Difficulty factor? Sweating pipes

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4x15mph

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I am close to finishing a bathroom remodel and it is time to put in the vanity. the water supply lines for the sink are too short and need to be lengthened to come through the floor of the vanity.

I am tempted to pull off the old water supply valves (4"?) and sweat in a new piece of copper (12") followed by a new supply valve.

I have not soldered copper before and completed this type of work but the videos that I see on you tube make it seem very doable.

That said, is there a lot more to this than meets the eye and is it difficult to get it done right so that a needle pin leak does not show up?

I can not afford for this to leak since the vanity would be installed over my work and followed by subsequent, somewhat permanent changes (PVC trap glued and connected to sink, etc)

What do you think? I have had a plumber over 2 times already to make sure the toilet was done correctly (difficult flange replacement).
 

Jimbo

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PRACTICE. Go out to the garage with a box full of fittings and pieces of pipe. Follow tom sawyers advice....the outside of the pipe and inside of fitting must be squeaky clean. Then use good flux on both. I like tinning flux. Lots of folks prefer the water soluble like no corrode. Take your pick. The hottest part of the flame is the darker blue tip, about an inch from the mouth of the torch. keep that point moving around, mostly on the fitting. It needs to be hot to pull in the solder. The pipe will get hot. You should be hot enough in less than a minute on a 1/2" fitting. Too much heat burns the flux. Move the flame aside and touch the tip of the solder to the joint. If if flows nicely, about 3/4" of the solder and your done. If it doesn't flow, continue a little with the heat.

Since the water will now be turned off in the house, and you will be playing with fire! have some pails of water standing by! Too many plumbers have burned houses down!!!!!
 

hj

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quote; Too many plumbers have burned houses down!!!!!

Or at least they have been accused of doing it, even when they left the jobsite at 10 a.m. and the house didn't burn down until after all the other trades left at 4:30 p.m.
 

Gary Swart

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Just a tag on to Jimbo's answer. You can not solder a joint if there is any moisture present. Heated moisture turns to steam and that will prevent the copper for getting hot enough to flow. Point #2, heat the joint until the solder flows, do not melt the solder with the torch directly.
 

LLigetfa

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In case your solder job leaks, have a plan for how you will get all the water out of the line to redo it. When the licensed contractor replaced my rental water heater, it leaked after he left so don't sweat it (pun intended)... it can happen to the pros too.
 

4x15mph

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Excellent information and this is exactly what I needed to hear. I will start with some practice and then I will tackle this.

Thank you all for your responses
 

Dlarrivee

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In case your solder job leaks, have a plan for how you will get all the water out of the line to redo it. When the licensed contractor replaced my rental water heater, it leaked after he left so don't sweat it (pun intended)... it can happen to the pros too.

Seriously you hired someone and they left you with a leaking connection? wow...
 

LLigetfa

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Seriously you hired someone and they left you with a leaking connection? wow...
I didn't hire the installer per se, the water heater rental agency did. I called the installer back twice to fix deficiencies and eventaully fixed most of them myself.
I was not about to wait for the guy to come back, so I fixed the leak.
The helical flue baffle rattled like crazy. He didn't fix it, I fixed it.
The metal electrical cover plate rattled. He stripped the threads on the single screw that held it in place. I bent the cover a bit so that the edges touched before the screw bottomed out and put in a larger screw.
The cover for the burner rattled. I reshaped it to stop the rattle.
The gas valve handle is still on backwards as I won't mess with the gas line. If the handle is installed the right way around, it hits the tank and can't be shut off. Reversing the handle with the stops pointing outward allows it to be turned the opposite direction to shut it off but it has no stops for the full open or fully closed position. All he would have needed to do was to give the valve body another half turn but he just BS'd the wife as I was at work at the time.
The old water heater flue used an 8" hole through the wall. The rental uses a 2" PVC vent. He stuffed an old pair of blue jeans around it for insulation.

After the second callout, I went down to their shop and complained to his boss. The boss hands me a batt of fibreglass and tells me to fix it myself. As for the noise, he said "they are all like that, live with it". I got rid of all the rattles but it still has a sub-sonic rumble like a train locomotive idling. It's the worst POS water heater I ever saw.

I emailed the rental agency and complained. I got no reply. I emailed the maker of the water heater and got an email confirmation but no human ever replied.
 

4x15mph

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Update:

I used shark bite for the coupler and then I used a product by brasscraft for the stop valves. They don't require soldering and they just snap on. Wow - so far so good and I do know that this will not be the most popular approach from a plumber trade standpoint. They were more expensive but it seemed trivial on the little job that I was doing.

I do have a new problem that I will post separately
 
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