Sunday afternoon saddle valve….I know. It sounds exotic.

My friend Matt is having a new refrigerator delivered this week — with a sweet ice and water dispenser in the door. Man, I love those. It’s like milking a water cow — if your fridge were a cow and water was milk.

But the fridge is a good 15 feet away from the water line, through three sets of cabinets and behind a stove.

So we got out the drill and went to work this weekend.

Before:

From the fridge spot, after:

Behind the Drawers:

Behind the oven:

Through the lazy susan cabinet

And into the water line:

Most saddle valves you can buy at big box stores are self-puncturing. But the one Matt received with his new fridge wasn’t. So we had to drill straight into his water line.

The saddle valve directions were HORRIBLE and the photo wasn’t much help. We couldn’t get the valve to sit flush, had extra pieces and spent a couple hours worrying about the best way to put it on.

And of course, we didn’t want to install it incorrectly — potentially causing a nonstop leak below the water cut-off. We asked his contractor neighbor, who in turn, asked the plumbing neighbor. They couldn’t figure it out. So we drove over the big box hardware store and asked the licensed plumber. He couldn’t figure it out, either.

So we made our best guess, lined it up and tightened it on. I haven’t heard that their kitchen is flooded, which means we did it perfectly. Next time, I think we would start with a self-puncturing one, though.