A Soapy Solution

 Grandma C renovated our kitchen way back in 2006, and, after 16 years, this soap dispenser (which was a free gift from the shop we got our tap from) has started to rust.

In fact, its metal bottle under the counter had started to leak, making a soapy mess at the bottom of the cabinet.

I thought I could remove the bottle and replace with a plastic bottle.  However it had rusted so badly, that it broke off at the neck when I tried to unscrew it.

Also, the nut holding the top collar had also rusted in place and I could not budge it, making replacing the whole unit impossible.

Grandma C said to call the plumber, but I was reluctant to pay the $150 call out fee plus time just to remove a nut.

Here is where the countless hours I "wasted" surfing the net paid off.

I vaguely remembered that I had seen somewhere that someone was irritated by the fact that he had to regularly refill the small bottle of soap under his kitchen sink and came up with a solution that used a larger bottle of soap, making regular refills much less necessary.

It simply involved using a long tube from the pump to a bottle placed on the floor of the cabinet.  A genius idea.

The pump in my case required a 6mm tube but I could only get a 5mm tube from our hardware shop.  A lighted match held under the tube end,  however, softened it enough to force fit it to the pump.

From there, it was a simple matter to run the metre long tube from the pump into a 2 litre milk bottle, as pictured above.

Once installed, I needed to pump maybe fifty times to get the soap from the bottle, up one metre of tubing and through the pump.

So, I thought the job was done.

What I didn't know was that gravity would pull the soap from the tubing back into the bottle.  And, the next time Grandma C wanted to wash her hands, she had to pump countless times to bring the soap back up.  

Not a very desirable state of affairs.

I found the solution, again from the internet, was to install a one way valve in the tubing so that the soap could travel up, but be prevented  from falling back down.

I found one such valve in a pet shop.  Apparently it is used by people who keep pet fish in aquariums.

The inline valve, (circled)

The inline valve cost me $4 and the 2 metre tubing $6.  So it's a big win over having to call a plumber over.  

Plus we get the bonus of not having to refill our soap that often.  

Grandma C buys her liquid soap in 5 litre bottles and next time she buys her soap we can get an extra one to replace the milk bottle and that will probably last till I fall off the perch.

I had about a metre of tubing left over, and when I went to put it away in our miscellaneous cupboard, look at  what I found!

A brand new unopened 5 metres of that 5mm tubing!!!