On Sun, 20 Mar 2005 21:01:05 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:

I'm trying to decide whether this would be a good time to learn how to
solder copper pipes. Here's the scenario:

Point your forefingers at each other, similar to the way they'd end up if
they were stuck into one of those Chinese handcuffs kids get at birthday
parties. Now, move them apart about a foot. They represent two 3/4" pipes
facing each other, on the basement ceiling. Right now, that gap between them
is occupied by a water pressure regulator I need to replace. The regulator
has female fittings molded into its housing, and the pipes have male
fittings. The pipes continue UNINTERRUPTED for 10 feet on either side, so
I'm guessing the pipes were not rotated into the regulator. Rather, I think
the regulator's female fittings may be threaded in such a way that rotating
the whole regulator tightens both sides at once.

Or: the male pipe fittings, which are separate pieces from the pipes
themselves, were cranked into place, and then those fittings were welded to
the pipes.

Based on what I see, anything that would need to be soldered is plenty far
away from anything heat sensitive, like beams, wires, etc.

My question (which requires psychic powers to answer):

On a "trickiness for beginners" scale of 1 (easy) to 10 (check your flood
insurance), where does it sound like this job falls? A 3x margin of error is
acceptable for all guesses, and horror stories are more than welcome. Bring
it on!


you can "sweat a joint"! It's not too hard. Go to Home Depot and get a
roll of solder, a wire brush tool to scratch the end of the pipe or a
piece of grit cloth to rub the end of the pipe. Stick the wire brush
inside the end of your fitting to rough it up also. Then apply the
"flux" to both surfaces to be joined. Next, uncoil about 2 or 3 inches
of solder from the roll...just straighten out a piece about three
inches long. It don't have to be exactly three inches...just close.
Make sure you have blown out the line and there is no water in the
pipe within 50 feet of the spot where you are soldering...figure out
where the water line comes into the house...if an intelligent plumber
put it in you will have a valve in the line you can open up to drain
the line...or you could just open the spigot on the front of your
house and drain the water out of the line...after you have cut the
water off at your meter box or well. Now go back to that joint, light
your Bernzomatic torch and heat the joint for ten or fifteen seconds
and then just quickly touch that three inch segment of solder to the
seam in that joint you just heated up...you will see that solder just
quickly dissolve and absorb up into that joint! You have just "sweated
a joint"! If you don't get all the water out of the pipe you can heat
and heat until you actually burn the pipe all the way through and the
joint just won't absorb the solder.

Bill
(weekend plumber)