I’ve seen it done a few ways – “hard” plumbing with copper all the way up into the dishwasher water supply fitting, PEX tubing, and flexible tubing installations. I personally have run copper all the way up to the dishwasher in the past, simply because I didn’t have flexible tubing on hand. When a dishwasher component broke a couple years later, I had to cut the copper to get the dishwasher out. PEX tubing really isn’t any better, it’s still rigid enough to require, at a minimum, disconnecting it from the dishwasher to pull the appliance out.
The best solution, in my opinion is a flexible line. Vinyl is a good material for this, and you can find vinyl tubing in 10 foot sections at just about any hardware store. I went with the braided vinyl tubing
for extra strength, though that’s probably overkill.
If this is your first shot at a plumbing job, you may be wondering how we’re going to connect vinyl tubing to our existing copper water lines. And, whether or not it’s going to involve sweating a fitting on the copper with torch and solder. We’re going to do this without solder, for about $20, including the vinyl tubing.
Parts needed:
- Barbed male adapter
for the dishwasher female fitting – 3/8″ to 1/2″. Check your dishwasher, mine required a 3/8″ male fitting, yours may be different. My home depot did not carry these in brass, so I went with a plastic one. - SharkBite 1/2″ female adapter
- Barbed male fitting – 1/2″ to 1/2″.
- Two stainless steel clamps (to fit the vinyl tubing).
- 10ft. vinyl tubing
for the dishwasher female fitting – 3/8″ to 1/2″. Check your dishwasher, mine required a 3/8″ male fitting, yours may be different. My home depot did not carry these in brass, so I went with a plastic one.
Tools required
- Screwdriver
- Hacksaw or copper pipe cutter
The job is a lot simpler than it sounds. If you have a pipe cutter handy, great, just cut the copper supply pipe as close as you can to the dishwasher. Otherwise, break out that hacksaw and try to make a straight cut. Luckily, SharkBites are a little more forgiving than solder, so do the best you can. A plumber will tell you to sand the end of the pipe after you cut it, but to be perfectly honest, I have skipped this step before and haven’t had any problem. If you are sweat fitting the adapter onto the copper – sand it down, with out a doubt. They sell little round wire brushes that fit right over 1/2″ pipe to make easy work of this.
Beyond that, just have a look at the image below for guidance.
Your next step will be to connect to you dishwashers water inlet. As I stated above, my model sported a 3/8″ inlet, so be sure to get a barbed fitting that will step down to 3/8″.
Tips
- You may think you can get away without the stainless steel clamps, and you can, for about 10 minutes! It may not be the first or second time you run your dishwasher, but sooner or later when the water kicks on, the un-clamped vinyl will slip right off the barbed fitting, leaking water at full throttle in all directions.
- Leave about three extra feet of vinyl tubing coiled up underneath your dishwasher, in your cabinet, or in your basement. This will come in handy when you need to pull out your dishwasher for maintenance. Maintenance happens, especially with modern dishwashers and all their fancy components. We’ve had our dryer vent break recently, a component not available on older dishwashers.
- Be sure to cut the vinyl tubing straight to prevent leaks. You can do it with a utility knife, but using tree branch clippers works even better and cleaner.
This will be great when that plastic barbed fitting gets brittle and cracks 🙂