Desolder with water in pipes, can it be done?

[mickeymouse]

So, heres my little story bit. I was soldering on a stop end on a 22mm pipe and forgot to hold it steady with something, so it starts sliding, not having anything to hand to stop it moving I thought I'd finish soldering it and see what happens. It slid very very nearly off the pipe maybe a 1-2mm to spare then stuck there, so I finished soldering it, and had a trail of silver pipe about the length of a stop end and a stop end sitting which appeared soldered. Gave it a couple of tugs, seemed stuck firm, Curious if it would stay there or not, I put a bucket by it and turned on the water. Doesn't move.

Anyways, then I think you can't leave it like that and try to desolder it. Now there is water in the pipes, it's really not going anywhere...

There is no easy way to drain this pipe and like a prat I cut it as short as I possibly could down to the very last mm (literally) when putting the stop end on. Now I can cut the pipe and desolder it that way but it will mean cutting a perfectly good section of pipe and adding in an unnecessary join.

Can it be done, desolder with water in pipes?

 

[petit_pablo]

Can it be done, desolder with water in pipes?

Doubt you will get it hot enough to sweat it off with water in the pipe. Why cant it be drained?

 

[Burnerman]

If you think about it, water boils at 100 deg C, and solder melts at a much higher temperature than this. So, if there is water in the pipe, it will remain at 100 deg until the water has boiled away.
You need to drain the pipe to sort this one, I'm afraid.
John

 

[adlplumbing]

its copper fitting put hole in end of it or break it using pair grips
but turn water off first lol

 

[Axel]

Drill a hole in the end of the stop end to let the water out (with pressure turned off!), once water is out then de-solder.

 

[mike1000]

no!

 

[mickeymouse]

Can it be done, desolder with water in pipes?

Doubt you will get it hot enough to sweat it off with water in the pipe. Why cant it be drained?

Just because it is at the end of a very long horizontal run (maybe 10 metres) with lots of turns which is fed from a pipe which rises up directly from the boiler and forks only to go off on another long horizontal run.

 

[MANDATE]

Am I missing something here? The stop end only has engagement of 2mm. Cut through stop end and release water, desolder the 2mm of remaining stop end and fit new stop end.
Even if pipe was cut, it would only need 2mm off, so whats the problem

 

[mickeymouse]

Am I missing something here? The stop end only has engagement of 2mm. Cut through stop end and release water, desolder the 2mm of remaining stop end and fit new stop end.
Even if pipe was cut, it would only need 2mm off, so whats the problem

The bit where I said I cut it as short as it possibly can be. I can't lose 2 more mm from the end of the pipe because it's cut exactly where it should be, down to less than 1mm and it's not going to be a stop end tomorrow, I just did that so I could switch the water back on.

I will cut/drill through the stop end like you and the others say. Thanks.

 

[mickeymouse]

This is a good time to examine an assumption though if anyone finds it, when I say it's cut exactly at the place it needs to be, it's because the cut lines up exactly where the farthest point you can push a pipe into a the t-piece (marked on outside of t-piece) will be, when I replace stop end with t-piece tomorrow.

But I've just assumed you need to push it up to that line, nobody said I should leave the stop end so I'm going to assume (again) that 2mm is not acceptable, what is acceptable engagement? Maybe you don't need the whole space available in the connector...

 

[dextrous]

I'm not sure what you're on about.

This thing about 2mm engagement sounds confusing to me - unless it's on about the thickness of the copper itself (the "x-dimension"?)

You need to engage a pipe fully into any fitting - for 22mm endfeed this is 12-15mm approx depending on the make.

 

[adlplumbing]

clean it of and use push fit bit more expensive but it do the job and you need to worry about it moving

 

[mickeymouse]

I'm not sure what you're on about

OK, if it makes no sense, here it is a different way:

There is a line on the outside of t-piece connectors, it is exactly at the place where if you push a bit of tube into the t-piece it will stop. Do you need to push a piece of tube into the connector this far, or if it's a bit too short can you just solder it up and it will be fine?

(And if you can, how much "contact" as a minimum do you need between connectors and pipes?)

 

[dextrous]

clean it of and use push fit bit more expensive but it do the job and you need to worry about it moving

I've never considered cleaning a dismantled soldered joint enough to use a speedfit afterwards. Can it really be done?

 

[dextrous]

I'm not sure what you're on about

OK, if it makes no sense, here it is a different way:

There is a line on the outside of t-piece connectors, it is exactly at the place where if you push a bit of tube into the t-piece it will stop. Do you need to push a piece of tube into the connector this far, or if it's a bit too short can you just solder it up and it will be fine?

You should really try to engage it to full depth (partly because otherwise solder has an easy route to flow into the pipe itself), but a mill or so short isn't too dramatic.