Espresso bar: Plumbing rough-in.

For our espresso bar build, after cutting a giant hole in our wall and roughing in the electrical I had to run the cold water supply and drain hoses. What good is an espresso bar that isn't plumbed? Exactly. It's only good enough for a Keurig. We don't own a Keurig. With a commercial La Pavoni machine in our basement waiting to be restored this space needs a water supply. The drain is optional although a nice touch. The alternative is a bucket in the cabinet underneath and emptying that every once in a while. No thanks.

Running a bunch of plumbing from between our kitchen sink and dining room it was. 

Thankfully the run was only about eight feet and everything was pretty straightforward. It did require I get another tool (yay!): a copper PEX ring crimper. Surprisingly, I had never splurged the $40 or so and instead paid a premium for Sharkbite push-to-connect fittings. Even after a shutoff valve failed and sprayed water all throughout the crawlspace in our old house. Yeah, it was time to step up and do it right. 

The crimper really is a piece of cake to use and in under fifteen minutes I had a cold water branch off the supply line from our kitchen sink.

Then it was a matter of drilling and routing it behind our dishwasher, under a cabinet, and through the wall we blew a hole in for the bar.

Of course, I had to chat with the framing contractor and let that guy know to make a hole for it through the new framing. He was nice and said he didn't mind.

With that, the cold water supply was installed. It'll hook up with a 1/2” MIP adapter to the La Pavoni inside the cabinet.

The drain was a little more complicated for a few reasons:

1. I was using 5/8" I.D. (3/4" O.D.) vinyl tubing like we did for our van's sink plumbing and it's, well, flexible…
2. … but doesn't like to make tight bends, and…
3. … still needs to maintain a proper slope through walls and cabinets so that it, well, actually drains

I first sketched the dimensions for the run beginning with height of the sink drain where it would connect and ending with the height of the espresso bar's countertop. Thankfully, there was plenty of wiggle room to make sure it would have enough slope to drain. Also, it would never be a surge of water. The drain for the La Pavoni works like an overflow on a sink: as the drip tray fills up it runs out the hole where the drain hose is connected. More a dribble than anything.

Using a level I was able to make sure everything was ironically not level.

In the cabinet to the right of the dishwasher I had to get a little creative to hold the tubing at the proper slope. Nothing some scrap wood couldn't solve.

The hose fit perfectly underneath one of the drawers. It's completely out of sight and we'll basically forget it's even there. Then I had to cut into the siding (yep, the wall next to the existing kitchen cabinet above used to be the outside of the house).

Then fish the drain hose through and tack it up high just in case water ever decides to surge up it before the La Pavoni is restored and gracing our bar.

Lastly, under the sink I needed to swap out the PVC discharge tube going from the disposal to the P-trap with a 5/8" appliance wye. Then pop on the vinyl drain tube. I have lots of PVC scrap and was easily able to come up with the proper fittings. The new setup is at the edge of the cabinet.

With the drain installed, it was time to test. S and K each took turns pouring water into a funnel and down the hose. It worked! I could tell the framing contractor that he could finish up so we could call in the drywall contractor.