I win. You tried to beat me with your ridiculous pipes, but I beat you.
Okay, okay. It’s a total bodge. It will be replaced with a full set of new pipes in a couple of weeks, but for now this is good enough to make the sink usable again.
The short version of the story is that a piece of plastic broke on our Ikea sink. It was the piece that held the stopper and the pipe under the drain against the bottom of the bowl. When it broke, water could run freely into the drawers under the sink.
I went to Ikea last night with the broken piece, thinking I could replace it. But no, the “Rinnen” plumbing system had been redesigned in the three years since we installed our sink. So I got new pieces up to the bodge above, thinking I would be able to fit the new to the old. Unfortunately, the new part’s pipe had an oval cross-section, while the old one was round!
So, armed with more information, Tammy went to Ikea this afternoon. I wasn’t there, but as I understand it, they didn’t have the parts we need. They have been ordered and will arrive in about 2 weeks.
I didn’t want to be without the sink for two weeks, and I had a brainwave at work. What if I used a section of bicycle tubing as a flexible cuff between the oval and round ends? I spent a couple of hours this evening trying different ways of doing this. The first way (sliding it onto the sink side and sliding a short section into the drain) worked for about five seconds before water started coming out. Then I tried something similar (feeding a longer section in so that it went down the drain) and that worked. But it was a slow drain. Then I tried sliding it onto the drain end, and then onto the sink end (as pictured above). That was hard work, but after a lot of effort, I got it.
What you see above can handle a full sink draining, with the tap on full. This will suffice for the two weeks.
Also, sorry about the lack of posting. It’s been back to work and back to school and sort of quiet around here. We got Miranda her “Malm” bed with drawers on Sunday, and last week Ian finally spent the rest of his birthday money on a share of an XBox One S.
Updated
The new plumbing kit has arrived from Ikea. At this point, I am hopeful that I will be able to replace just part of it, rather than all the way to the wall, but we will see. If the weather doesn’t cooperate this weekend, then I might have time.
