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mudworm_gw

What's hidden in your sink base? A mess or state of art work?

mudworm
11 years ago

Our cabinets are coming next Tuesday. *Gasp*

In my 36" sink base (under a Silgranite Performa Medium sink), I will have following plumbing:

- Hansgrohe High Arc Hot and cold water faucet

- Tomlison comtemporary Hot and cold drinking water faucet

- 3M Filtrete Undersink filter

- Quick & Hot Instant Hot

- Tapmaster Euro Style

- Dishdrawer dishwasher

(Thankfully, I won't have a garbage disposal.)

Currently, I only have one hot and one cold copper water pipes to the base, so I need to stub them out to two by two each with its own shutoff. But I'm scratching my head to come up with a design so all the tubes and pipes are neatly arranged and provide me some room in the front for storage.

Does anyone have a picture of your neatly plumbed sink base, especially when you have all the blings?

Comments (21)

  • badgergal
    11 years ago

    I have the Blanco Performa Medium in a 36 inch sink base and I am wondering how up you are going to fit all that stuff under your sink. I know you aren't having a garbage disposal but it seems that the things you are planning on will require lots of space. I do have a garbage disposal on one side and there is barely room for anything else. I put a pull out trash under the other side so obviously that is all that I have on that side. So here are a couple of pictures of what's "hidden in my sink base"
    {{!gwi}}
    {{!gwi}}

  • desertsteph
    11 years ago

    not I. half of my plumbing isn't connected. gd is there but leaving soon...and it doesn't even have a 'floor' - other than the actual floor. the cab floor has been ripped out to be replaced.

    I think even before you start you're doing better than I am!

  • mudworm
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Haha, desertsteph, thanks! I hope by planning early, I can get things to work together without much destruction or interference to each other. I want to do the job myself because I'm quite small and nimble - fit for a sink base. But not sure if I can or even if I should -- our municipality requires all metal pipes under the sink. DIY literature is very rare on how to work with metal pipes. If I hire a plumber, I plan on being onsite... even just to make sure the plumber does not cut the back or bottom of my cabinet off.

    badgergal, thanks so much for taking the time to post your sink base, a corner that people normally do not want to show. It did surprise me how low the bottom of the sink sits. I feel even more thankful that we will not have a disposal. You are right, I will face some challenge to fit all my blings in. Now that I think about it, the filter I ordered appeared tall and slim. Hm... Not sure if the sink will leave me enough room around it. Oh, all the fun of unknowns...

  • oldbat2be
    11 years ago

    Hi mudworm. DH says he remembers seeing everything neatly arranged once in a cabinet, all against the back wall, with a removeable false panel in front.

    Cleanup sink: includes a hafele foot pedal, and feed to DW on left. We had a hafele trash pullout originally; wasn't crazy about it so DH made a modified (smaller) one, which allows me to store my trash bags in the back.

    Island sink, includes a tap master and a hafele foot pedal.
    Note this is vented in an adjacent cabinet.

    Hope this gives you some ideas. Good luck!

  • angela12345
    11 years ago

    Mine is a hot mess and I don't even have much connected. Cannot fit the trash can I had planned, so it currently resides where the ice maker is/was supposed to go. Next time I will try to coordinate better with the plumber.

  • bellsmom
    11 years ago

    Not state of the art, but definitely the most organized under-sink areas I have EVER had.
    This is under the cleanup sink. There is now also a Never MT in the back right corner. I keep intending (and then forgetting) to wire up the water hose for the GD that you see draping down over the towels.

    This is under the prep sink on an island:


    There is a Never MT under here also.

    And here (a bonus?) is the area under the bathroom lavatory:

    I was lucky enough to find Home Depot closing out the rev-a-shelf pullouts. I really like them. The handle and top shelf can be positioned in many ways over the tray which made it possible to fit them around GD and pipes. You can see the handle is near the center of the tray in the top pic.

  • mudworm
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    oldbat2be, thanks for the multiple photos! I don't want to hide the plumbing behind a fake cabinet back board, but I can see why some people will like that (and can afford losing that storage space). Your sink bases and pullouts look great. I must say the bottom of your island sink (in 4th picture) is nothing like what I expected for a sink bottom. Interesting...

    angela12345, exactly. I'm afraid that a plumber will just do what is convenient for him at the time when doing the job, even if it means space usage is not optimized and the arrangement is messy. So I want to make sure to plan ahead so I can have a layout that's reasonable yet practical.

    Bellsmom, Your sink bases are very well utilized. I love that! The little RaS pullouts look great! I wonder if our local HD carries them. I'll sure be looking out for them.

    Oh yeah... NeverMT... I'll also have that rigged up under the sink. Another bling, but at least, it's pretty small.

  • bellsmom
    11 years ago

    Thanks. They are perfect for me.

    I am not into plumbing, but I had no trouble installing these. Of course the plumging is your main concern right now. But you might consider picking up one of these to see if you can ''plumb around them'' if you think you would like them. I talked with my plumber about where to put pipes and ''stuff'' before he started putting in pipes.

    Here's the cheapest source I could find in a quick look. This is just a bit more than I paid at Home Depot's clearance sale. Our Home Depot no longer carries them.

    The unit will slide out of the cabinet and can be carried to a cleaning job--or just removed intact when you want to clean the sink cab. Hence the name Under sink Caddy or Basket. Good price here.

    Here is a link that might be useful: $50 plus $8 shipping on under sink caddy at Amazon

  • Cloud Swift
    11 years ago

    I assume that you mean the plumbing to the dishdrawer dishwasher is in the cabinet, not the dishdrawer itself.

    Here is ours (non-island - you didn't mention island so I assume yours is wall).

    We have a garbage disposal plus everything you mention except a Tapmaster but different brands so perhaps not the same sizes. The grey tank to the right of the sink is the Instahot heater. The filter is in front of it and the hot and cold drinking water faucet is above it.

    From above:

    Island which has no drinking water/filter/heater, but has a soap dispenser with Never MT and an island vent. (Some areas allow some kind of vent valve thing instead of the loop but ours doesn't.) We took out the bottle for the Never MT that's in this picture and just put the tube into the bottle the soap came in on the floor at the back of the cabinet.

  • poohpup
    11 years ago

    I've got a 36" sink, garbage disposal, instant hot tank, filtered water, plumbing for DW and faucet. My contractor was great and made sure everything was nice and tidy. The instant hot tank is back in the left corner behind the filtration system. I tuck my NeverMT in the right corner behind the garbage disposal. The sink has a right rear drain which helps a lot. My trash/recycling pullout is a cabinet over. The only thing I store in this cabinet is cleaning supplies.


  • momand3boys
    11 years ago

    Bellsmom, love that RS for under the vanity. The TP always gets lost when thrown in the back of the cabinet! Currently, under my sink is a mess. Hopefully will be better organized when with the new kitchen.

  • williamsem
    11 years ago

    Oldbat2be, how do you like the hafele foot pedal? Was it hard to install with a non-hafele system? That and the tap master are on my wish list if budget allows.

  • oldbat2be
    11 years ago

    Love the foot pedal! We have it on both trash cabinets. I think it's under $40, so budget wise, one of the easier items to stomach:) DH installed them and I believe install was fairly straightforward, I'll double-check with him and report back if he has any comments. One note - these do not work with softclose.

    Really love the tapmaster too, only have on one sink and miss it on the other. Can't reach though when I have high heels on! It really throws me when we entertain and I can't turn the water on and I'm not used to using the faucet any other way....

  • gr8daygw
    11 years ago

    {{!gwi}}

    {{!gwi}}

    My Kitchen Aid GD is so big!!! Not to mention it is going on 15 years old and has given up the ghost just the other day. Not looking forward to another plumbing fiasco with that and plus the expense of the GD plus installation, probably going to be $$$...oh well, it has worked like a charm for many years. I am considering not putting it in but I got the Kohler Lakefield specifically to accommodate the gd and the plumbing is already there for it. We just updated the sink, counters and faucet this year so all of that is new. No one would suspect I am an anti clutter type if they looked under my sink!!!

  • gr8daygw
    11 years ago

    This is what it looks like topside.

  • mudworm
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Wow, more photos! Thank you! I'm seeing some great ideas for the under sink arrangement. I've learnt that a metal pipe can be cut with a hack saw. We might just do the work ourselves then (I'll let DH do the cutting.) Excited!

  • Donaleen Kohn
    11 years ago

    bellsmom, what is that towel rack thing on the left? does it slide out?

  • bellsmom
    11 years ago

    Donaleen

    It's a rev-a-shelf pullout. Yes it slides out. Here's a great buy on the three prong one. Not many left at this price, though.

    Look about and you'll find the two-prong one, which all I had room for.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Rev-a-shelf 3-prong towel pullout

  • mudworm
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    Okay, everything is hooked up in the sink base. DH and I did all of it in two evenings after work. I did my share of lying on my back in this cabinet. It's nice that there is not a center stile.

    For those who are getting close to fitting your sink base, make sure you mount your dishwasher drain hose holder/clips before you install the sink. Once the sink and the drain pipes are in, it gets so much harder to access the limited room around the sink. We learned it the hard way, but we didn't have our dishwasher yet when we installed the sink.

    I'm happy about how it came out -- devices and tubes are as far back as possible. I don't have a whole lot of room for storage, but I do have some. The rubber mat came with the sink base. Not sure if I slid it in in the right direction or not. The sink base also has a tilt out tray, which I like.

    On the countertop behind the sink, I have a hot/cold faucet to the left, main faucet at the center, and a soap dispenser to the right. The soap dispenser can be refilled from the top, so I'm not doing a NeverMT setup for now.

    TapMaster is cool.

    // End of report

  • lazy_gardens
    11 years ago

    One way to minimize the mess is to make sure the supply lines are *long* enough so you can move them to the back and out of the way in a group, not running straight point to point like a spider web. If you have plastic tubing run it where you want it before you trim it.

    Cable ties and cable tie holders can hold cabinet-crossing lines in place. I took advantage of the countertop replacement to corral the RO water lines with cable ties and holders screwed to the framing and get them out of the way of storage. I still have the tank and filter on opposite sides of the cabinet, but at least it's not spaghetti city under there.

    Something like this, that can be screwed to the rear panel or the inner framing, holds the cable tie and the tie goes around the tubing.
    http://www.alliedelec.com/search/productdetail.aspx?SKU=70163607

    You find them at office supply stores - mostly used for computer wiring.

  • kaseki
    11 years ago

    I don't have a functioning camera right now to make an electronic photo file, but will remark that it is easiest inside a nice cabinet to use combinations of pex tubing and push to connect fittings such as Sharkbite brand (among many others) to avoid sweat soldering damage. All that is needed is a means to cut the pex to a clean flat end. Mistakes are easily remedied by using a different size piece of pex. Adapters exist to go from the pex to the fitting that dangling faucet hoses use.

    3/8 poly line along with John Guest type push to connect fittings will be good for RO lines or such.

    Pex and poly are at their limit when used for pressurized water at boiling temperatures, so the hot water source in the house needs to be under some form of temperature control. A boiler type of water heater with potential for overshoot to 220 or so would be a risk in my view without a working moderator (required anyway by code). Some water chemistries tend to degrade the modulator so that needs to be kept in mind.

    My primary sink cabinet base includes garbage disposal and DWV plumbing, stand pipe for dishwasher hose, hot/cold feed for main faucet and to moderating valve for dishwasher (gets mix of hot and cold). Also there is the touch faucet control box, the fiber-optic garbage disposal control box, and quad electrical outlet.

    RO connection to both hot and cold sides of a pull-down faucet are present. All of the plumbing is mounted on stand-offs on the back or side walls of the cabinet base.

    kas