On Feb 6, 10:02*pm, "Ed Pawlowski" wrote:
?
"Larry W" wrote

He got everything installed and sweated but when he turned the water
on, it leaked at one of the threaded fittings. He looked at the
situation, realized he couldn't tighten the connection since
everything else was soldered in place, so he took the easy way out.

He grabbed the torch and sweated the threaded connection.

Is he looking at problems down the road?

I don't think he'll have any problems until the time comes to take it
apart, but I sure am curious as to how he cleaned and fluxed that joint
after it had been screwed together, and also how the flux reacted with
the pipe dope or pipe tape.

Sounds like he did none of that. *My guess is that he has solder holding
just at the lip, not inside the joint. *I doubt he'd have a catastrophic
failure, but certainly could stat dripping soon.

We have a winner here. In the situation as described, the threaded
connection should have had teflon tape or joint compound and it was
already
made up and not taken apart again. If those are present, it can't be
soldered
properly. And if they aren't present, there is still no way to
properly clean the
connection or get flux in there without taking it apart.

Aside from all that, let's assume you tried to do this from scratch.
First, you
couldn't clean it well to remove oxide because of the threads being
present.
Second, in a slip fitting, meant to be soldered, the solder is drawn
in by
wicking action and gets sucked into the space through the whole slip
fitting where the parts meet. With a threaded connection, at best it
the
solder would probably get in only a thread or two deep. Could it be
enough so that it forms a seal and the rest of the threaded connection
supplies the mechanical strentgh so that it works? Yes, but it isn't
the
right way to do things, particularly if it's a place behind a shower
where
access later could be a headache.