Definitely me. I've done it on and off over the years and usually resorted to yorkshires to help me get through it.
Anyway, yesterday I needed to solder 6 fittings so about 15 joints which is a lot for me and also many were too close to the joists and cables for comfort. It took ages to get the water out of the pipes (this was a cold feed from the tank in the loft). The existing gate valves put in only 3 years ago were definitely letting a drip of water by and worse, I found out the bath mixer valve was letting hot water into the cold water circuit! So I also turned off the HW gate valve (also put in 3 years ago) and it too was letting some water past. In the end I drained the CW tank.
Anyway back to the soldering. I did some testing on the bench first with vertical 22mm pipes and a simple coupler and it went ok. I felt confident. So I went back on my knees to where the action is under the floorboards and started soldering (after cleaning/fluxing etc). I'm using mapp gas and it seemed a very long time before the solder would melt and when it did it was in blobs that just sat at the entrance of where they're supposed to be sucked in. Eventually I seemed to get some capilliary action but there was still a right mess of solder around the pipe. Of course, when I turned on the water one of the b*stards leaked so left it until today.
Well today, I had a theory that the pipes weren't 100% dry so I spent longer drying them (vacuum and then boiling and finally tissue to check). Nevertheless, I could swear it was still longer/harder to get the solder to flow in that position than on the bench. Often I'd touch the pipe with the solder and it seemed to comer off like I was drawing on the side of the pipe with a pencil whereas on the bench the solder would flow like a stream and then be sucked into the fitting. The only difference that I can see is that only the bench the sample pipe was vertical and in situ was horizontal - I definitely also found it hard to solder the underside the pipes.
Using more Yorkshires than yesterday (just a single end feed but added extra solder to the yorkshires) I finally got them leak free but my god do they look like a dog's breakfast!
Tomorrow I have to tee into a 28mm (main hot feed) and I'm not looking forward to it. That will definitely be end feed too.
Any tips appreciated but if I've made a pro laugh at how we DIYers struggle (at least this one) then that's cool too.
Anyway, yesterday I needed to solder 6 fittings so about 15 joints which is a lot for me and also many were too close to the joists and cables for comfort. It took ages to get the water out of the pipes (this was a cold feed from the tank in the loft). The existing gate valves put in only 3 years ago were definitely letting a drip of water by and worse, I found out the bath mixer valve was letting hot water into the cold water circuit! So I also turned off the HW gate valve (also put in 3 years ago) and it too was letting some water past. In the end I drained the CW tank.
Anyway back to the soldering. I did some testing on the bench first with vertical 22mm pipes and a simple coupler and it went ok. I felt confident. So I went back on my knees to where the action is under the floorboards and started soldering (after cleaning/fluxing etc). I'm using mapp gas and it seemed a very long time before the solder would melt and when it did it was in blobs that just sat at the entrance of where they're supposed to be sucked in. Eventually I seemed to get some capilliary action but there was still a right mess of solder around the pipe. Of course, when I turned on the water one of the b*stards leaked so left it until today.
Well today, I had a theory that the pipes weren't 100% dry so I spent longer drying them (vacuum and then boiling and finally tissue to check). Nevertheless, I could swear it was still longer/harder to get the solder to flow in that position than on the bench. Often I'd touch the pipe with the solder and it seemed to comer off like I was drawing on the side of the pipe with a pencil whereas on the bench the solder would flow like a stream and then be sucked into the fitting. The only difference that I can see is that only the bench the sample pipe was vertical and in situ was horizontal - I definitely also found it hard to solder the underside the pipes.
Using more Yorkshires than yesterday (just a single end feed but added extra solder to the yorkshires) I finally got them leak free but my god do they look like a dog's breakfast!
Tomorrow I have to tee into a 28mm (main hot feed) and I'm not looking forward to it. That will definitely be end feed too.
Any tips appreciated but if I've made a pro laugh at how we DIYers struggle (at least this one) then that's cool too.
