Plumbing – What specific fitting do I need to connect a 1/4“ copper refrigerator water tube to a 3/4” steel water line that’s already in use

interiorplumbingrefrigeratorwater

I recently bought a new refrigerator (Samsung RF263BEAESR) and am trying to connect it to my house's water supply line (under the kitchen sink). The prior owner of the house ran a copper line from the sink area to the general location of the fridge but neither end was hooked up and our prior refrigerator didn't have an ice maker.

I carefully reviewed the instruction manual for the new fridge but Samsung only provides instructions for applying a saddle valve on copper pipes. This won't work because my house has steel pipes that aren't easily accessible (besides, I'm not a fan of saddle valves to beginwith).

Here's a picture of the current water supply valves under the kitchen sink:

WaterSupplyValve

I'm hoping that I could replace this valve with something that will support a single 3/4" threaded steel input and have multiple outlets (one going to the sink faucet — threaded 1/2" I think — and another going to the copper compression fitting). Do this approach make these? Is this a bad idea? Does the refrigerator line need to be on a completely separate connection to the house water?

Best Answer

I think kitchen sinks are 3/8" (but I can never remember). So you'll want a 3/8" female, 1/4" male, 3/8" male tee. You should be able to find one at the local big box, or hardware store.

Something like this

enter image description here

  1. Shut off the water using the shutoff valve.
  2. Remove the existing supply line.
  3. Attach the tee where the supply line used to be.
  4. Connect the sink supply to the 3/8" male outlet on the tee.
  5. Connect the refrigerator supply to the 1/4" outlet on the tee.

NOTE: Use your preferred pipe dope method (tape or goop), however, since it's a brass fitting dope should not be required.

Related Topic