Do I Need A Dishwasher Air Gap?...My States Plumbing Code says YES!!

Hey folks, that fix a guy here and today I'm going to show you how to install this cheap piece of plastic called an air gap. This is actually a manufactured air gap. All right, this is designed to go between your dishwasher and the drain that it's draining to, whether it be a drain pipe or it be the disposal like we're going to put it on today. So, come along, let's get to fix it. Okay, so the reason why I say cheap piece of plastic is because all of these air gaps are made out of plastic, right? These things are crazy. The little side is the inlet, the bigger side is the outlet. All right, so this side is going to hook up to your dishwasher, this side is going to hook up to your disposal or your drain pipe. Let's pop this apart. So, we got a cover. All right, you're going to get this in different colors, you can get it in white, you can get it in stainless steel, you can get it a lot of different things, you can even get some of these covers in metal, but most of them are plastic. All these, I've never seen one at anything other than plastic. All right, it's got a couple of different nuts on here, it's got a washer on here, it's going to, it makes for a pretty easy install, but they're so wonky and they're just cheap that it takes a lot sometimes to get this put up and bent right, and then if you have a real stiff hose, it wants to go cock-eyed in the hole, it sucks. Honestly, these things, they're not my favorite, but they're code, and so you have to put them in. Right, and so then there's another piece right here that this, if you pop both sides of this, it's kind of hard to actually take out. But if you push these little tabs right here, you can pop that piece out. If you ever need to be clean this, oh man, I can't get it apart. Okay, so there we go, I got this apart. This is what the air gap looks like down inside of it, right? So it comes up through the small one, hits the top of this, like it's kind of rounded up there, hits the top of this, and then just flows down into here. The premise of this is if you're sink drain or you're disposal backs up, this air gap makes it to where it actually doesn't go back into your dishwasher. Now I feel like most dishwashers these days have built-in backwater valves or something to help kind of prevent that. But here in my state, this is code, so you must have it. Alright, so let's pop this bad way back together, or not. There we go. This piece right here is what's going to sit on top of your counter. When we're going to put this on, you're actually going to want to set this to a depth height, right? So we're dealing with a stainless steel sink today, so we don't need that many threads sticking out, right? We just want to make sure that this piece right here is going to hold on there, which it will, like it's going to screw down way past what it needed to be. And that's going to be good. When you're going to install this, this piece is going underneath there. I don't really like setting this after the fact. You know, so I kind of gauge it now, and then see what this is going to be. And the material that the sink is, right? We're dealing with an 18 gauge stainless steel sink. It's not that thick, right? So it's not going to have to be that much, right? You figured just that plus this gasket and that sink, we're setting pretty there, right? That right there is a good little depth. I personally like to put this rubber gasket on top, right? Because typically rubber is going to stop water whenever it's on something. If you put this below, all water is going to do is get down to this and then eventually stop or start leaking out. So I feel like if you put it on the top, you prevent it. So you want to check your local code because not every state requires an air gap. So another thing that we're going to use for this job is a disposal hose. We need a hose that actually is going to go from the air gap to the garb disposal, right? And so this one actually is just going to fit right down inside here and it's going to go right there. They actually sell this in a two foot length designed specifically for this. And it is an inch and a seven eighths ID and an inch and a quarter OD, which means inside diameter and outside diameter. Right? And so this is actually outside diameter seven eighths and it's just going to rock and roll. So there's not a lot of parts required to install one of these and there's not a lot of tools either. If you guys like the content, please subscribe to the channel. We're just trying to help people and we really hope that we're doing that. I'll put a link to the description box below for the material and the tools I use. Okay, so first thing I'm going to do is just get this off of here. Pills off very easy. I like to take this and actually like to put this on here first, right? It's better to put just one of these on than to try to put two of these on while you're underneath there, right? Space underneath the sink is very cramped. So that just take a six and one. Pop this out and you're going to be able to just get it in here and tighten this bad puppy up. I'll get it hooked up there and now and you'll feel this when it gets snug, you'll feel it. Okay, so this is definitely a tight space, but then we'll take this, we'll stick this right up in this hole. We'll get this put up through here. Like I said, I like to have that gasket up top. Get this piece put up right here and then that piece is put on. So it's up. Pop that right there on and now your air gaps installed. All we got to do is go down the bottom again and connect everything up. So next we're going to take the dishwasher drain off right here. Just pop that right off of there. We're going to take this off. Now you remember the other side of the air gap was smaller. So it was actually smaller than this piece. We're actually going to take this and we're going to chop some of this off. So you see I got this awesome cutter here. You see me uses before for many different things and it just comes in awesome handy once again. So I just go right here at the edge of this and I just chop that off. We're actually going to want that smaller size hole. We're going to clean that out a little bit too before we go ahead and try to put that on that air gap. Just give it a quick wipe around with some paper towel or something. And then that boy is it's going to go and it's going to pop right up in there. And I'll try to show you that as best I can. So we're going to take this. We're going to stick a worm clamp on there. Some funky angles going right now. All right. So we're going to take this and we're going to stick this right up in here. And that's in there pretty good. And then bring your hose clamp up. And I put it off to the side that way I can actually get my screwdriver in there to tighten this down. Whoa. Tight spaces. So you don't pull the garbage disposal and you're just leaving this stuff together. It makes it a little bit difficult. Not impossible. Just you turn full on contortionist. Just make sure that's tightened down really good. It's good to go. So now we're just going to take the black hose. We're going to grab the hose clamp, stick it on to where it's facing us. That way it's easy to put together. And then we're just going to take this, put it right on here. So I had to cut this right. It might take you a couple of times, but you don't want to dip in this pipe. You actually want this pipe to slope towards this drain right here. Because if it doesn't, this is going to clog really easy. I've came out for many of these. I have unclogged. I don't even know how many. A lot. This is a very typical clog right here on an air gap. If this thing is not slow properly and doesn't drain good, you're going to get a clog every time. So then we'll just go back on here. So now we've got this to where it slopes pretty good. And we're just going to give this a tighten up. And we'll test it. So that's good. That's tightened up. And let's run some water. Put some water through the dishwasher. All right. That's draining good. You can hear the water draining through there. There's no leaks anywhere. And so that looks good to rock and roll, man. So if you've ever wondered what this thing was or what it does, and why you can really hear some water running through it when your dishwasher runs, well, that's because it's connected to the drain. It's actually providing an air gap break from the water where this can kind of vent. And it also will prevent backup from going back into your dishwasher. All right, folks. So that's how you install a manufactured air gap for your dishwasher. If you get a home inspection done and they say, hey, you need this hooked up. Well, now you know a lot of times a home is already going to come with it. You buy something new. It's already there. Once in a while somebody doesn't put one in. They put in what's called a high loop. We'll discuss that at a further video. And I'll also go maybe a little more in depth on the air gap on a different video. I really hope you guys enjoy the content. If this helps you, please click that like button. Subscribe to the channel. We'd love to have you keep coming back. Check us out over on Facebook. We're trying to do good things and helping everybody on every platform we can. Thank you very much and we'll see you again real soon.