What to do if water in pipe when soldering?

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Speedbump

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MPM, just hook the compressor to the hot side after unhooking the pipes from the home. Then put your hose on the cold water side using a hose bibb and blow away. The air will push the water right out of the cold water side until it gets to the bottom of the cold input droppipe. Forget the bottom drain.

bob...
 

Solsacre

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You can pick up a CO2 canister.

No electricity... instant air to blow out water heaters.

Strait out of the basment, blow-it-out at 149 PSI. (just before the t&p goes)

Recoment not used the hosebibs to blow it out as you don't want waterheater junk in your pipes.

If the drain plugs you can change it out with a 3/4" ball valve... if it's already pluged you won't loose much water.

................it's often blown out for me....

MORE POWER

dances-with-pumps
 

dahrius

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Soldering Upward

Someone in one of the earlier posts mentioned doing a pipe where the solder must flow upward into the joint. If I heat the joint well enough and put the solder at the line where the joint is will the solder flow upward into the joint or am I just fighting gravity?
 

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Jadnashua

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If the section of interest is clean and fluxed properly, capillary action will suck solder into the joint regardless of the orientation.

I think I read this on the Watts site, but not sure...the strength of a properly made joint where the solder goes all the way throughout the joint was around 5500 pounds to tear it apart; while if it was only say 1/3 or so, it dropped to 1100#. Obviously, you're better off getting full coverage, and in either case, it must be a continuous ring of solder up into the joint, but even if it doesn't make it all the way in, it should never come apart.
 
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Wet_Boots

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If you start soldering a vertical coupling from the top, the solder will likely make its own way into the bottom half of the coupling (but you still run the solder all the way around the joint at the bottom)
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Herk

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I wouldn't want to purchase a house from a HO who did his own soldering.

I've used a lot of methods to remove water from water heaters and ours tend to have about five gallons of lime in the bottom. The inexpensive pumps for drill motors work fine, but as soon as the water runs out the pump burns up.

Compressed air usually works - with a full-port gate valve replacing the boiler drain. (Take the handle off to turn the valve into place.) Sometimes, you can hook the hose to the cold inlet and get most of it. A good-sized carry-air tank usually holds just enough to remove the water quickly.

As a last resort, a shop vac that's not too heavy to carry, say 8 gallons, will remove the water - eight gallons at a time.
 
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