Soldering / Sweating copper pipe with some water in the line

[Steve Clardy]

John,

Which borg were you talking about? I tried the local Lowes and HD and neither had them. I got some funny looks when I asked for them. The one guy actually tried to tell me that you put bread in the pipe to prevent them from banging, after that I was in disbelief.

Any other ideas of places that have them, even an online source would be great.

Lol. Bread to keep the pipes from banging.
Gotta remember that one

[Bob Winkler]

This may be a good alternative:

http://www.plumbingsupply.com/waters...soldering.html

Bob

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I've restored several ancient homes. The damn plumbing is NEVER layed in correctly and the valves always leak. The result is that when I have to work existing lines there is always a trickle.

I have used those melting blisters as well as the flexible rof on a plug. They are great when you can get 'em in. When I can't I heat a long section of pipe upstream with a torch to steam off the water and work fast.

If you can use Acetlyne or MAPP with a boosted oxygen flow it'll happen faster.

[Brian Parker]

Cliff where were you able to find those "melting blisters" at?

[Dave Fifield]

I push a couple of feet of 1/4" clear plastic tubing into the end of the copper pipe and syphon out the water until it stops, then make the joint quickly. I've never had to resort to wax or bread plugs yet - I don't like the idea of the potential clogging this could lead to.

Dave F.

[Dale Fulenchek]

Had a situation yesterday where the water would not completely cut off. Knew about the old bread plug but the leak was such that it would not block it off. Read your post about blowing the line out and got my little compressor, opened the bath tub valve and was able to get it dry enough to sweat the fitting off, blew again and got the extension on and one more time for putting the cap on.

It was an interesting dance but worked like a charm.

Thanks again.

Every time I have to do it, I just open a valve somewhere opposite where I am and use the shop vac with the hose connected to the exhaust to blow all the water out. After a minute or so of blowing and then a little heat, the pipe will be bone dry.

[Bill Huber]

My dad was a plumber and I used to help him when I was a kid.

There are 2 ways he did it, one was to blow the line out like has been stated and the other was with dry ice.
Put the dry ice the pipe and tape it on, wait a few min. and you are ready to go.

I have seen him use the dry ice on pipes where the water was not even shut off.

[Wade Lippman]

There is glue on the market that says it will work on wet pipes. Never had occasion to use it

[Curt Harms]

Nice thing about Shark Bites. It doesn't matter if there's drips.

[Kevin L. Pauba]

I've seen them at Menards for a few bucks a package. I think there are 2 or 3 in a pack. You can buy a lot of bread for the price of those goodies and still have a boatload left for some sammiches when the job is done!

They remind me of the "Golden Nugget" of chicken grease that used to come in the Mrs. Grass chicken noodle soup years ago.

Kyle in K'zoo

Now that's an idea. Plug the line with a "Golden Nugget". When you're done soldering, just heat up some of the water behind the nugget. When the nugget melts you can have your cup ready for some hot soup when you finish the job.

Brilliant idea, Kyle!