I was gonna finish wiring my garage when I got home last night, so of course when I walked in the door I was greated with "Honey, there's water leaking under the sink in the kitchen." Sigh. The only time she calls me "Honey" is when there's a shitty repair that needs to be done.
The p-trap was corroded through. It didn't look that bad a few months ago, so I don't know why it corroded so much so fast. Bleach, maybe. I took it loose and ran to Ace hardware and bought a new J for the trap. Brought it home and installed it and it leaked just a little at the joint. I tighten the nut, and it still leaked, plus the tailpiece on the basket drain cracked loose up above. I raced to Home Depot just before they closed and bought what I thought was everything needed to replace all the drain pipe from the sink to the wall with plastic. Except I didn't know I would need an extention because the 'T' piece was too short. I shut off the water and there it sits; I'll buy more parts and deal with it lave this afternoon.
Is there supposed to be some kind of grease applied to the plastic gaskets when you assemble plastic drain pipe to help it seal? Like maybe silicone grease, or RectorSeal #5? The plastic doesn't seem to seal well enough by itself. I know metal drain pipe will eventually seal itself with calcium deposits from the water if you get it almost good enough; the calcium might not stick to plastic pipe.
Can I use rubber gaskets, like for metal pipe? I didn't see any rubber gaskets for sale that were the proper cone shape for the plastic pipe.
BTW, I'm switching it to plastic because I don't want to ever have to replace it again because of corrosion.
Thanks for listening, Bob