. That's really ugly. And I can see how the plumber screwed up, with the cold water on the left instead of the right.

If it were me, I'd do all my work above those shutoff valves.

I'd start by checking to see if by some miracle the cold water hose on the left could simply be switched over to the fitting on the right. The threads might be different, but if they are the same, then you're golden. If that worked, then I'd get a basin wrench to remove the rigid hot water pipe from the faucet and replace it with a flexible hose.

So your kitchen hot faucet is on the right and cold on the left?

Yes, almost all plumbing has been done backwards in this place, so reversing any particular hot/cold combination is no big deal. But in fact the kitchen sink is wired properly. Go figure

Properly? The hot should always be on the left, that's probably why the plumber tied into that side.

Mav and I installed our new dishwasher.

Tony, if an old woman and a teenage no nothing about shit like that can do it, I'm sure a logical, mature male should be able to do it in his sleep.

What are you waiting for? Get in there and get your hands dirty baby!

Take that picture of what you have to a local hardware store (not Home Depot or Lowes) and go to the plumbing section and just look at the fittings they have on hand. You'll probably be able to figure out how to cobble together something from what they have on hand. And there will probably be someone knowledgable there to help you. You'll need a basin wrench, most likely.

The problem with plumbing is that it is fragile, and even when you do everything correctly, stuff can still wind up leaking because grit and hard water deposits scratch mating surfaces.

Something like this should take half an hour to do, but if I touched it, it would take all day and a few trips to the store, and I'd probably end up replacing everything above those shutoff valves, including the faucet itself. That's just Murphy's law and plumbing.

At the risk of blabbing too much, I'd add that the cold water shutoff may be problematic. You can see the white hard water deposits from an old (or current) weeping leak above the valve. There's a very good chance that those mineral deposits are also located on the valve stem behind the handle. When you go to shut off the water there with that handle, the valve stem will rotate down and back into the valve, and the hard water deposits on that stem will scratch into the inside of the packing material inside the valve stem housing, so that when you open the valve again when you are done doing everything, water will find its way out those little scratch marks and you get a tiny slow dripping leak. It looks like that cabinet is no stranger to tiny dripping leaks, and those tiny dripping leaks are self healing over time because they get stopped up with additional hard water deposits, so you may not care. They sell valve grease, which you can smear all over everything to try to get those tiny weeping leaks to stop, and that sometimes works.

So I'd shut off the water at both valves. Get some towels or rags in there, disconnect the cold water hose from the T. Disconnect the T from the cold water shutoff. Disconnect the hot water supply pipe. Connect the T to the hot water shutoff (hopefully the DW hose will reach.) Connect the hot water supply to the T in its new location. Connect the cold water hose to the cold water shutoff. Turn everything back on and hope nothing leaks. If anything does leak, turn it all off again and replace whatever is leaking. You may find that replacing the hot water rigid copper pipe with a flexible hose is easier than messing with that rigid pipe, but you'll need a basin wrench to disconnect it from where it's attached to the faucet because you'll never get a regular wrench way up in there. Also, clean any crud you find on threads. The crud causes leaks. New hoses are usually a good idea too because the rubber gaskets lose flexibility and are more prone to leaks as they age and are reused, but there's no harm in trying to reuse them and seeing if they leak.

The only thing you may want to consider is if it's better to leave a sleeping dog alone. But you know dogs are fun. So wake him up.

Here is the view from the basement. These are PEX pipes and they are connected to the old copper kitchen pipes. The colors are accurate.

http://cellar.org/2014/undersink2.jpg

For shits and giggles, here is the bigger picture where the PEX goes in and out of the water heater:

http://cellar.org/2014/undersink3.jpg

And for the biggest shit and giggle, here is the bigger picture, where all this is generally in an inch of standing water, and I have put down plastic shelving so I don't get my feet wet when I go in there. That prevents me from being electrocuted from the shitty water heater wiring. Does the sink have a weeping leak? It would leak down into this room. :D

I should really pick up those dust filters, but I have no fucks left to give. :D

The entire place may crumble into dust, but I think I would get my security deposit back.

http://cellar.org/2014/undersink4.jpg

Pex is super easy to work with if you have the tools, but the expander tool for those little "rubber band" rings cost $300 last time I checked.

They do have these things call shark bit fittings that don't require a tool, and I've heard that they work. You'd have to order the proper size online. It would be super easy to cut the pex tubing and flip flop them by using shark bite fittings. But then your faucet would be fucked up, wouldn't it? Hot and cold would be on the wrong sides.

Buy two of these in the correct size.

And get a special pex cutter to make nice square cuts, which are required.

That pex there is Sharkbite brand. Srsly!

If the kitchen sink had H and C reversed, it would match the bathroom sink. I just have to re-learn that C stands for Calescent and the H stands for Hyperborean.

If you use the sharkbite couplers, make sure to get a soft rag and wipe the pex clean where you cut it. You don't want any foreign gunk messing up the seal at the sharkbite coupler or it's likely to drip into that pool of water in the basement. ;)

C stands for Caliente!

an alternative to consider could be, under the sink swap the pipes between the shut of valve and the tap, hopefully there is enough slack in the connection to the dishwasher to stretch the extra couple of inches. You're probably not going to be lucky enough that the hard pipe on the hot will be right length to fit neatly on the cold, so you would have to buy a flexible hose, as has been added on the cold side.
This way you would preserve the hot/cold orientation of the taps.

In the UK dishwashers are cold fill as standard, the cycle takes a lot longer, in the manula it states that you canmak it hot fill for shorter cycle time, but wash won't be as good. UK dishwashers also have a resorvoir you have to fill with softening salt.

When installing a US dishwasher I remember it saying cold fill was an option, it should heat the water, but it takes longer.

I have no experience with the PEX stuff, listen to the other people. However, if you *are* making a cut, there's no reason you can't **add** length to the pex pipes so that stuff reaches.

http://cellar.org/2014/redblufixed1.jpg

Aw man, that was so easy! Just turn off the main water supply, let the pipes empty, cut the pex pipe with the $15 tool, slam the Sharkbite connectors on the swapped pipes, and turn the water back on. Bam! It took 5 minutes, and 4 of that was just getting up the nerve to turn off the water.

http://cellar.org/2014/redblufixed2.jpg

Now all I need is for this ancient master shut-off valve to stop dripping at a rate of 4 drops per second.

Uh.

Huh.

What was that about sleeping dogs?

Excellent!

A few extra drops of water in that wet basement will be no big deal. And it will eventually stop dripping.

Yeah the dishwarsher is warshing right now. It's beautiful.

Thanks for your help glatt and everyone!

Did you order the stuff over the internet, or find it locally?

I'm wondering how easy it is to get your hands on PEX stuff these days. They were restricting it last time I got some years ago, and I had to pretend I was a plumber when I ordered it online.

did you notice that there are copper rings around the pex at the end of the pipes you left? There are none on your new stuff. Are the connectors you used different? I remember doing my house over in pex, and my brother used a crimping tool to tightne copper bands after the joint was assembled.

It was all Home Depot. It sure looks like you can walk right in and buy 100ft of 1/2" pex. With this stuff, and the sharkbite, and now they have kits to fit in with various plumbing fixtures... things may be just too easy. It's like plumbing LEGO.

http://cellar.org/2014/complicatedpex.jpg

oh. yes... they are different. that's cool. they work with copper and cpvc too. just jam it in there an inch, and it clamps down permanently. no collar, no crimping tool.

Our under sink water filter uses those jam it in pex fittings. It's amazing how easy they are. The only way to goof up is to not cut the pex tubing square or not push it in hard enough, but you'll know right away if you make either mistake.

There is a Sharkbite removal tool that costs about $3. Get several in various sizes. Handy to have.

I used PEX to plumb in a 20 gallon water heater in my travel trailer. Those fittings were great, except for being about $15-$20 each! PEX is super-easy to work with if you follow a few basic rules outlined above. Most new construction is PEX nowadays unless it is over three stories or high pressure.

OK now help me patch my roof.

http://cellar.org/2014/20130218-1.jpg

Shit!

Speechless.

Oh my god, what happened? Did it just fall on you?

Yes, a roof leak led to water accumulating in the drywall until it weakened and fell last night at midnight. It really shook me up because the fall sounded like people banging at one of my doors.

I suspect ice dams increased the leakage because there was nothing but thawing happening. This morning there is much less dripping. I don't use the room where this happened. I'm not even sure how to proceed but I've sent the pictures to the landlord. It's on them now.

Funky little shack.

http://cellar.org/2014/20130218-4.jpg

especially enjoy the light fixture full of roof leak.

http://cellar.org/2014/20130218-6.jpg

the turny things won't turn so i've left this in place as a monument to the event

if you leave the light on long enough, will it boil the water? :D

Ooh, and you have mold. You can probably get your landlord to take action if you mention it.

Ice dams are likely part of the problem, if not the entire problem. Tight roofing and sufficient attic insulation will prevent this happening again. Don't let the landlord just repair the ceiling of the interior room; make him/her/them fix the problem at its root.

I have a shit ton of black mold. Always have. No symptoms though.

That looks like something the landlord should be told about. Even if he doesn't do a satisfactory fix, you can't be held liable for the damage.