How to Install Pipes Under the Kitchen Sink

Part of the Video Series How to Remodel Your Kitchen

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Learn how to install pipes under the kitchen sink for a home renovation project in this free online DIY home improvement video.

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Video Transcript

How to Install Pipes Under the Kitchen Sink
I’m Lee. I have a degree in architecture and about ten years construction experience, and today we are replacing the hot water pipe and valve. Now we’ve already installed the valve, which is a two outlet valve- one for the sink and one for the dishwasher. I used a compression fitting, and since we have all the cabinet doors off, we just want to open the door up just a little bit so that you can just stick the pipe out through it. Line up this new valve with the one that is back in the cabinet, and you just want to be off by about sixty inches or so, and just kind of guesstimate where you need to cut the pipe at- which will be about right there, up against the wall. And then you can get yourself a pipe cutter. Now, this was a predetermined size of pipe. Most inlet pipes coming into the kitchen or the bathroom toilet is going to be five-eighths of an inch, or otherwise known as half an inch because it’s half inch inside and five-eighths on the outside. The only areas you’ll run into difficulty is in older homes.

And what you’ll do with this is as you rotate it, this little wheel cuts the copper pipe. And you can tighten and loosen it right here and the pipe just rolls in these and is cut by this. And you just continue in tightening it, maybe half a turn every rotation until it cuts all the way through the pipe. And you can cut it with a hacksaw, but with a compression fitting you’re going to end up getting little burrs on the outside edge and then your compression fitting’s not going to seal and you’re going to have water spewing everywhere when you turn the water back on. And compression fittings are good to use in homes that are older, that may be a fire hazard. You don’t want to be in there with a torch trying to braze the copper together. And once you get that cut, then we’re just going to install- this is a universal compression fitting. It has the compression sleeve attached to the nut and then this you won’t use because that’s for in case you’re using it for like plastic bendable pipe or what have you. And you just take this part and you’re going to slide it over the end. And it’ll go on real tight, just tap it on lightly, make sure it slides in. It has a little groove in it. Slide it as far as it will go and you pull this up and you just tighten it down. And once you can’t turn it anymore, you can use a pair a pliers, you should use two crescent wrenches. And tighten it down, and you don’t want to over tighten it- you don’t want to tighten it until you can’t tighten it anymore. If you over tighten the compression fitting, as you can tell on this one, it digs into the pipe itself, and then you usually end up with a leak around that area. Because the pipe will tear, or it might get cut all the way through it. And that is how you would install the elbow onto the new pipe that you already have the valve connected to. Now you want to make sure that you have a hole large enough for this to slide through in the wall of your cabinet.

About the Expert

Expert: Lee Wallace has a degree in architecture from Texas A&M University. Read More