plumber question

[space-time]

first, curse words for whoever installed the sink before. None of those clamps that are supposed to hold the sink down on the countertop were tighten.

Now the questions:

1) The flexible hose for dishwasher water supply connects to the Cu pipe and there is some white paste like toothpaste or better like heatsink paste compound you put between CPU and heatsink. what exactly is this stuff and how come it is still soft after 6 year or so when they installed the diswahsher?

2) on the bottom of stainless steel sink there are 4 pads about 1.5" wide and maybe 4-5" long that look like a thick Al tape with some sticky stuff on the back. Same 4 Al bandaides on the sides of the sink, they don't seem to serve any real purpose. What is this stuff??? what is it for?

[macphanatic]

1. Teflon paste. Many use teflon tape instead.

2. My guess is that the pads are sound deadeners.

[nwyaker]

Pads are sound deadeners.

[Michael]

Or they were on the sink to prevent scratches when they are stacked one on top of the other for shipping and in the store.

[Mac-A-Matic]

I work with a lot of stainless sinks and if you're using thin gauge steel, it's noisy as all heck. Those pads glued to the sides are sound dampeners and are necessary unless you want a sink that "clangs" all the time.

That paste you are asking about is "plumbers paste" and can be used in lieu of teflon tape (things used to seal threads). However, the typical dishwasher connection is is made with braided stainless hose with 3/8 compression fittings (or copper compression fittings) - in either case, teflon tape or paste should not be necessary and I'm guessing that the previous install was done by the owner and not a plumber - because these are plumbing basics that I expect any plumber to know.

[space-time]

thanks, I guess those pads serve dual purpose, mainly sound dampeners and also as a protection for stacking many sinks for shipping/storage

I should probably take the dishwasher out and replace the flexible hose (I didn't pay attention, but I think it is a white hose, definitely not stainless steel, nor braided) and replaced it with s SS hose, one of those FloodSafe from Watts. Over the next 6 months or so I plan to replace all the hoses (sinks, toilets, appliances) with these FloodSafe hoses.

[H1N1]

space-time wrote:
thanks, I guess those pads serve dual purpose, mainly sound dampeners and also as a protection for stacking many sinks for shipping/storage

Kraft Paper is used for stacking/storage, watching the How It's Made marathon, SS sinks were yesterday morning, if those rubber dampners were used for that purpose, the sinks would stick together, making it a nightmare to pull apart, the sinks are very thin.

[Mac-A-Matic]

Yes, those rubber pads are strictly for noise reduction and not for stacking - even though it seems logical and plausible.

[space-time]

thanks again for clarification.