Installing a Never-MT for Maximum Soap Dispenser Optimization, Synergy, and Robustness

I just completed my first kitchen DIY, and it was only a few minutes ago but so far has NOT resulted in property damage, so, big score.

We got the okay to move stuff into most of the cabinets yesterday (we're leaving a few of them empty because they still need work in/around them) so I unpacked all of the dishes and pots and pans, and also WASHED DISHES IN THE KITCHEN SINK, which I never thought I would be so excited about. We've been using the laundry sink in the basement for the past month, and it was just... blech. Unpleasant. So I was actually really thrilled to use our beautimous new two-sided sink.

Now, I've mentioned the ladies of GardenWeb (I might be generalizing there, but yeah, they're mostly ladies) in a past I'm-stressed-out-about-the-kitchen post. There have been times when I've browsed those message boards and rolled my eyes at their dramas (glass house?), but there are also lots of good tips. That is where I learned about the Never-MT, which is a kit for a countertop soap dispenser that makes it so you don't have to futz with refilling the bottle. If you look really closely at the photo, you might notice that they've used the wrong "its" on their package, but let's forgive that and forge onward. 

Countertop soap dispensers come in either a top-filling variety, where you can pull off the pump and add soap from above, or the bottom-filling variety, where you have to clamber back into your sink cabinet and unscrew the bottle from below to refill it. Ours is a top-filling version, which is preferable, but this little doohickey does it one better. To install it, you do have to git all up in your cabinet (just this once) and unscrew the soap bottle from below. 

Then you take the pump off the dispenser and feed the Never-MT's plastic tube up through the hole. The toughest part is next, and that's jamming the plastic tube onto the other plastic tube attached to the pump. The kit tells you to soften the clear plastic tube with hot water for this step, and I found that very necessary. Also, my pump tube was covered in soap (dur), so I had to rinse that off really well and then hold both parts with dry paper towels to keep my hands from slipping. I eventually succeeded at getting an overlap somewhere near the suggested half inch. 

The kit comes with caps in four different sizes to fit whatever size soap bottle you have. This particular bottle is gross and we actually inherited it from the previous owner, who left it downstairs on the laundry sink. I will be purchasing a new one soon. It also just occurred to me that I could have just used the actual dispenser bottle on the right that the soap was already in. So way to go, me, for jumping that mental hurdle. 

Last step (for me anyway): Thread the remaining three caps onto the tube so you'll have them if you switch bottle sizes later, then stick the tube down into your soap bottle. Bam. The soap just chills out on the floor of your undersink cabinet, and you never have to mess with the undermounted bottle again, or guess at if you're filling the bottle enough from above. I plan on buying a big Amurican-sized bottle of soap at Costco and then forgetting about it for a year or so. The kit also gives you a Velcro strap that you can use to affix the bottle in place under the sink, but that didn't seem necessary to me. I'll update this if I later change my mind. I also left a towel wadded up in the cabinet underneath where the tubes meet, so if I didn't jam them together as securely as I thought and they come apart, I won't have a soggy mess. I'll double check tomorrow and then hopefully will feel confident enough to call it good.

So I guess I'm doing product endorsements now. The Never-MT is online here, and no, they do not have the most cutting edge web presence, but mine arrived in one week and no one has stolen my credit card info yet, so good enough. It's around $17 with shipping. Treat yo-self, or someone you know who has a countertop soap pump.

Thank you, obsessive ladies of GardenWeb!