Bathroom Sink Plumbing

 Last updated: 11/2/2024

So we were at the condo a few weeks ago, and Helen noticed that Zack's sink was leaking (see picture 1). I tried tightening it, but it didn't help. I bought a bunch of gaskets online and tried to put the right gasket on at the leak to create a seal so it wouldn't leak. Couldn't make it work.

I eventually discovered that the sink stopper "tailpiece" was a different size than the "tailpiece extension". The tailpiece is 1.25" in diameter, and the tailpiece extension was 1.5" in diameter. I was never going to make that work. I was either going to have to find a 1.5" sink stop tailpiece (impossible to find), or replace all the piping (from the sink to the wall - including the u-joint) with 1.25" piping.

I went on Gemini (Google's version of ChatGPT) and it said that 1.25" piping was common in bathroom sinks, and 1.5" piping was common in bathtubs and kitchen sinks. I think the previous plumber just put a bunch of pipes together thinking that by the time the problem surfaced, he'd be long gone - he was right.

It turns out, there's a gasket called a "slip joint" gasket that will fit a 1.5" pipe into a 1.25" pipe.

This project has been in my backlog for like about a month now....