How to assemble a kitchen sink siphon

When installing a sink, you need to know how to assem­ble a sink siphon in the kitchen to ensure that water flows into the sew­er. For the most part, siphon designs are sim­ple and do not require the involve­ment of a pro­fes­sion­al plumber. You can install them your­self, and in most cas­es man­u­al­ly, and in rare excep­tions, using the sim­plest tools. But since there are dif­fer­ent types of water seals, it is nec­es­sary to under­stand their fea­tures and dif­fer­ences.

The purpose of the siphon

Installing a siphon in the kitchen is car­ried out not only to drain dirty water into the sew­er, but also to pre­vent the pen­e­tra­tion of unpleas­ant odors into the room. Due to the curved shape, a water plug forms in the pipe, which iso­lates the air space of the kitchen from the sew­er. But this does not pre­vent the flow of liq­uid.

Types of siphons: designs and materials

All sink drains are made of plas­tic or met­al. Plas­tic are divid­ed into:

1. Poly­eth­yl­ene. They have a sim­ple design and a small num­ber of con­nec­tions.
2. Polypropy­lene. More com­mon, because the parts of the sink siphon are stiffer and the con­nec­tions are more reli­able. This allows you to keep the shape of the prod­uct.
3. Poly­mers. This mate­r­i­al is less sus­cep­ti­ble to ther­mal expan­sion, so it must be cho­sen if a wash­ing machine is planned to be installed in the kitchen.

Met­al prod­ucts are more expen­sive than plas­tic ones. The most com­mon­ly used mate­ri­als are brass and bronze. They do not cor­rode, but oxi­dize, there­fore they are sub­ject­ed to:

• chrome plat­ing;
• gal­va­niz­ing.

The most expen­sive are stain­less steel sink siphons. Due to the high cost, they did not gain pop­u­lar­i­ty.

Plas­tic sink traps are more pop­u­lar because they are easy to adjust to the inlet and out­let.

When choos­ing a met­al prod­uct, you need to know exact­ly the loca­tion of the drain and sew­er con­nec­tor.

Accord­ing to the type of struc­tures, hydraulic bar­ri­ers are:

1. pipe;
2. bot­tled;
3. cor­ru­gat­ed;
4. hid­den;
5. with over­flow.

with overflow

Siphon with over­flow for the sink has an addi­tion­al pipe. It con­nects to the over­flow hole in the sink. Drainage can help pre­vent flood­ing. This type of hydraulic bar­ri­er is the most pop­u­lar. Almost all siphons are equipped with an addi­tion­al tube. It is nec­es­sary to pur­chase such a prod­uct only if there is an over­flow hole in the sink.

Pipe

Drainage in its appear­ance resem­bles a curved pipe. Water col­lects in the bend, which cre­ates a plug and pre­vents the pen­e­tra­tion of unpleas­ant odors into the room. This is the most com­pact type of device. Instal­la­tion of a met­al siphon is most often done in bath­rooms. This is due to the fact that the sink in the bath­room does not get as much garbage and food waste as in the kitchen. And dis­man­tling the knee is more dif­fi­cult than in oth­er types of device.

Also, pipe hydraulic bar­ri­ers have a shal­low bend for a water plug. If the sink is not used for a long time, the water from the knee evap­o­rates, and sew­er odors spread through­out the room. In case of clog­ging, not the entire device is removed, but only the low­er knee.

Corrugated

This is the sim­plest and cheap­est type of siphon, which con­sists of a cor­ru­gat­ed tube and con­nect­ing ele­ments. The prod­uct is flex­i­ble, there­fore it is eas­i­ly mount­ed to the sew­er in any places and at dif­fer­ent angles. To cre­ate a water lock, you need to man­u­al­ly bend the hose into a U or S shape and fix it. This is espe­cial­ly use­ful in cas­es where the dis­tance between the floor and the sink is small.

The dis­ad­van­tages are:

1. No inter­me­di­ate con­nec­tions. In the event of a leak, it is nec­es­sary to change the entire kit, and not its indi­vid­ual ele­ments.
2. Dif­fi­cul­ty clean­ing. Since the pipe is non-sep­a­ra­ble, to remove the block­age, it is nec­es­sary to com­plete­ly flush the siphon.
3. Deposits quick­ly form on the inner walls.

bottled

This mod­el is the most com­mon. It got its name due to the design fea­tures that resem­ble a flask or bot­tle. The fol­low­ing advan­tages of a bot­tle water seal for sinks are dis­tin­guished:

• the com­part­ment in which debris accu­mu­lates and clog­ging most often occurs is easy to unscrew and remove;
• has a long ser­vice life;
• water nev­er leaves com­plete­ly, there­fore it reli­ably pro­vides pro­tec­tion against sew­er odors;
• there is an over­flow that pre­vents flood­ing of the room;
• small valu­ables missed in the sink remain in the water tank, so they are easy to get by unscrew­ing the flask.

Preparatory work

Before installing a siphon in the kitchen, prepara­to­ry work should be car­ried out. These include:

1. Check­ing the com­plete­ness and integri­ty. It is nec­es­sary to check the pres­ence of all parts of the water seal, espe­cial­ly rub­ber or sil­i­cone gas­kets. Since man­u­fac­tur­ers pack plas­tic mod­els in soft mate­ri­als, some parts may be dam­aged dur­ing trans­porta­tion. Thread­ed con­nec­tions must be smooth, free of burrs or dam­age.
2. Prepa­ra­tion of tools and mate­ri­als. Dur­ing the instal­la­tion process you will need:
   • insu­lat­ing tape;
   • flat screw­driv­er;
   • gas­ket or sealant.
3. Dis­man­tling the pre­vi­ous water seal for the sink. It is removed along with the sup­ply to the sew­er. To pre­vent water from get­ting on the floor, sub­sti­tute a buck­et or basin under the sink.
4. If the pre­vi­ous siphon is cast iron, it must be knocked out of the cement. This should be done so that pipe frag­ments do not fall into the sew­er pipe. Oth­er­wise, the drain will often become clogged.
5. If the clutch is no longer usable, it is replaced. The pipe is being cleaned.

Assembly

If you pur­chased a sink for the kitchen, then you need to assem­ble the drain for the sink in the fol­low­ing sequence:

• Take the bot­tom of the bot­tle seal and install the large flat gas­ket so that it fits snug­ly and with­out dis­tor­tion to the plas­tic part.
• Then screw on the screw cap and tight­en it tight­ly. Do not pinch, oth­er­wise the gas­ket may be dam­aged.
• There are holes of dif­fer­ent diam­e­ters on the top and side of the siphon. It is nec­es­sary to select the appro­pri­ate union nuts and cone gas­kets for them.
• On the pipe, which will be attached to the sink, we put on the union nut and the cone gas­ket. It should be borne in mind that the seal must be put on with the blunt side to the nut, and the sharp side must go into the hydraulic seal. The dis­tance from the sharp edge of the gas­ket to the end of the pipe should be 4–6 cm.
• We assem­ble the pipe and siphon togeth­er. The tube should go into the top hole. Then tight­en the nut and tight­en tight­ly.
• A union nut and a con­i­cal gas­ket are put on the cor­ru­gat­ed tube with a blunt end to the tube. After that, insert the tube into the mid­dle hole of the siphon, tight­en the nut and tight­en tight­ly.

Installing a siphon on a sink

The assem­bled siphon under the sink can also be installed by hand. For this you need:

1. Make sure there is a met­al nut in the pipe.
2. Since the thick­er and wider gas­ket will be attached under the sink, it is installed on the sock­et.
3. A gas­ket and a met­al mesh are placed in the drain hole in the sink-sink. A screw is thread­ed into the cen­ter of the grid.
4. A siphon is installed under the sink so that the screw gets into the met­al nut. It is twist­ed and clamped with a screw­driv­er. Do not tight­en the bolt too tight­ly, so as not to deform the rub­ber gas­ket.

Sewer connection

Now that you know how to prop­er­ly install the siphon under the sink, you can con­sid­er the next step. When the mesh (grid) is fixed in the drain pipe, a con­nec­tion to the sew­er is nec­es­sary. To do this, a rub­ber seal should be installed in the sew­er pipe. The pipe must have a thread­ed sock­et.

Then a cap nut is put on the end of the cor­ru­gat­ed hose with an exten­sion. The cor­ru­ga­tion is insert­ed into the sew­er pipe and clamped with a nut. If the fix­a­tion is not tight enough, the junc­tion of the cor­ru­ga­tion with the nut is wrapped with insu­lat­ing tape. The seal cre­at­ed in this way will pre­vent sew­er odors from enter­ing the room.

Disposer, or grinder for food waste for the sink

The task of the dis­pos­er is to grind food waste that acci­den­tal­ly or delib­er­ate­ly fell into the sink into gru­el and pro­tect the sys­tem from block­ages.

It is installed in front of the siphon and con­nect­ed direct­ly to the sink. When using a dis­pos­er, do not use cor­ru­gat­ed tubes, as shred­ded waste will remain in the folds of the tube.

You can con­nect it to almost any sink and to any siphon. It is only impor­tant that there is free space under the sink.