During a home, remodel or new home construction often want to include a kitchen island. Making your kitchen work for you can be done with a spacious island with extensive storage, and an extra sink. Navigating plumbing to kitchen islands may deter homeowners from implementing them, but S&B Plumbing can help you navigate the complexities of plumbing throughout your home. During a remodeling project, installing plumbing or moving it can become complicated, so working with a professional plumber takes this stress off your shoulders.
Waterline, Drains, And Vents
Any plumbing in your kitchen will need cold and hot water lines. While these are straightforward, piping them to a kitchen island only becomes a problem when they are not long enough to align with the faucet connector lines or when the drain configuration is askew.
The trap in your sink needs to hold water to stop gases from entering the sink. Sinks on the outside kitchen perimeter have P-traps, but an island looks and works better with an S-trap. This basically makes the P-trap curve and leads back into the floor. These are often not up to code, so professional plumbers will help to install what is called a loop vent.
A loop vent may not work if you have very limited space. Air admittance valves are needed to help vent the system properly without hooking the main vent system to the island.
Loop Vents
Having a loop vent for gas and odors to escape and provide air to your drain system is the goal of a pipe vent. Without proper airflow, plumbing systems have a hard time producing enough pressure or draining at all. A kitchen sink vent usually needs to rise 6 inches above the fixture before it turns horizontal, but kitchen islands may not have this much space.
Installing a loop vent can help connect the trap arm but instead of going through the wall, it rises as high as possible inside your cabinets before dropping and going through the floor to the vertical vent. A loop vent will help keep the air in the system and should be installed by someone who is very comfortable with plumbing.
Having another sink in your kitchen island is important for many homeowners, so working with an experienced plumber will ensure that you don’t experience major clogs or have to spend money on repiping.
Installing Water Connections
A kitchen island sink will be the same as a regular sink when it comes to the water supply. The only difference is that the sink water pipes will come up from the bottom of the cabinet instead of out from a wall.
Many homeowners will use PEX pipe or copper pipes for their kitchen islands, so use a push-to-connect valve onto the pipe as a shutoff valve. The standard size is ½ inch by ⅜ inch compression fitting. You will then need to connect flexible faucet supplies to a faucet stem and the other end to the ⅜ inch fitting.
A good rule of thumb is to use a supply that is a little too long, rather than too short because this gives you more room for error or better flexibility. Many stop valves and connectors are made of steel and come in a variety of lengths to best fit your plumbing.
If you install a dishwasher or other water appliance on your kitchen island, you can install a shut-off valve on the hot water pipe. The dishwasher has a flexible water line that will need to be connected to the ⅜ fitting. The dishwasher drain hose needs to feed to a garbage disposal or sink drain.
Trust A Professional Plumber With S&B
Our team has been installing plumbing in new homes, remodels, and commercial buildings for over 25 years. We can help install the right plumbing and create proper venting systems for kitchen islands, showers, or external water sources in your home. No matter what project you are wanting to complete, you need to work with a professional if you want your home and plumbing to stay intact.
Doing plumbing jobs yourself may save you money upfront, but the stress and time it takes to do it, may not be worth it. Call our team to improve your plumbing today! We serve the Ogden area and other surrounding communities. We also offer 24/7 emergency plumbing services when needed.
