Weeping reducer fitting. How to stop it. Help.

[Just_back_from_the_pub]

Got all the copper pipework connected up for my mates new bathroom. All totally watertight except for one bloody 22mm/15mm reducer which is still not quite managing to stay dry. It is screwed into a 22mm bent connector and its male thread is wrapped in PTFE as advised by the bloke in the plumbers' merchants.

Any advice on how this albeit tiny leak might be tackled? Any ideas as ever greatly appreciated.

 

[kevplumb]

put the ptfe on the olives and go and tell the bloke in the merchants he's talking out of he's a*se

 

[ChrisR]

Arfur mo, if it is a fitting screwed into another you do need tape. Lots of -it has to feel really tight.

 

[corgiman]

b o l lox wop some hemp and hawk white on it tee hee those were the days oooh yes

ChrisR is right needs some on the thread then yer be right as ninepence

 

[kevplumb]

cant use hemp now
takes tounge out of cheek

 

[felix]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "screwed into a 22mm bent connector" but kevplumb and ChrisR are both right. You do need a lot of tape to seal a screw-in joint. Don't be too surprized if it takes a dozen turns or more to get a tight fit. Compression joints are different and I've lost count of the number of times I've found either PTFE or jointing compound wasted on their threads. If you study a compression joint you'll see that there are two points which must be watertight:

1) The olive must seal against its tapered seat in the joint, NOT the nut. Tape over the olive will help here.

2) The olive must seal against the pipe. It's impossible to get tape into this point if the joint is already made. Tightening the nut might help. Soldering the olive to the pipe is another possibility but I've never tried it.

Actually, I've never had a leak from a NEW compression joint. Old ones, by which I mean salvaged ones, can have pitted olive seats which will never seal without help. If you can't see bright, clean metal in there, save yourself a load of trouble and chuck them in the bin. A new olive will always seal against a CLEAN pipe. Polish your pipe ends with wire wool in a circular direction, not lengthways. (This is the exact opposite of cleaning CD's!)

 

[PEDANTICVINDICTIVEMAN]

A box of chocolates normally sorts my missis when shes weepy.

 

[flyfto]

how did you get on with this weeping leak you had, i have the exact same problem

 

[Agile]

As it was two and a half years ago I expect he managed to cure the problem!

 

[flyfto]

whoops




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