Argh! My plumbing always breaks on Friday evenings! - Whyyyyyyy.

[egnald]

It never fails, it's Friday at about 7PM and I hear a drip - drip - drip sound. This is the third time in the past year that one of my copper supply pipes has developed a pinhole (well maybe a little bigger than a pinhole) and I have found a stream/spray of water coming from the pipe. We live in a town of only about 20,000 people and although two or three of the local plumbers list "emergency plumbing" on their web pages, none have an "emergency plumbing" phone number to call. I made a hasty trip to our local home improvement store and grabbed a couple of epoxy based emergency repair kits made for plumbing. I just turned the water back on and my emergency patch seems to be holding for now. At least we don't have to go without water and HVAC (geothermal system) for the weekend until a plumber opens up shop on Monday morning. Three times - Three Times!!!! As Vinzzini (Wallace Michael Shawn) was so fond of saying "Inconceivable!".

Dave

 

[Gary Beasley]

Sounds like you need to learn to solder copper pipe fittings! Done correctly its not that hard to do.

 

[tomas]

Is the CU pipe touching a wooden beam or cross piece? I had one spring a leak where it went under a beam. It evidently rubbed and caused the leak after al most 30 years in place. Good luck.

 

[tomtedesco]

I have not had to do it yet but have ben told to check out "shark bite" fittings. No soldering needed.

 

[carlmorrell]

A million year ago, I lived on a farm without central heating in upstate NY. Copper pipes would freeze and break on a regular basis. With a propane torch, rosin, solder, some way to cut the pipe, and a coupler, it's a 10 minute job. Heat the crap out it and the solder will suck into the couple.

 

[egnald]

Hi all, well, it is fixed. Hopefully for good as the problematic line is now all Pex. I have a Mapp gas torch and all of the fluxes and solders and fittings and tools, but I just hate dealing with the ancient galvanized fittings that were used in the house. If it were just copper to copper - no problem. I already had the Pex and everything the guy needed except for a fitting that would go from Pex to the awful galvanized stuff.

It was kind of funny, the guy that showed up was the same guy that worked on the other end of this pipe about a year ago -- he even recalled that it was a Saturday morning then too.

On the Pex to Pex runs that I did myself I did use the SharkBite fittings. They are super easy and no crimping tools are required, but they are several magnitudes more expensive than their crimp on counterparts. If I was going to do a lot of it, buying the crimping stuff is definitely the way to go.

Hopefully this will hold until we move somewhere.

Dave

 

[monophoto]

You have my sympathy!

I hate plumbing, but it's still necessary to take on projects. I try to delay the project until I can start early in the morning, and always make sure that there is a full tank of gas in the car, because it's inevitable that something will go wrong necessitating multiple emergency dashes to the store before the job is done.

I learned that lesson many years ago, in our first home, when I made the mistake of attempting to fix a leaking water heater in the evening. Fortunately, there was a small hardware store only a few blocks away and when my wife called to let him know I was on my way, he agreed to keep the door open until I got there.

 

[leehljp]

Plumbing is not too bad, depending on where the leak is. I hate crawling under a house, or up in the attic in the summer, or winter if a freeze has caused the burst pipe. Spring and Fall, It is OK. . I prefer that to roofing.