"SteveB" wrote in
:

EXT wrote:


"David L. Martel" wrote in message
m...
DC,

The water will remain in the boiler and hot water heater. That's
not a problem. You need to drain the water from the pipes because
water can make soldering impossible. Turn off the water at the
main valve and open a low faucet (outside bib faucet, maybe) and a
high faucet. Most of the water will drain out. Plan for some water
to spill out when you remove the old valve.

Dave M.

Sometimes it helps to add a wet/dry vacuum to the lowest point to get
some pockets of water that always seem to trickle down once you get
the pipe hot, only to cool it back down. I duct tape a piece of vinyl
tube to the vacuum hose crevice nozzle and then jamb fit and/or duct
tape it to the pipe or valve outlet. The clear vinyl tube allows one
to see if water is still being pulled from the pipe. Keep the high
level valve open to let the air in.

Then there's the trick of pushing a ball of bread into the pipe before
you start sweating. The bread seals the pipe long enough to finish the
sweating, then dissolves and gets flushed out.

I've never done this myself, so it's up to you to decide whether
you'll screw up some valve down the line. Just to be safe, cut off the
crusts. :-)


the trick of pushing a ball of bread into the pipe

I've seen this mentioned. Would never try it. I can think of places that
ball of bread will do no good immediately like going to the washing
machine with screens in the hoses or to a frig that has an inline water
filter.