Setting up a practical sink

[ralbertini]

After having tried (and failed) to set up a practical kitchen sink three years ago, I am looking for an effective way to so for a production of SKYLIGHT. Does anyone have experience in doing this? Good karma awaits. Thank you in advance.

 

[dbaxter]

After having tried (and failed) to set up a practical kitchen sink three years ago, I am looking for an effective way to so for a production of SKYLIGHT. Does anyone have experience in doing this? Good karma awaits. Thank you in advance.

I've done it two ways in the course of 3 kitchens I've done on sets. The first is a garden hose from the slop-sink backstage. You can get brass adapters that go from the faucet threads to hose threads. The sinks don't get used for very long usually, so a bucket with a towel in it (to deaden the sound) was enough to catch the drain. I've also used a large camping carboy with water in the overhead cabinet and let gravity supply the water. Right now, for Annapurna, I've got not only the kitchen sink, but also a working shower on the set. Two hoses for that one, so as to circulate the water before she uses the shower to keep the water warm. Draining into an under-the-bed storage tote gives me a little over 3 minutes of "run time". It is a challenge.

 

[TDN]

Depending on how much water you need, a garden pressure sprayer can also work. Benefit is it can go under the sink and runs on pressure. Cons are sometimes low pressure and you have to keep it pumped. Last time I used it i had it running through the wall under the sink so a crew member could get to it during the show and pumped it back up at intermission

 

[sk8rsdad]

For a standalone solution, get a pressure tank. Add a tee with an inlet and outlet valve. On the inlet side add a garden hose adapter. The outlet side should be a standard 1/4" shutoff valve like you find under your kitchen sink.

1. Close all valves and attach the tank to your sink using a garden hose.
2. Open the inlet valve and turn on the tap. After the tank is charged close the inlet valve, disconnect the hose, and install on stage.
3. Make sure your bucket under the drain can hold more than the pressure tank.

 

[bobgaggle]

A common way to do it is a hudson sprayer (or similar) under the sink and plumbed into the faucet. Alternatively, if its a wall mounted sink, you can hide it behind the wall. Charge it up before the scene, open the valve and you've got running water. For a long duration or run time you can get a bigger air tight tank (maybe 5 gallon, or a 55 gallon drum if you want lots of water haha) pressurize that with a line from your air compressor.

 

[Colin]

+1 for hudson sprayer. A larger one can get you through a whole performance of "average" kitchen business. Might need to be pumped at intermission, might not. If it doesnt need to be potable then most theaters already have a hudson for painting. Just a few bucks for connecting parts you can use over and over.

 

[gafftapegreenia]

We recently used on on-demand water pump from an RV hooked to a drum of water. Otherwise for small amounts a Hudson sprayer is great, but nothing beats hooking the faucet directly to a spigot.

 

[TCJ]

Never done it, but the way I see it:

Option 1: Use a pressurized garden sprayer

Pros:

• Silent.
• Readily available at hardware stores

Cons:

• Provides only a short run-time
• Water pressure is not constant, and therefore the actor might have to periodically further twist the valve during somewhat long run-times to keep the sink's flow rate more-or-less constant.
  
• Must be well-sealed to retain pressure from after it's pumped up, to when the actor actually uses the sink.

Option 2: Toss a car battery and RV water pump in the cabinet under the sink

Pros:

• Supply tank does not need to be sealed/airtight -- therefore lots of freedom for what you choose as your tank.
  
• Very long run-times. (Electrically, in the order of hours! Hydraulically, limited only by your tank sizes.)
• Delivers constant water pressure.
• Pump start/stop is already built-in and fully-automatic.

Cons:

• Rather noisy. (Such pumps usually emit a "whirring" and "thumping" sound when the water valve is opened and the pump switches on.)
• Might need to find a specialty shop / RV supply shop to procure such a pump
• Procuring a car battery, and charger for it, adds expense. (Unless you already have these available to you?)

Option 3: Use a widely-available garden fountain submerged centrifugal pump

Pros:

• Very quiet, pretty much silent.
• Readily available at hardware stores.
  
• Supply tank does not need to be sealed/airtight -- therefore lots of freedom for what you choose as your tank... even just a plain-old 10-litre bucket is fine!
• Very long run-times. (Electrically, infinite! Hydraulically, limited only by your tank sizes.)
• Delivers constant water pressure.

Cons:

• Requires running an AC mains electrical cord to the prop.
  
• Requires some kind of switching system. (Easiest is probably to just run the pump from a dimmer pack on/off (non-dimming) channel, and have your lighting technician switch on the channel a few seconds before the actor uses the sink, and then switch the channel off again a few seconds after the actor is done with the sink. (These few seconds of running the pump with the sink valve closed won't hurt it. As long as it's a centrifugal pump.)

As for the drain, to avoid "splashing sounds" in a collection bucket, I'd plumb the sink to have a short length of garden hose (or similar) leading from its drain into the collection bucket. (You'll probably need a few "step-down" fittings to eventually get the wide-diameter drain down to something small enough for a rubber hose, but I don't imagine that should be a problem.)
Cut the rubber hose to a short but suitable length, such that it coils maybe half a turn or so along the bottom of the bucket. The drain water will then gently swirl in the bucket, instead of slamming the bottom head-on or splashing on the surface of the collected water.

 

[TCJ]

It just dawned on me:

With the electric pump methods (any of them), if your "supply tank" also serves as the "collection tank", then you never have to worry about water quantity and its running time! The prop can recirculate the same water indefinitely 'til the cows come home.

You could then get away with a very small amount of water in the bucket, minimizing the risk of splashing out when moving the prop. And it also reduces the mass (weight) of the prop a little too. ;-)

 

[gafftapegreenia]

It just dawned on me:

With the electric pump methods (any of them), if your "supply tank" also serves as the "collection tank", then you never have to worry about water quantity and its running time! The prop can recirculate the same water indefinitely 'til the cows come home.

You could then get away with a very small amount of water in the bucket, minimizing the risk of splashing out when moving the prop. And it also reduces the mass (weight) of the prop a little too. ;-)

That works for a fountain, yes, but not when your actor has to say, wash blood off their hands or shave on stage.

 

[TCJ]

I'm unfamiliar with the play, so I was not aware they're washing something down the sink. (I was thinking along the lines of one washing their hands or some object, without anything significant coming off, in reality. Especially if the scene calls for the water running a long time, such as the character forgetting to turn off the water for a while, etc. Anything that requires long run-times.)

(Though if the drain water will end up containing fake blood... imagine! Blood-red water coming out the tap could make for a good "haunted house" plot device! 'Tis the season for it... haha)