How I Added A Water Line To My Coffee Maker
How hard could it be? I mean, think about it. The coffee maker just needs coffee grounds, a filter, and water, right? See, all I want to do is simplify the water part of the equation. No problem. I'm not Mr. Handyman, by any means, but I know which end of the hammer to use to strike a nail.
Besides, they sell tubing and plastic fittings at Home Depot. I'll be back home in an hour and have this gizmo hooked up before the first football game kicks off.
At least that was my plan. I didn't know I could order the entire kit online from www.umjava.com and save myself from plumbing confusion syndrome.
So at 8am, I headed to the hardware store and walked straight to the plumbing section, where I found the tubing at the far end of isle 17. I wasn't sure which size to buy so I waited my turn for the clerk to help me. It took what seemed like a half hour to try and explain exactly what I wanted to do. I told him point blank, "I want to add a water line to my coffee maker". He looked confused, until I showed him my crude drawing I did back home. Once he understood the concept, he selected tubing for me and took me to the other end of the next isle over, so we could choose the right fittings and valve. We zeroed in on a handful of plastic fittings, each in their own little baggie.
Being fairly confident, I proceeded to check out, paid $29 and drove home. Once at home, I went to work connecting the fittings the way the salesman suggested only to discover that the tubing was wrong, the adapter we picked out was not necessary, and one of the fittings was the wrong size.
So back to the hardware store for round two, which this time included standing in line at the return counter to start my exchange. Back to isle 16 I went but the sales clerk must have been on break because there were two other customers looking for help, and no clerk around.
I put on my reading glasses and searched through the fittings one by one, examing the tiny print which indictaed what diameter each fitting was and whether it was male or female, and what size ports it had. I picked out the five parts I thought would work best, along with the correct size tubing and paid the cashier $27.
When I returned home, my wife reminded me that we had to leave soon for a kick-off windig at my neighbors, and that I better get ready.
We met my other neighbor Denny at the party and told him about my morning fiasco. He said that I could have saved myself a lot of hassle by just purchasing an Umjava Kit online, for about twenty bucks. "It's a kit to create a water line to your coffee maker". Then he entered a search on his iPhone and pointed the screen at me and said, "Here's their website".
It looked way more simple than the get-up the sales clerk at the hardware store had suggested. The coffee maker waterline kit was cheaper and had all the parts I would need. Not only that, but it could be operated with one hand. The valve the salesman had selected required me to place one hand on the valve and one hand on the coffee maker, in order to turn it on. Oh and did I mention, the Umjava looks better. My wife noticed that right away. It doesn't look like some sort of rigged contraption. She looked at the picture on Denny's phone and said, "Get that".
I ordered it right then and there, off of Denny's phone and it arrivecd at my house that Wednesday. The installation video on Unjava's website looked pretty straight forward and easy to follow. The hardware store was pretty good about letting me return my fittings but I had lost my receipt, so they gave me in-store credit. Maybe someday I'll buy a birdhouse.
NOTE: Hey gotta tell ya, been using the Umjava everyday now for three months. It's awesome! Wish I would have got one long time ago. I do have a suggestion though; Roll up whatever tubing you don't need and tape it to the back of the refrigerator, just in case you ever have to pull the refrigerator away from the wall. Painter's tape works good because it will pull off when you need the slack.