Thursday, September 18, 2008

I Will Wash Dishes by Hand No More Forever

Slightly modified quote by a famous leader. 10 points to the first person who knows what the hell I'm talking about.

I didn't want to wait for the weekend to get the dishwasher installed, and I had a couple of free hours to kill this afternoon, so I gave it a shot.

I cut out the guts of the lower cabinet and made sure there was plenty of room. Judging by the picture I've got more than enough!

As mentioned previously, this is just a temporary installation, done on the cheap. I had the water supply line and most of the parts I needed, but did find that there were two special pieces that I had to go out and buy.

First was a 90 degree elbow which fits into the bottom of the dish washer. Second was the splitter valve that connects to the water supply line. I could have gotten away without using the splitter valve, but then I'd have no hot water supply to the sink. Not the best solution.

The electrical hookup is ultra-temporary. I don't know where the final electrical line will be run, so I took an old grounded extension cord and cut the end off. I spliced it into the wiring on the dishwasher and secured the wiring so it won't move around and chafe. I'll just plug it into the wall when I need to wash dishes for now. Half-ass yes, but it works.

The blue protective layer is still on the outside in this picture, but the dishwasher has a stainless front.




Under the sink you can see the new lines. Hooking into the drain, the big line that looks like it's coming from the middle of the sink is the dishwasher drain line which actually loops around a bit. The extra slack makes it look like it's coming from the center of the sink - it actually comes through the cabinet wall on the left up high to create an air gap.

The black line down low is the water supply to the dishwasher. It connects to the gold splitter valve in the back of the cabinet.

I had a small drip from the valve when I turned the water on, but a quick 1/4 turn and it looks good to go. No other leaks were found.



I put in a little dishwashing detergent and fired it up to clean it out and make sure it's working properly. So far, so good! I look forward to running a load through it tonight.

Total cost, about $8.00 in parts that I needed to buy anyway.