Hi All,

Looking for advice & thoughts on recent work done at my condominium. For reference it is located in the Colorado mountains, built in 2008, a ground floor unit.

The dishwasher that was installed in the unit was from the original home builder, and was recently being replaced. Once the old unit was removed it was discovered that the left leg of the old original dishwasher had been cut short, due to the location of the hot and cold copper water pipes coming up from the foundation. I had always wondered why the dishwasher was tilted, now I know unfortunately. As far as I can tell that perhaps when they were building this unit, in regards to the kitchen island sink / dishwasher space, plans were not followed or some other reason was the cause for this.




The HOA property management company was contacted and they sent out person and their helper to take a look. He indicated that the lines could be rerouted and came out today to do that. His criteria on the reroute path was based on the demission of the new dishwasher (left side leg length / width, opening at back, space on the bottom back of the new dishwasher) as well as I hope good plumbing practices.

After lines reroute completion, water turned back on, no immediate leaks check and a phyiscal test fit it appears the new dishwasher is able to be slide in, so it could then be installed completely (from the local appliance business I purchased the dishwasher from). The flow of the hot and cold in the kitchen sink appears to be normal, no diminished flow.



The new dishwasher is currently not installed, power to the kitchen island turned off, and unit water shut off lever located, as I have concerns on a few areas:

- The copper pipes coming out the foundation appear to now be kinked. Hot line is on the left, and cold is on the right. The cold line on the right appears to be severely restricted right where it comes out of the foundation. The left, the hot line also appears to be slightly kinked as well. The guy doing the work mentioned the kink on the cold line, and said it would be fine, due to being less than a 50% kink (looks kinked almost in half to me), and it was the cold line. He did not mention the hot line being kinked, that I now see appears to be slightly kinked at least to my eyes.



- The kitchen island power lines, that I assume is romex coming up from the foundation conduit, in close proximity with the copper / PEX water pipes. It now runs right over the PEX tubing and one of the romex lines is touching the copper pipes, hot line. Is this close proximity / physical contact a concern?

During the physical test fit dishwasher (which was not with the water line connection, drain tube or new electrical cord), I did not take off the front lower plate of the dishwasher to see if there was any contact between the new dishwasher bottom components and newly rerouted copper pipes / PEX setup. I can do that though.

Yes I understand the old dishwasher missing the left leg had been installed & working for years, with the original existing copper pipe routing / near the romex. However the copper pipes were not kinked.

I feel I know the answer, but would like people smarter than me on these topics weigh in. I am sorry for the long post, but thought it was relevant, and want to do the right, safe thing here.

I am sorry this happened, I am not a pro but does a lot of DIY plumbing. I would say the kinks are quite severe and not only there is a flow restriction but over time there is an erosion/scouring effect that may affect the copper tubing. If it were me I would find a way to remedy this even if it means at my cost.

Being this is a condo unit you may or may not be able to DIY this, and I don't know if you can chip further into the concrete to expose more round pipe to make a good solid connection. I don't see any way around that. Obviously whoever did it wanted to move the tubing to the right and end up kinking them, I wonder why they did just cut the copper say a few inches out of the concrete slab and use a 22 or 45 fitting to roll to the right side. Even putting male adapters on both cut ends and use a SS corrugated flex tubing is better than what you got.

I had this exact situation where I hired a "Plumber" some years back to move a pair of soft copper tubing 4". I cut the concrete slab, excavated the tubing and exposed the entire tubing to horizontal and 18" further. All I needed to do is to move those two tubing closer which required two closer 90 degree bend. I was at work when the plumber did it, he put a sleeve over the bends, backfilled the dirt and compacted and put on two shutoff valves. I paid and he left. I found out a few days later there is a flow restriction and after excavating the tubings and removing his sleeves I noticed the kinks (worse than yours). I end up cutting back the pipes on the horizontal and hired another plumber to braze two new joints. Very frustrating.