mm wrote:
On Sat, 05 Nov 2005 05:03:50 GMT, "George E. Cawthon"
wrote:

((snipped))

You are WAY out of my league. I've never seen
such a thing. Heck I've never see a hole that
would hold a soap bottle. I've seen and have a


It's hard to believe I've surpassed someone by knowing about soap
bottles, but I'll settle for anything these days.


sprayer (doesn't have anything to do with
vegetables tho, suppose you could use if to spray
vegetable, but most use it to spray plates and
utensils.


I only use mine to fill things that won't fit under the faucet, but my
recollection is that when these first came out (in the 50's or 60's)
they were called vegetable sprayers. Referring to their use in
washing fresh vegetables.


The drain water of the dishwasher goes up there, and then down to the
disposal. It's pumped up there, and uses gravity to get to the
disposal. Like a water fountain bubbler. Since it's not a closed
tube, it can't siphon. I forget what direction the siphoning would go
in, but it has something to do with germs.


I can see how that would work, just never seen
one. Dish washers usually suggest that you route
the hose up as high as possible before attaching


I've only had two, one when I was 10 and the other when I was 36. I
probably read the owner's manual for the second one, but it's been 22
years. (still works fine and it's 26 years old. The only problem was
the chicken bone I mentioned above. I don't bother much cleaning the
dishes in advance. If they come out dirty, and once in a while they
do, I scrub them in the sink and wash them again.


to the drain or disposal. That essentially stops
siphoning. Course if you drain is plugged it
could siphon back to the washer if the water got
as high as the maximum height of the hose. But
then, you would have a lot more to worry about
than a few bacteria in your washer, which could
easily be killed by just running the washer anyway.


Ah me, what complicated things people think up.


I dont' remember why the anti-siphon is thought to be necessary, but
it was a good reason. Or was that the sprinkler system?

((cut))
Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let
me know if you have posted also.

Funny thing, today in the plumbing parts at Lowes,
I saw one of your air caps while looking for
another drain part. I'd rather call it an air gap
or a siphon breaker as more descriptive. Still,
most sinks just have holes for the faucets and a
sprayer and I don't see air caps installed in the
store displays.

Wouldn't filling a soap dispensers be a pita
compared to just using a counter bottle? Also,
does a drain that frequently receives dish washing
water clog? That stuff is so caustic that I
would think drains plugging would be very rare.

We've been in our house (new at purchase) 29 years
and we have never had a plugged drain. I can't
remember ever having a plugged drain in any of the
apartments we rented or in my parents houses. We
are probably more careful than many people tho as
we don't put golf balls down the sink or commode.
Heck we hardly ever used the grinder-upper
either since we composted most everything. And at
the slightest hint of slow draining I always do a
draino treatment, mostly in the bathroom sinks due
to hair accumulation.

I think the air cap is in the same league as the
phone company selling insurance for your telephone
wiring in your house. Heck, for $25 I can buy all
the tools and parts I need to replace all of the
wire and it wouldn't take more than an an hour and
a half. one-half hour would be unloading the
closet to get into the crawl space and 1/2 hour
would be for rounding up lights and tools, kicking
the cat out, yelling at the wife, etc. So that
would only leave 1/2 for crawling around the crawl
space. The insurance amount looks like a
pittance, but the likelihood of ever needing to
use it would mean at least a 30 year pay period.

Now the water company wants to insure your pipe
from the meter into the house. Say that gets you
people working on the problem right away, etc.,
etc. In my case it is only a 30 foot line buried
probably 3 feet deep. Base on their monthly cost,
if I paid for that insurance since I bought the
house, I would have paid more than $1500.

I could hire a couple of kids to dig it up for
$200, or maybe just rent a trencher to dig it and
let the kids clean up the trench and widen the
ends of the trench for $100 more. So say $300.
The insurance makes the air cap a piker. No
thanks to all three.