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melev

You could say the fishroom has been baptized

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14 Comments
by
melev
, 11-18-2010 at 12:19 PM (3095 Views)
Last night as I worked on the sheetrock of those two nefarious walls - OMG I still hate sheetrocking with a passion - I had to add two cut-off fittings to the cold and hot water pipes for the new sink. This went smoothly, after yet another trip to Home Depot because I can't read a box apparently. I bought what I was sure were correct only to get home and find I'd selected compression fittings when I needed were sweat fittings.

With those done, I could get the inner walls rocked, and around that time Wes showed up. For whatever reason, he reminded me to turn the water back on to the house, so I went to the street, opened up the water main cover and using a T-bar wrench, opened the valve. It was super windy and cold last night, and I thought I heard a whooshing sound. I figured it must be the leaves in the trees, but Wes noted that the hose bib on the wall of the house was open and water was rushing out. Oh yeah, I'd left that open to drain out the water pressure so the two pipes wouldn't weep water during the cut-off install. Still heard the whooshing. Wes headed into the garage while I was watching the meter's wheel spin way too fast. I heard him yell TURN IT OFF!!! as I was heading inside. He reached through the opening of the sheetrock and twisted the valve shut and stopped the geyser. The valve was pointed toward the door and entry hallway, so quite a bit of water amassed in that quick few minutes.



Other than that, all is well. The carpet is a bit damp again.

The two cut-offs are dripping (one more than the other), which apparently is my fault during the sweating process. It seems you can overheat those and in my zeal to make sure I used enough solder, I must have damaged the valves. One drips pretty quickly, so it was capped off last night to stop the bleeding. I may have to simply replace them again (maybe Bobby will do it for me), or I'll ignore it since a tiny drip from the valve is almost never going to be a deal breaker once hooked up to the faucet, sink and drain.

For those that know nothing about sweating copper, here's a simple overview: http://www.popularmechanics.com/home/skills/4213319

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Updated 11-20-2010 at 01:01 AM by melev

Categories
‎ Plumbing

Comments

  1. ray356's Avatar
    I hate sheetrocking too - you are making progress and thats what it is all about - keep your eyes on the prize. Thank you for allowing us all to follow along.
  2. Midnight's Avatar
    What, no pictures, of the geiser at least? I want my money back.
  3. Jnarowe's Avatar
    sheet-rocking bites for sure. Not only can you overheat the valves, but if you are in an older home, you could even pop a joint upstream if there are old-school solder joints. Happened to me and it wasn't pretty.
  4. NightShade's Avatar
    sheetrock is a pain. . . Only the pro's like it cause they are used to the work and make good money at it, lol.

    Next time that you are at home depot look at the shark bite fittings. http://www.homedepot.com/SharkBite-C...atalogId=10053 I know it's kinda a compression fitting but it's quick easy and no soldering. And if you upgrade again you can take everything apart and reuse all the fittings again. And since we all know that in about 10 years the garage is going to only be able to hold a little smart car cause you upgraded to a 2000 gallon tank it will save money in the long run.

    Also instead of sweating the valves directly to the pipe get a threaded valve and a threaded nipple then even if there eventually is a problem with the valve, especially since seals do wear out you can get a new one and change it with minimal downtime.

    if you do re-sweat a valve get a small wet rag and wrap it around the valve where the seals are it will help you keep from killing it. You can also do the same thing on old lines to stop the travel of heat through the copper.
  5. marks69's Avatar
    you can also pull the cartridge out of it first it your worried. most laundry taps are just a quick screw in. 30 seconds with a pipe wrench and your good to go. if you do heat it up that hot you'll burn off the flux and won't get good penatration.
    i switched to wirsbo flex pipe years ago because of that. i can plumb in a full bathroom in 15 minutes without a leak.
  6. Alaska_Phil's Avatar
    Ouch, sheet rock and flooding. You're really showing your dedication to the hobby Marc.

    Shark Bite fittings are awesome! They're even being used in commecial buildings now and I've never heard of one failing. Pex pipe is also a wonderful thing.
  7. dread240's Avatar
    luckily the extent of my 'plumbing upgrade' needed for my new tank was a 1/4 OD line for the ro water to my storage container lol... otherwise I'm sure I would have made just as much of a mess
  8. Bobbywade's Avatar
    NO NO to shark bite fittings they should only be used for temp repair not perment replacment also they are not legal for perment use especaily in commical app I see those shark bite fittings fail all day long when used for long term. Also pex pipe what a poor excuse for plumbing thats even worse than shark bite fittings copper last 100x longer than pex I have to repair that crap all the time it gets hard and brittle after a couple of years. Just do your plumbing right and use copper dont cut corners!
  9. Alaska_Phil's Avatar
    we're in different climates Silver, Pex doesn't burst if it freezes.
    I've accidently tested my shark bites to 170 psi with no leaks. Sure you're not seeing the Gator bites? Those are cheap knock offs sold by Lowes.
  10. 2Quills's Avatar
    Reef Addicts and Carpet don't mix very well do they? Hey, at least you got the baptism out of the way lol.

    I agree about those shark bite fittings being for temporary or short term use. They do have O-rings in them that do wear out over time and would need to be replaced so they should never be used and closed up within a wall for permanent or long term use.

    Sometimes if you're sweating a valve and the valve gets too hot it will have a tendancy to melt the seals. A simple fix would be to unscrew the nut that holds the valve stem in place and pull out the valve. Replacing the seals should be as simple as swapping out the bushing and o-ring with new ones which you should be able to find at one of your local hardware stores. Or you could always replace the valves with new ones. I prefere compression valves, myself.
  11. Bobbywade's Avatar
    Pex will burst if subjected to freezing I've seen it all the time and yes I've seen shark bite brand fittings fail I'm a master plumber and electrician in the commercial trade and see this kind of stuff fail all the time there's nothing like the old school solid pipe to do it the right way
  12. Alaska_Phil's Avatar
    We use pex in hotels here in the arctic that are shut down and subjected to temperatures of -45F in the winter. They drain them as best they can, but there's always low spots that hold water. A copper system will need to be repaired every spring, pex survives. And it should only harden that quick if exposed to sunlight, if you've got sunlight in your walls, the plumbing is probably the least of your worries.
  13. NightShade's Avatar
    I have seen the shark bites and pex used in a commercial installation a lot. The buildings water pressure delivered by the city was strong enough to push water to the roof 11 stories up and still have plenty of pressure.

    About freezing, no matter what you have for pipe be it plastic, copper, steel or pex it will break when frozen and under pressure. I actually would prefer to have something with a little give rather than something rigid.

    But that is my opinion, I have used it in my normal course of a day before and had no problems, issues, or concerns. If I did have any questions about it at all I wouldn't recommend it. But it is just one alternative to sweat soldering, I have done it and saw a pro even end up with leaks.
  14. Blown76mav's Avatar
    I would love to see where the shark bite/gator bite's aren't legal for commercial use. They both have a 25 year warrenty. As a reef keeper you of all people should know copper pipes are bad. First thing I did was to remove the copper pipes and install pex, helps keep RO/DI a lot purer.