OT: Kitchen sink drain problem!!!!!!

[JD Seller]

We have an old large cast iron/porcelain double sided kitchen sink. Each side can hold 15 gallons of water it is a large sink. I do not want to switch it to anything else.

My trouble. When you have one side full of water the other side drains slow.

Example: You have the left full of dish water to wash with. You are rinsing the dishes off in the right side. The sink will drain so slow that you can't leave the water run to rinse with or the right sink will fill with water.

If only one side has water in it it drains fast. I just spent all morning taking out the whole drain system. I even checked the vent clear to the roof. Everything is fine. You can dump a five gallon bucket of water into one side by itself and it will drain in under 20 seconds. IF you have water in one side and dump a five gallon bucket in the other side it takes over two minutes for it to drain.

The trouble is the Tee fitting where the drain lines come together. If one line is blocked for getting air, IE standing water, the drain air locks. It gurgles and gushes not an even flow. I need a vent to allow the water out into the main drain line.

I have hooked up many sink drains. I never had one that would air lock this way. Once the water is out in the main line the water zips away.

This old sink just has the drains on the bottom. There are zero over flow provisions. Do newer sinks us the over flow as a upper vent???

I am temped to get a dish washer return vent and hook it into the top half of the sink drain.

I took an old Tee drain fitting and drilled a 3/8 hole in the top of it. I put a fitting in there and a hose that I just held up above the sink. This little vent allows the drain to flow fast. I can't leave it there as there is zero backup prevention in this little vent.

I think the dish washer drain vents have a type of check valve in them to allow air in but not let any water out. The type you use when dumping the dish washer water back into the garbage disposal.

So do you fellows have any ideas. I just spent 4 hours for nothing. The main house drains and vents are fine, good and clean.

 

[sheiserman]

Only thing I can think of short of a new sink would be to run each compartment with its own trap individually over to the stack. I have no idea how much space you have whether that"s feasible or not. Whether each run gets its own vent or not......personally wouldn"t bother me.

Ran across a sink years ago that had a similar problem. Right side would drain fine, left side very slow. Each compartment was trapped and run back to the wall, through the studs, and finally dumped into the stack. The left compartment was run higher to accommodate stacked tee fittings in the stack. Problem was squirrels dropped walnuts down the vent termination, and they lodged in the upper (left compartment) drain fitting. And that is the inspiration for the idea of running each compartment individually. Never have seen that way of doing it before or since, there normally would be no reason to do it.

 

[notjustair]

I am redoing the bathroom in my 100 year old house. NOTHING was vented. I have been able to route vents in all but one area. I bought a one way vent to use on that one. It is specifically designed to only allow air in not fumes or water out. They will fit inch and a half and two inch pipe. I asked the boy at Menards for a blind vent and he knew what I wanted.

I think I paid 19 bucks, but in an old house you have to do it sometimes. You could plumb it in and run it up underneath where the faucet is and be done.

 

[souNdguy]

got room to re plumb it to ad din individual vents?

 

[Dick2]

It would seem to be a vent problem. Sounds like there could be something somewhere in the vent system that is acting like a "flap" to close off the vent when one sink can't act as the vent for the other side.

Might take some careful checking to find that problem.

 

[S2710]

The blind vent is what you need. I have had one on my sink for close to 20 years now.

Bob

 

[Rollie NE PA]

This is what you want for under the sink.
Studor 20301 PVC Mini-Vent with PVC Connector
Not sure why the pic did not show.







List Price:$31.80Price:$26.87You Save:$4.93 (16%) Brand:StudorModel:20301 PVCUPC:764651203011Availability: Reviews

 

[john in la]

As the others said install you a under sink vent. All my sinks have them and they work great.

 

[JMOR]

Hey, John....no PhotoShop awards for you!

 

[john in la]

That is just some pictures I stole off the internet to try and show what I was talking about.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Have lived in several older farm houses over the year's without vented sink's. All have worked fine. Sewer lines were vented, but about 20' away from sink's.

 

[JMOR]

(quoted from post at 09:29:49 06/16/13) That is just some pictures I stole off the internet to try and show what I was talking about.

t worked!

 

[Anonymous-0]

John has the answer , a magic vent under the sink is the key and they won't leak water .

 

[Billy Shafer]

Well JD I just learned something. My sink does the same thing. Fill one side with water and the other side takes forever to drain.Gonna check on a vent Monday.

 

[sheiserman]

with the mechanical vent under the sink, have you had a sink back up? Not looking to start something, but I am curious how much pressure the auto vent can hold back before it fails, if it fails. I don't know of anyone who's had one fail. I also don't know too many people that have one in use.

 

[john in la]

I have had a sink backup with the vent.
The backup usually happens in the pee trap and the vent is installed after the pee trap. (see the picture on other post)
So the vent is not affected.

Now if your main drain or septic system backed up (tree root in pipe ect) you could get over flow out of the vent.
But I think that would be the least of your worries as these vents are usually higher than the toilet bowl. Water would be over flowing out the toilet before it ever got to these vents.

The only way for these vents to be the only thing over flowing is if the main sink drain line got a clog and that is not likely.