Lines Twisted and incredibly slow Drip

[Mikept]

I replaced my 2 washing machine valves with a single type one. The vertical pipe the hot valve was on was never secured to or touched the wall so it used to bounce around when the machine shut off or on.

I secured the bottom of the pipe above the valve to the wall the but i had to bend/twist the pipe a little to get the bottom to touch the wall. The vertical pipe attaches to a horizontal pipe near the ceiling which is a few feet long but is a couple inches short of meeting the the wall, and to make it worse the other end attaches to a tee which is sweated at a slight angle downward of horizontal.

Now at the 3/4_1/2_3/4 tee theres a verry very slow drip. Its one of of the 3/4 sides. Theres torque on that tee now.


Can i just flux and heat the tee up with a torch to remelt the old solder and fix this or do i have to do more than that?

Edit: Drip dissapeared on its own.

 

[hj]

drip

Any drip is caused by a defect in the joint and it is usually a sign of a major deficiency in the solder job, regardless of how small the leak is. If it stopped by itself, it is because it corroded shut, but usually there will still be water seeping out and evaporating eventually leaving behind a mass of minerals to show that it is, or was, still leaking. Reheating and resoldering does nothing to correct the lack of a good solder joint inside the fitting, because the surfaces were contaminated as soon as water touched them and even if they were not, the flux cannot penetrate into the joint to clean the bad spots.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Gary Swart]

In other words, NO. A leaking joint has been contaminated and must be completely redone.

 

[Mikept]

In other words, NO. A leaking joint has been contaminated and must be completely redone.

I suppose i could

A Leave it alone and hope that if the leak ever does come back it will be a drip and not catastrophic?

B Replace the tee with a new shiny copper one.

C Replace the tee with a sharkbite and run pex off of the tee side getting rid of some of the copper because i want to.

J K Plumbers epoxy??


Problem is i dont know how to replace a tee that in the middle of a pipe??

 

[RioHyde]

I'd replace the tee. Shut down the water, drain, cut out the tee, replace with a new tee and a slip (repair) coupling. You're going to have to be sure to drain the line well so that no moisture remains. As long as the valve shuts off completely this shouldn't be too much of a problem. In addition, since you're saying you need the tubing to touch the wall in order to secure it, I'm assuming you're using a copper two hole strap. You shouldn't torque the tubing in order to secure it. Too much undue stress on the tubing. You need to reconsider what type of hanger you're using to secure the tubing. You could use a van (milford, bell type....numerous names) hanger, a sammy all thread and split ring or some other hanger so that your hanger meets the copper...not the other way around.

 

[Mikept]

Oh slip coupling(google)duh, there already is one of those to the left of the tee, need a new one. I could dry and practice my poor solder skillz or sharkbite it.

Rio the pipe wanted to hang out 3 or 4 inches from the wall, add a few more inches for the laundry valve and the bib would be farther out from the wall than the washing machine is.


How bad is the zurn pex? The lawsuit is about the fittings not the tube, right? Is using zurn pex instead of wirsbo any worse than using sharkbites instead of soldering?? (or crimping)