by Bill McCaslin
Sweating
copper is a pain in the neck for most home owners. But its worth it!
You can do things with copper impossible by any other means. In old
office buildings I've taken 1 1/2 in. malleable copper tubing, run
fifty foot coils through a rolling mill so it's less than the thickness
of the 3/8 to 7/16 floor lathing. I've run it under hand inlayed floors
fit for a palace, insulated it with "Sockz cloth" at a dollar an inch,
so heat wouldn't crack or separate the inlays, reformed sized and
broached the ends to fit standard 3/4 in copper fittings and used a
reducing fitting to 1/2 so someone in a wheelchair could have a toilet
where he wanted it. A drain was handy but no water.
Keep all your repair copper
and bronze fittings in a Tupper type plastic box with some old chopped
up newspaper. If your stuff is dirty and corroded, in half a gallon of
boiling hot water put one quart of white distilled vinegar, throw about
a pound of your fittings and return to a boil, then simultaneously add
1/4 cup of Arm & Hammer Sodium Bicarbonate and 1/4 cup of Salt.
This is going to boil like crazy so best to do it in a large bucket.
Using a paint stick stir like mad! add more Sodium Bicarbonate and salt
checking the color of your fittings. Once they are clean rinse with
clean water dry in shop towels and lay out to sun dry. Whatever you do,
if you have cleaned any threaded copper fittings rub the threads (screw
in - screw out) with some steel wool "0" is a good choice.
When you begin your project,
draw it out exactly, make sure you have more "L", "T", hoppers and "45°
L" and "geegaw" fittings than required. Precut as much of the rigid
tubing as you can and assemble those parts of it first. I assure you it
is much more pleasant to sit at a picnic table drinking an icy cold
Budweiser sweating copper like a jeweller making a ring.
"...and yes Ma'm... I
would like another Budweiser, thank you! and thanks, your brownies are
fantastic! Hummmm better to labor so than it is to labor long unseen,
misunderstood and not appreciated under the stinking cold wet
foundation of someone's house... where only God knows what has leaked
out.
So, you already know the
first rule of sweating copper.
-
Clean your fittings
-
Pre-Sweat when you can.
Now what does it mean to
pre-sweat. It means immediately after you've cleaned your fittings
either old or new, you drop them, except for all the threaded ones of
course, into a ripe solder pot
. To know when to drop, you rake the top of the solder pot, there
should be a film of rosin on top. Gaze at the mirror for a few seconds,
if it is wet with rosin and does not discolor in 5 seconds but
discolors within 20 seconds you're ready. Drop in your parts, stir with
due diligence and kick on the afterburner for more heat. Keep adding
resin as the mirror clouds. Dig down into the lead and stir the parts
bring them to the surface to meet the resin, observe the mirror every
15 seconds. You want to go against the grain here by using Rosin ( or
Resin) instead of acid flux. Don't forget to stir. In a pinch you can
get Rosin at the pharmacy. Next thing after about five minutes of
increased very high heat you want to pull all these puppies out of this
very hot pot and with considerable care violently shake off all the
excess solder. This is best done in a wire mesh stainless steel basket.
It is very important that the fittings are covered with a thin layer of
solder. If they have globs and stick together, you need to turn up the
heat and do it again. Please be careful around a pot of hot metals.
Please shake hot solder neither upon your person or your clothing. You
have been warned.
"...and yes Ma'm... I
would like another
Budweiser, thank you!
and thanks, your
brownies are just
fantastic!" ...
In the design of a copper
water system you should make a low point (drain) where the water goes
into the heater that's the key. Somewhere close by there should be H
& C Drains which are physically the absolute lowest points in your
entire copper plumbing system. You should create vents at the highest
points in your system, you may create additional vents in long runs
which might not drain well without air. In my Library behind " The
Letters of Horace Walpole" there are two little 1/2 in. gate valves
that vent both H & C to the air, facilitating the draining process.
Their risers go to the roof so accidental actions do not result in
water in the house. Drains and vents help you greatly when you have to
repair or modify a copper installation. Do consider too, making close
union fittings on valves. Always use gate valves which aren't likely to
wear out. Gate valves should be either open or closed and nothing
in-between. Do not use a Gate valve to control the flow of water. If
you keep a spare unit, when a Gate valve begins to leak you can unscrew
the union fittings and replace that puppy in five minutes. No solder no
sweat! All I've got to say about washer valves is that I don't like
them. In my opinion valves should not be used to moderate the flow of
water, that's what faucets are for.
How to Sweat copper. Clean
the ends of rigid copper with a stainless steel wool rubdown. Either
paint or dip the surface in a pudding or liquid resin flux put a cold
torch (propane) to the largest piece close to but not on top of the
place you want to join do not heat a previously joined fitting. When
hot wet it with lead. wasting no time clean it with steel wool "#0" is
good for this.
Take a pre-tinned part in a
pair of slip-joints, align them as close as you can. Heat both pieces
by switching quickly one to the other. When you see all the lead melted
continue to heat for 15 seconds, then gently join the pieces. They
should go together like Romeo and Juliet! Once joined, continue to heat
for 15 seconds. Now take a piece of bar solder and continuing the heat
rub this against the joint. When the joint will not accept solder
you're done. Never under any circumstances cool a sweat copper joint
with a wet rag or with water. Don't move anything until the solder has
set otherwise you'll likely have a leak.
In less than ideal
circumstances when you can not control the flow of leaking water you'll
not sweat a darn thing. I've used the skin off KFC original recipe, KFC
biscuits, white bread, or toilet tissue to plug a pipe so I could sweat
the job. Bread is the best as it readily breaks down when water
pressure is applied. Before you apply pressure be sure you remove or
bypass all water filters including faucet strainers. Once the water has
run sufficiently to clear out anything that might be in the pipes,
return your filters to normal and put the strainers back in.
Support fittings are
available which will rigidly suspend copper plumbing 4 inches from the
wall when copper is exposed as with heating and radiators or in
institutional plumbing where there are service corridors and inspection
ways. These fittings facilitate the modification or repair of copper
lines since they greatly reduce the incidence of damage to paint,
woodwork or wallboards due to accidental heating.
Whether you're building a new
home, renovating or just fixin' up, you should seriously consider
copper. Copper will supply clean water, it won't corrode or rot, is
easy to repair if installed properly and is more resistant to freezing
than PVC. Copper is malleable and can be formed into complicated shapes
when the job requires. Copper will do things impossible with PVC or
Iron.
Advice for Mr. Fix-It. if
you're 30 and building your home with Iron pipe, just remember in most
parts of the States, in about 35 years you'll probably have to re-tube
the house. That means when you're 65, do you really want to take on
that job and if not, do you want to pay for it? With copper you'll
never have to re-tube.
There has been a lot of
exposure about lead in drinking water plumbing. Proper application of
solder to copper does not result in a lead problem. The key is this,
wet the joint but don't make it drip. Be easy with your hand. -
From: "Bill-McCaslin"
Nice site! Hi Good
site, but I disagree with one of your statements: "With copper you'll
never have to re-tube. "
This just isn't true. In my experience (as a plumber in the UK),
untouched copper pipework will generally leak within 15 years of
installation. This is most often caused by flux residues on or near
soldered joints, but in all pipework the copper gradually wears away
and a leak can occur anywhere.
The degree and type wear differs, of course, between cold supplies and,
for example, wet central heating pipes. In the former the minerals
passing through the pipe acts abrasively, and in the latter the
repeated expansion and contraction causes work hardening of the copper
and also stresses the joints.
Another factor is that few installations not lie untouched for 15 years
- additional runs and styling changes in basins and such like will
require joints between new and old pipework. If the old pipe is very
old then it is invariably very thin, and when nearing its retirement it
doesn't always withstand the forces involved in making a joint.
Just thought you'd like to know :) Kind regards Tim 29 Mar 2005
More from Bill on Sweating Copper
I know where you are coming from. Most
copper plumbing is sweated with acid flux which leaves a corrosive
residue both in the solder and on the surface. Even if you clean the
joints with bicarbonate of soda, you still do not get all of the acid
and, yes those joints will fail. That is why I recommend the use of
Rosin or Resin flux.
On the other matter of the erosion of pipes
internally, this is generally not a problem Stateside as we have very
high standards regarding the contents of the Municipal water sources.
But, in rural or unincorporated areas which do not maintain a competent
Water Control Board, when the water source is not managed by a public
utility or is a private well, and you have no way to control the
mineral content or the PH, (relative acidity) then the problems you
describe are exactly precise regardless of the flux used. -- "Bill
McCaslin"
Pre-Sweating you are
recommending 80/20 lead solder that is illegal in most states except
the places where there so stupid from lead brain damage. dude!!! -- mark
plantxinfo 19/02/10
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Bill McCaslin:-
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