Any tips on working with copper pipe? I need to do a whole house of plumbing for myself.
Any tips on working with copper pipe? I need to do a whole house of plumbing for myself.
Any tips on working with copper pipe? I need to do a whole house of plumbing for myself.
Yeah, don't use copper. Use expansion pex.
>pex
If exposed to UV will degrade into the water supply and has a far more limited lifespan.
If flipping or not living there long, yeah be a cheap prick. Otherwise you know what's right.
Check youtube to see how PTFE tape should go on, check codes etc for your region and build a plan from there. Mostly a list of shit you don't know yet, come back with that list and you'll get better answers.
>If exposed to UV will degrade into the water supply
This is very critical. When I built my house I ran pex over the roof thinking that would protect it from mice and within 10 years the sunlight had destroyed it.
Lmao you ran plastic in sunlight thinking it would be fine?
and for 10 years you poisoned your own water supply
>If exposed to UV will degrade into the water supply
why would your plumbing be exposed to sunlight?
if copper is exposed to water it corrodes?
Yup. Couple hundred thousand years out in the weather and that cooper will be done for. Just look at the statue of Liberty in New York. It has only been out on display since 1886 and its already covered in patina.
>The Statue of Liberty is clad in 2.4 mm thick sheets of copper.
Is the green color really patina from copper? I never knew that, really cool idea l
The statue was originally built in France. This is a photo, that was later colorized, of it assembled there before it was shipped over to the USA. This is what it would have looked like before the copper oxidized. In the early 1900s there was a plan to paint the statue back to its original color but it was canceled after people said it looked better in green.
Plumbing fun fact. The skin of the statue is copper but the frame was originally iron. Iron and copper don't play well together. Where they touch you get galvanic corrosion. The original solution was asbestos and shellac insulation between the metals. This eventually failed after several decades and the parts of the frame touching the copper started to corrode and swell. Plumbers have to do something similar. Where they need to join iron/steel pipes with copper/brass (when adding on to or partially replacing existing pipes, for example) they use something called a dielectric union. This is generally a special union with a non-reactive spacer between the two metals. Nylon for example. The fix for Lady Liberty needed to be structural (and she does have to deal with quite a bit of wind) and cost wasn't really a concern so they used 316L stainless steel coated with Teflon where the frame touches the skin.
Going leaveished copper would be pretty sick. Would take forever though and probably cost some insane amount but if they could do it and then give it a clearcoat or something i think people would warm up to the look.
Why doesnt America just take the statue of liberty to a scrapyard and sell it to pay off its debt if its made of copper?
dirty copper isn't worth as much
>If exposed to UV
OH frick, I have to get those unshielded mercury lamps I keep running in my walls out now!!!!
You are a moron. stop talking. copper is king.
If you dont want to solder you can rent a copper fitting crimper but itll be expensive with the fittings.
Solder fitting and torch will be way cheaper but more work.
Plan out where all the pipework will go and where youll put valves, expansion vessel, pump and what not. Idk how its done in America but I start with putting in all the clips to hold the pipwework then go through and put all the copper in cleaned and with fluxed. make sure its all neat and level the go through and solder it all once its all in place.
IDK what tips to really give other than have a valve anywhere the pipe is connecting to something like a tank or sink and watch some youtube videos.
unironically this
pex is rated for 50 years
boomers be gatekeeping with their muh solder only copper pipes
frick off boomers
yOU WILL HAVE PLENTY OF PRACTICE BY JUST DOING IT.
Crimp rings leak eventually
Always sodder
Do they crimp then sodder around the edge?
clean it
heat it
solder it
go to a box hardware and take a class, they'll literally teach you to do this
I'm in Aus, never heard of box hardware
>I'm in Aus
if you PrepHole plumbing in australia you're going to gaol
Good luck getting any of the building commissions to prosecute, they're weak as piss. They're more interested in charging the shit out of tradies for licences and accreditation.
Unless you frick your house nobody in this country gives a frick about enforcing anything code related. Insurance care more about that shit.
Zero to 60, in three seconds, huh? I'm not a plumber, but I'd at least recommend getting some junk copper tubing, even old shit that you have laying around and some connectors and fittings and PRACTICE soldering joints, horizontally and vertically. Get used to cleaning, tinning, proper heating and seeing how the solder flows.
deburr your ends/cuts.
Use K or L not M.
thats propress copper, the fittings and tool to use it are expensive as shit. the tool is huge
if you're doing a whole house, how are you doing it? attic, behind drywall, under the house?
copper is the best but it's a lot more work than pex which has become industry standard in america, it's flexible and the tool is small enough for any space you're gonna solder.
as long as it's not sitting in the sun it'll last the length of the house. and if it needs to be somewhere with UV there's insulation to cover it up.
but yeah you need to figure out wtf you're doing more and have a plan to get decent help
I won't be following American building practices, lol. Copper is mainly for hot water, so running copper pipe from the hot water system to a tap. Through exposed wall, doing bends, joining, soldering etc
> have a plan to get decent help
PrepHole to the rescue.
Pex isn’t that bad for you, but UV exposure is a definite no-no. It’s good in cold places. PVC is banned in a lot of places because it is actually bad for you—plasticizers being the main concern.
Even in full PEX-only jobs, many times the fittings are brass, as well as the taps, and other fixtures, including any manifolds (copper). The shower head and tap runs should also be copper. So, what I do is make local end assemblies from copper, then hook them up via PEX for the long-haul runs. Outside taps are PEX right to the fixture though.
Why not PVC piping?
why not cpvc?
you know how all the trolls love to shit on pex for microplastics, estrogens, plasticizers, and all that?
well, it's actually true with pvc pipe.
You probably want to go PEX, copper is hard to learn and easy to frick up.
Internal piping isn't exposed to UV so ignore the morons, and you can get a technician to install gas on a PEX system which had distinct advantages.
The hard part is planning the plumbing, hydrodynamics is a hard science and it's not just as simple as copying existing buildings.
Practical suggestion: hire a plumber to draw you the plans, muddle through the building yourself with pex
ignore the trolls and go with pex. it's dead easy and perfect for a 1-man job.
I don't live in the US, and have no idea what the hell pex is. I have a desire to learn the ways of the copper pipe. It has been used for decades, it lasts, it is proven, I love the color, I love that it is one of the most usable and well known of all the metals. I have no desire to use some cheap plastic shit some fricking salesman has come up with. Looking at American homes, the way you guys use those paper thin tar tiles on your roof instead of tin or tiles, the way you use cheap ply board instead of actual hardwood, steel or treated pine framing is ridiculous. I'm not using "pex"
>OP was the troll all along
7/10 troll thread; you had me for a bit.
Frick off
If enough people loved America volunteers could spit polish it in a few days for free
why doesnt copper pipe have threads on them... then youd only need to screw them together lol
Think about it some more
I thread copper nipples into brass fittings for a living fella.
When working with long pipe that has bends in it how are you going to turn the pipe to fit intoa thread? Think about that while your polishing your nipples.
If going DIY you have 2 good options. PEX or Press Fittings for copper. It is 10x easier and faster with less skill then using open flame. Once you have all the tools and copper, you pay still less than a normal hiring job would cost. You also gain everything you need to expand, repair it yourself.
I don't like that rubber washer in a pressed copper pipe. That will need to be replaced every few years like a tap washer and it will be behind a wall. Is there a way to heat press it like melting the copper pipes together? I don't like the idea of just soldering the edges either.
>Is there a way to heat press it like melting the copper pipes together
go ahead and tig weld all your piping together. No fittings needed, no o-rings, no plastic. Truly the patrician choice
Have you got much experience with purchasing a good welder? What is your opinion of this set up? Price is in Aud
Nta
For that money you can get a nice esab or fronius tig machine instead of chinkshit
Are 3 in 1 mig tig and stick machines any good? I don't enough welding to buy one of each
the tig function on those is usually DC only, so can't do aluminum.
You don't need all three electrical processes for hobby use. Most users are better off with a portable 120/240v or a 240v MIG (not FCAW but you can run FCAW wire in a MIG without gas). CO2 is cheapest shielding gas and a cylinder of CO2 holds more than one of MIG mix because CO2 stores as a liquid.
Then (or instead of MIG as it's more useful) get an oxy-acetylene torch which is much more versatile, portable and requires no electric power. You can cut using propane from a BBQ cylinder (which are threaded for CGA-510 aka POL thread to match acetylene regulators). Modern fuel gas regulator soft parts are gasically omnisexual and work with LP, acetylene, and propylene etc. Use appropriate cutting tips. Heating tips don't care. Acetylene is for gas welding. LP etc are for cutting and brazing (brazing should get much more love).
I find it odd that so many moderns unafraid to grill a steak fear gas welding or imagine it difficult. There are MANY great Jootube videos showing explicitly how to do it. You can solder, braze, melt, cut, harden, anneal, bend and more with a torch. No one electric machine does that and despite my collection of industrial welders I often reach for my torch. israeliteeler torches do finer work than conventional TIG. The little sets used by HVAC peeps are a fine way to start but buy used US made so you get cylinders you know you can exchange for refill. Some offshore mystery meat cylinders aren't DOT marked.
you need pure helium and fill tube with nitrogen to tig weld copper.
the press fit is press fit aka crimped in with the pipe the o-ring is secondary
Why is the o-ring needed at all? It will eventually wear out, copper is supposed to last forever, putting a rubber ring inside it is stupid.
what's up with western plumbing?
is it because of winter temp difference?
my home in asia was build 30 years a go
it is literal magic black box since it's just pvc pipe burried deel inside the concrete
never had any problem tho
It's a great metal with desirable properties
If you're hell bent on using copper, you need to practice brazing a few joints first to see if it's something you're capable of doing.
Why are people b***hing in the comments saying he used too much flux? Did he or not?
it's kind of a lot of flux - that much is just going to drip on the floor - they sell flux with solder in it that is easier