Sink Drain and P-Trap Doesn’t Line Up

Quick Column Summary:

• Drain tailpiece does not line up
• Flexible tailpiece barely fits
• Find the right fitting

Jesse Shumate, who decided she wanted to be a master plumber like me, wrote:

"I installed new cabinet and counter top in my bathroom.  Now the drain tailpiece does not line up with the p-trap.

I'm using a flexible tailpiece right now but I don't like it and it barely fits.

Is there a better method to solve this problem?  Thank you very much."

Based on my 35-plus years of being a master plumber, I responded:

Jesse, you bet there's a way to solve this.

It can be easy or hard depending on the horizontal pipe stub that's sticking out from the wall.

Realize that you deal with two different pipe sizes when connecting sinks to drain pipes in walls.

The piping that's visible under a sink is tubular with a smaller outer diameter.

In some instances, the compression desanko that your tubular p-trap connects to is right up against the wall. If this is the case, you'll need a tubular piece of pipe that's set at a 45-degree angle to aim towards your sink tailpiece.

If you're lucky enough to have just an inch of the actual schedule 40 PVC (or similar pipe) exiting the wall before the compression desanko, then you can cut off the desanko and add a 22.5 or 45-degree fitting to realign the drain pipe with your sink tailpiece.

Good luck! You can do this, it just requires home high school geometry.