The moral of this tale, before I tell it, is - make sure the water is shut off before you even TOUCH the pipes, never mind modify them.
Imagine this - a 22mm inlet pipe, connected to a T feeding 2 x 15mm; one of which went to the basin, which I'd already removed, capping the end. The other 15mm disappears into the wall, and I could see it had an end cap on it, buried in the wall space.
I needed to remove the redundant 15mm to make it easier to hang the new bathroom cabinets, so was chipping away at the hole in the wall to make it big enough to get pipe AND end cap back on my side of the wall (the other side had long since been tiled over), prior to cutting it away. Since everything was capped and soldered, I hadn't turned the water off.
Whilst moving the redundant 15mm to and fro slightly to see if the end cap would clear the masonry, it went.... slack.
Imagine my dismay to find that the 15mm joint on the tee was now weeping slightly. Holding the joint together with one hand, I reached for the roll of Duck Tape that I (thankfully) had brought along. Whilst trying to unroll some Duck Tape, and wind it around the 15mm branches to hold things together, things came further apart, and for around a second or so, the full force of 100 gallons of cistern water, at around 3 metres head, came out into the room. My second attempt with the Duck Tape was more successful, and held things in place long enough to let me shut off the water, drain it, and get the 22mm pipe cut back below the tee and capped.
HOWEVER;
What can you do with a broken solder joint, if not panic? Are there any quick fix kits that can be applied to hold them together? Is there any kind of waterproof adhesive tape that can be wrapped around the joint?
All suggestions gratefully received.
Once all the panic had died down, I got the chance to look at the failed joint, and I was surprised it had held so long - an end-feed solder fitting, it seemed to be lacking in a vital component - solder; it had a thin ring at the visible point where pipe meets fitting, but none of the solder seemed to have penetrated inside the joint.
Regards, Graham
Imagine this - a 22mm inlet pipe, connected to a T feeding 2 x 15mm; one of which went to the basin, which I'd already removed, capping the end. The other 15mm disappears into the wall, and I could see it had an end cap on it, buried in the wall space.
I needed to remove the redundant 15mm to make it easier to hang the new bathroom cabinets, so was chipping away at the hole in the wall to make it big enough to get pipe AND end cap back on my side of the wall (the other side had long since been tiled over), prior to cutting it away. Since everything was capped and soldered, I hadn't turned the water off.
Whilst moving the redundant 15mm to and fro slightly to see if the end cap would clear the masonry, it went.... slack.
Imagine my dismay to find that the 15mm joint on the tee was now weeping slightly. Holding the joint together with one hand, I reached for the roll of Duck Tape that I (thankfully) had brought along. Whilst trying to unroll some Duck Tape, and wind it around the 15mm branches to hold things together, things came further apart, and for around a second or so, the full force of 100 gallons of cistern water, at around 3 metres head, came out into the room. My second attempt with the Duck Tape was more successful, and held things in place long enough to let me shut off the water, drain it, and get the 22mm pipe cut back below the tee and capped.
HOWEVER;
What can you do with a broken solder joint, if not panic? Are there any quick fix kits that can be applied to hold them together? Is there any kind of waterproof adhesive tape that can be wrapped around the joint?
All suggestions gratefully received.
Once all the panic had died down, I got the chance to look at the failed joint, and I was surprised it had held so long - an end-feed solder fitting, it seemed to be lacking in a vital component - solder; it had a thin ring at the visible point where pipe meets fitting, but none of the solder seemed to have penetrated inside the joint.
Regards, Graham
