Welcome to the Air-Gap vs. Regular Faucet Video Page. WaterFilters.NET offers a broad selection of drinking water faucets. There is a great deal of confusion about what an air-gap faucet is, and why it's used in certain situations. The video on this page will explain the difference between an air-gap and a regular drinking water faucet. After viewing it, you will be able to identify an air-gap faucet, and understand what purpose it serves. Then you can visit our
faucet page and choose one for your situation and taste.
Air-Gap vs. Regular Faucet Video Transcript
Hi everyone, Aquaman here with
Water Wisdom sponsored by WaterFilters.NET. Today's video we're going to focus on the difference between an air-gap and a non air-gap regular faucet. What is the difference? You'll see that there are a couple of different types of faucets on our website, and reverse osmosis systems like the one you see right here with me today, come with both air-gap faucets and, in some cases, non air-gap faucets. So how do you know what you have, and what you need when you are replacing yours? So, I'm going to zoom in here on these faucets and show you what we're talking about.
What we have here are two faucets, one is a non air-gap regular, that's this faucet with this blue line attached to it, and over here we have an air-gap faucet. Now hopefully you can see this; I think I'm zoomed properly so you can. Obviously, the air-gap faucet has additional connections; these barbed nipples, as well as the threaded stem. Both of them have a threaded stem, but the air-gap faucet has two additional barbed nipples. So what are they for? Well, I'll show you that in just one second. The regular non air-gap faucet; the good water line, that's this blue line, comes in to the threaded stem. The threaded stem is where the good water goes regardless of the type of faucet. In this case, it's connected to this quick connect fitting, which is threaded onto this threaded stem. That's it, good water in, there's nothing else, no complications, ok.
But we're going to remove this from this faucet, and attach it to the air-gap faucet, and show you how an air-gap faucet is connected. So we'll start by getting this good water connection on, and then you have, with all RO systems, there is a drain line. That drain line is this line here, in this example this black line is our drain line. It's coming from the RO system, and is sending junk brine water down the drain. But the air-gap serves as exactly that, a gap of air in case there's ever reverse suction through the system. So this line attaches to one of the barbed connections, and they go on very hard, so I'm not going to connect them all the way. If I were installing this for real obviously I would slide this up this entire barb. And then the other barb is the out line, so I have a pretend out drain line, and obviously the end of this line would then go to the drain. So you have good water in to the threaded stem, and then drain water in, and drain water out to the actual drain. Then if there's reverse suction, you won't suck crud out of your drain, you'll suck air from; you can see here there's a weep hole on this faucet. On some of them the weep hole is on top, in back, behind, on top, it can be in any location, but it's an air-gap to suck air if there's reverse suction.
This happens in rare circumstances, perhaps you're in a municipal neighborhood and the fire trucks pull up a block away to put out a fire, and they take 5000 gallons per minute out of the fire hydrant, there's a chance you're going to get reverse suction through your drain, and could, if not using an air-gap, suck some crud out of your drain, and thus contaminate your reverse osmosis system. So you have the air-gap faucet has three water lines attached on the underside, and the regular has only one. That’s the difference. I'm your host Aquaman, and thanks for watching.
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