plumbing

[low_delta]

The first serious plumbing work I did was sweating copper pipes together. I did half my house and got no leaks. Leter on, I replaced the bathtub faucet at Cyn's place. That time, I only had one leak - but it took me three tries to fix it. This time (another bathtub faucet) was a royal pain in the ass. Sweating a pipe directly into a big brass valve is no fun. And I had trouble with every joint I did. Partway through, I came home for supper. When I went back, things went more smoothly. I was still 100% certain that I'd have at least one leak, though. I didn't - at least not in the copper part. The leak was below it, in the threaded steel pipes.

When I first did plumbing in copper, I thought it was much better than the archaic steel plumbing. Once I actually started working with the steel, I realized that it was actually much easier. Now I've learned why copper is a good thing. Because with copper, you can just cut out the section that leaks and replace it. I don't know how to do that with steel, except to unthread it all the way back to the leak.

Comments

[dwivian]

It's ugly -- you use a pipe cutter and remove the offending section. Then you thread each end of what remains for quite a bit, then put in a nipple (I think that's the right part -- dual in-threaded piece of pipe) as far as you can in one direction, then thread it up and bring it back until centered. This is preferable to solder because of the risk of heating the steel and causing interior rusting after the metal aneals.

So, we always used PVC or copper.....

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Do you mean thread it farther in than normal, then back it out and into the fitting on the other end?

[dwivian]

Yup. That's the only way to join it in without putting pressure on the pipe to fit. If you have some flex room in the pipe you can push it apart a bit and make a tight join, but it's no fun to wrangle, and you can get pinched quite nicely.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

But how do you thread it in "too far," so that you can back it out and still have it hold? That would mean you can't use standard tapered pipe threads? I think the reason it's leaking is because I made it just about as tight as I could and then ended up backing it out a tenth of a turn.

[dwivian]

Ah -- teflon wrap, joint tape, or compound is used to seal up the threads. And, you have to get a pipe with extended internal threads, or have an internal threader tool to extend what you can find.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I follow you 100%, or can even do what you're talking about on short notice. I think I'll look into a union.

Thanks a lot, Dwivian!

[dwivian]

If my advice and description is helping a union brother get work in the holiday season, I guess it's not totally screwed up... ::grin::

Plumbing! GRRRR!

[lister-of-smeg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don't like the galvanized iron stuff. Copper is much easier to work with. Sweat-soldering copper to brass isn't so bad, and copper to copper is easy once you get to know how to do it. I've done many a shower faucet assembly repair/replacement (yuk on the latter!) here in the apartments: It's not fun, but it's do-able.

The main thing about most plumbing is that you have to do it in awkward, uncomfortable positions usually.

With the galvanized iron, you either put a pressure patch on it or take it out and replace it. It's an either/or situation, no middle ground. And it's a bitch to take it out... I know...

Good luck in your plumbing experiences!

Re: Plumbing! GRRRR!

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

That's why I prefer to replace from the ground up, rather than repair.

[vlinker.livejournal.com]

some of the better plumbing supplies shops (not talking about lowes or home despot, either) will carry a repair kit that contains pipe nipple with one reverse thread on it and one standard thread......and a coupling with one reverse and one standard thread.......it makes it easy to do an inline repair.....regular plumbers use them to magically perform the high priced repair job.......

then again, if you have space and it's not a fuel or gas line, you can use a union when making the repair.....

then again, i'm lucky enough not to have any threaded steel pipe to deal with other than for gas..........

[emschin.livejournal.com]

Why is it called "sweating pipe together"? And exactlyn what is that process?

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

You put the pipe into the fitting, and heat it with a torch. When it's hot enough, you touch a rod of solder to it, and it melts and seeps into the joint.

I dont know why it is called that.