On Wed, 26 Apr 2006 16:30:40 -0700, Eric R Snow wrote:
On 26 Apr 2006 20:48:00 GMT, Dave Hinz wrote:

You can buy fancy spring-loaded space age water hammer arrestors, or you
can make 'em out of 18" of 3/4" pipe and a cap. The latter works great
for my house.

I told a
plumber friend about this cheap fix compared to the ones at the store
and he said that the ones I made will eventually become waterlogged
and the only fix would be to drain them. In his years being a plumber
he had seen this many times.

Good to keep in mind, but hasn't happened in the 8 or 10 years so far,
so I'm not going to lose sleep over it. Easy enough to fix, as you say.
Maybe it's because I seem to drain the house about once a year to add or
change something that can't be zoned off.

However, the ones I made stopped the
water hammer and lasted at least 6 years before I moved. And the ones
in my shop have been working for 7 or 8 years so I'm not sure it
always happens.

Thing is, a professional plumber doesn't want callbacks. Not all
homeowners are fine with "Yeah, it'll do that every few years, so just
drain the pipe and you'll be fine for more years". They just don't want
the pipes to knock, they don't want to have to think about why they do
or don't. Kinda like going in for a brake job - you get pads and
they turn the rotors. The rotors are flat and not grooved (or even
lightly grooved) but they turn 'em anyway. Why? They don't want the
Soccer Mom coming back to complain, so they'll do un-necessary work (at
her expense) to keep her from bothering them.

It's all about expectations. for 50 bucks, or whatever a set of those
would cost, I'll make my own.