Plumbing an Ikea Domsjo 36″ Double Sink

Prior to installing our Ikea Domsjo 36″ double sink I searched, on Google and Ikea Fans, for what I would need to buy to plumb up this sink (the drain portion). There really wasn’t much in the way of answers. Apparently a lot of people did not plumb the sink themselves. Although I installed the plumbing last Saturday and Sunday I wasn’t happy with it. There was a lot of wasted space underneath and I knew I could do better. It was just a matter of finding the correct parts.

I should mention that Monday and Tuesday this past week I had to fix some small leaks in the plumbing under the sink. Monday we discovered it was leaking where the plumbing hooks to the strainer. This is because the tailpiece (that’s the official name for this part) with the dishwasher connection on it was supposed to have a gasket with it. It didn’t come with it. For the other tailpiece I guess you are supposed to buy a separate gasket. How stupid is that? The other leak was because I missed gluing two pieces of PVC together. It was the one all the way in the back. Oops!

So this is was take one. Notice how low the horizontal pipe that connects two sink outlets together is.

Now before I continue I want to share what I learned about kitchen drain piping. There are two ways to connect the drain piping to the sink strainer; slip joint and direct connection. The strainers that come with the Domsjo are the direct connect type. The slip joint is more popular though. There is the first challenge. To confuse you further the company that Home Depot carries calls the direct connection Hi-Line instead.

The last challenge with this sink is that all of the kits available for double sinks are for center-to-center distances of 11″ or greater. If the outlets in the Domsjo double were in the center of the bowl the center-to-center would be greater than 11″. But the outlets are more towards the middle of the sink and the center-to-center is approximately 10.5″.

So here is what I bought.

You will notice the kit package says 16″. We will deal with that in a minute. The part to the left is a branch tailpiece with slip joint and 3/4″ branch. The 3/4″ hose barb is where the dishwasher drain hose connects. Some dishwashers have a 5/8″ hose. Make sure you buy the correct size for your make and model. There is another kit that has the dishwasher connection built in. We can’t use this however, because of where the threads that connect the two parts are. Also make sure you get the direct connect version and not the slip joint one. But yes the branch tailpiece is a slip joint.

Once you take the parts out of the kit and fit them up you will see that it is indeed too long.

The solution is to simply cut it! When you cut it make sure you leave it long enough to fit well inside the slip joint. A hack saw will do. I tend to cut crooked when I use a hack saw so I used a saw I bought especially for PVC pipe and a miter box. Saw blades with course teeth are better than fine tooth ones when cutting plastic.

When you reinstall don’t forget the gaskets.

Also don’t forget the slip joint gasket and nut.

This is what it should look like when you are done.

If you don’t have a dishwasher you can hook your trap right to the outlet. To connect the dishwasher we need to add the branch tailpiece.

I will mention that I cut both the “tee” part of the continuous drain kit and the branch tailpiece. You may also need to cut yours depending on height of your trap. I wanted to make sure that the slip joint connection between the branch tailpiece and trap was above the waterline of the trap. I cut 1/2″ from the tee part and 2″ from the branch tailpiece. The part that is slid over the branch tailpiece is called a trap adapter. All I needed to do to complete the installation was cut and glue in piece of 1.5″ PVC pipe between the trap and adapter.

Isn’t that better? Now we have a lot more room underneath the sink for all those cleaning products and supplies. You could even fit two 8 gallon trash cans under there if you wanted to.

As a side note, we’re probably a minority but we decided NOT to use a garbage disposal. Irene finds them really gross, a pain to keep clean and they can be smelly. There is also a lot of evidence that it is bad for the environment and taxing our water treatment centers (pun not intended but we pay more in the end). Some parts of our country have banned them all together and others are offering a food composting program. We are trying to compost as much as we can, which is difficult and not convenient. I hope with the recent news that our Township/Town wants to be more ‘green’ that a program comes to us soon.

Update:
PS. We’ve been getting a lot of hits lately about the thickness of the countertop. Ikea says it needs 1.5″ or 3.81cm for the Domsjo. This is to clear the doors and prevent the sink from wobbling. Common stone thickness, regardless if it’s engineered or from the earth, is 2cm (mostly out west in earthquake zones) and 3cm for the rest of us. Unless you are ordering a custom slab, you will only find one or the other size in your region. Our quartz is 3cm or 1 1/4″ thick. We had no problems clearing our doors nor do we have a wobbly sink. We also should note we ordered these countertops from Ikea, and the Kitchen Manager said it wasn’t a problem. If you live out west and can only get 2cm you’ll need a plywood backing anyway for support of the stone, And be sure the countertop company knows you require atleast 1 1/4″ for your sink if they are not familiar with the Domsjo. Here is an ikeafans 2009 post on the subject. If you are using plywood backing or ordered a super thin slab, you may need to poney up more money to get what you need, hacking doors is NOT a lot of fun.

PSS – the ikea website SUCKS, stinks, etc. It is hardly updated so while it may say the domsjo isn’t there or not available, always call your local store for availability.