When I first ripped the floor out of my bathroom and realized that in the process I had both nicked a copper supply line and broken one of the PVC drain lines I thought, “Uh oh, now I have to do plumbing.” Yup, I was a bit intimidated and had more than a few worries about the potential for leaks once I had the floor back in. What if I did it wrong?
When I am facing something new that I don’t completely understand I read about it. Google “soldering copper” or “sweating copper” and you’ll find plenty of articles giving step by step instruction on how to solder copper water supply lines. My Black & Decker book on plumbing shows a guy in his neat flannel button-down tucked into a neat pair of jeans with a neat pair of work boots happily applying his torch to a copper joint. The articles tend to be either about how easy it really is to soldering copper pipe OR about how it’s a mix between art and science with warnings about where you could go wrong –making it seem difficult.
A good online tutorial can be found here:
http://www.rd.com/content/openContent.do?contentId=18276
I also have a Black & Decker book on plumbing that’s been helpful.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9781589232013&itm=2
OK, I have a whole library of Black & Decker books, but that’s another story.
So, anyway, right after I had finished tearing out most of my upstairs bathroom my friend Rick (contractor arts mentor) came over and we made the decision to tear up the floor and re-arrange the whole bathroom. Doing this got me past my mental block against tearing out old plumbing. I was now committed to learning about removing and reinstalling both copper supply lines and PVC waste pipes.
Rick showed me how to do a few of the copper joints then let me put some together. It’s actually quite easy – plan a route, cut your pipe, clean the pipe and the fitting, and dry fit the assembly, make adjustments as needed, then solder. Most times it’s easiest to remove the sub-assemblies, take them to your shop, clamp them in a workbench, and solder them there. The big plus is that you can orient the assemblies to make them easier to solder (hint – vertical pipes and fittings are harder than horizontal pipes and fittings). After a while you’ll also start to get a feel for nice places to make a break to put the sub assemblies together. For example, connecting two pieces of pipe with one 90 degree fitting is easy. You can clamp one piece of pipe in the workbench, attach the 90 and the second pipe, and fill both joints (places where the pipe is inserted into the fitting) in one shot. Plus, you don’t have to worry about angles with simple assemblies like these. (Hint – if you do have weird angles and assemblies you can mark them up with a permanent marker numbering each piece of pipe to get the pipes in the right place and the angles lined up correctly.) You can then bring the sub-assemblies back to where you are installing the plumbing and check the fit before soldering everything in place.
Routing the plumbing isn’t hard either. Hot on the left, cold on the right – run the pipes near joists and beams so you can secure them with pipe hangars, and with the supply lines, get them close to where they need to be. Don’t forget to make sure of your routing is below floor level and make sure you leave clearance for any drain pipes! Once the new supply lines are in place you’ll be connecting to the hardware with flexible fittings (with the exception of the tub) which leaves some room for improvisation!
The actual soldering of the joint isn’t so bad either. After cleaning both the inside of the fitting and the outside of the pipe apply flux to both surfaces. Make sure you get a good coating. Insert the pipe into the fitting and make sure it bottoms out. If you have several places you want to join then it’s easier to clean, flux, fit, then solder them all at once.
Un-spool about 12 inches of solder and kink the end at a 90 degree angle with about 2-3 inches sticking out. Strike up your torch and apply the interior bright blue flame to both the fitting and the pipe where it enters the pipe. Move the flame back and forth and try to heat the fitting evenly. The flux will start to sizzle. Touch the solder to the pipe. At first the solder may form a small bead, then the bead will run and some will disappear into the pipe (this is pretty cool to watch). Move the solder all the way around the fitting where the pipe enters the joint. Keep hit on the fitting during this process. The flux will draw the solder into the joint. Once you’ve been all the way around the joint and the solder starts dripping remove the solder and the heat and wipe around the fitting with a rag. This both forces more solder into the joint and cleans up the appearance of the joint (that’s the art part of the deal).
Some joints will look better than others. Some will have blobs of solder everywhere and on everything. Others will look textbook. My first few were Vincent Van Gogh with drips and lumps and rough spots. With some practice they were looking more like Rembrandt. Vertical fittings are still difficult to make look pretty, but they are functional.Rick came over this past weekend to check my progress and help out a bit. He thought I had things under control and headed home. On Saturday I wrapped up all of the supply lines and soldered temporary caps in place. With Lucia keeping an eye on things I turned the water supply to the bathroom back on. NO LEAKS! This was my first time sweating copper ever and I had no leaks. You can do it too.
The verdict? To start getting a feel for sweating copper is time consuming, but it’s not that hard and it’s a skill that’s well worth learning – especially if there is a lot of copper pipe in your house. It can probably save hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars in plumbing costs.
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