 | Easy plumbing question - soldering |
|
|
Question: Found a tiny leak in a soldered copper T fitting at a friend's house. It only drips about once a minute but it's a bad location, downstairs bathroom above a drywalled ceiling. I've cutout a 6x6 opening in the ceiling to reveal the T fitting. What's the best way to repair this? I'm ok at soldering - have done a few major plumbing jobs in my own house with no leaks yet. Should I just try to re-solder the joint that's leaking first? Or, should I just bite the bullet and cut out the T joint completely and re-assemble a new one with couplers, etc? Space is really tight so I'll need to open up the ceiling more and do some drywall when I'm done, but the less work I have to do on this, the better. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Answer: -You likely won't be able to re-solder it. Water in the fitting plus a dirty copper joint. If there is any doubt at all about the safety of using a torch in the confined space, consider using compression fittings. If you can't find a compression TEE, make up an assembly of sweated TEE and pipe and use compression unions to install. See if you'll be able to shift the existing pipes enuf to make the connections. -This is a major PITA (as you've no doubt already figured). The fitting cannot simply be heated up to resolder it. It must be removed, cleaned, and reinstalled. But usually you can't pull the pipes out of it, so you'll have to cut at least one pipe, maybe two. (A compact pipe cutter is handy here.) Use "stopless" couplings to fix the cut pipes. Bite the bullet and cut away a larger area of drywall so you can easily reach everything -- it's no harder to repair a 3'x3' hole than a 1'x1' one.
|
 |
|
| |
Submit Your Question
Home