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Gluing copper pipes

Those solderless epoxy glue sold at HD any good for connection of hot and cold water copper pipes good for new permanent installation not quick fix? Anyone with experience?

Reply to
Jack
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I used epoxy on two cold water joints. When I wanted to use it 6 months later after the first use, it had gone bad. I wouldn't buy it again for that reason; too expensive for two joints. However, it was several years ago, and no leaks yet.

Reply to
Toller

What's preventing you from using a standard solder joint? I'm always a bit leery of new products just cause who knows how they'll work in 10-20 years. Soldering has been pretty well proven. Cheers, cc

Reply to
James "Cubby" Culbertson

Cause the pipe was right up against wood and it seemed like an appropriate solution. The epoxy in laminated FG hasn't failed in the 50 years it has been in use; why should this?

Reply to
Toller

Hi, Then try it and let us know. Right up against wood? You can use sheet metal as flame shield while soldering.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

take a piece of ceramic tile and slide it behind to protect the wood

Reply to
JGolan

I could think of a few reasons of using the epoxy if it really works:

1 Where the water couldn't be turn off completely so solder is useless for guys like me. Sometimes the white bread trick works sometimes it doesn't. This product at Home Depot suppose to set up under water so a bad shut off valve won't be an issue.

  1. If you have a large pipe and the little propane torch couldn't get it hot enough to solder.

3 I had an isolation union where the gasket was too close to the fitting and the heat from the torch melted it even after wrapping it with a wet towel. Bummer. Also you don't have to remove the seals/washers from the shutoff valves before you solder.

  1. I'm under the crawl space doing a whole house copper re-pipe. Some places where there isn't much room to play around, the flame and dripping solder is just an inch or two from my face or parts of my body. I got burn a few days ago by touching a hot tee with my arm - so easy to do if you're crawling around hot pipes.

I still prefer solder because I don't know the long term issues about the glue so hence my original post. So many of those new products just don't work especially when you see it in the infomercials. This new product would be so nice if it has the same reliability like the PVC glue. No PVC glue failures after 30 years from my landscape piping! It outlasted my galvanized pipes under my house.

Reply to
Jack

why?

Off hand I would worry about toxicity, movement underprolonged heat and mechanical failure from differential rates of expansion. I also note that if it worked well with minor problems the industry would have changed to it years ago. Torches are a safety hazard.

Reply to
nothermark

If its right against wood, (as in going into a wall) you solder the entire section and push it in place. Then do your final solder job away from wood, or use a union.

If its just against a floor joist, cut off a few inches and make the new piece longer.

Of course there are asbestos pads and tin to prevent burning wood.

Mark

Reply to
maradcliff

There are commercial products available for that, too, that supposedly work better than bread.

As long as the product does what it claims... :-)

Best solution to that problem is a better torch. MAPP is a huge improvement over propane.

Your other points are well taken, though.

Reply to
Doug Miller

I bought some of this stuff for a difficult to reach spot.

My impression of it is that for quantity use solder is much cheaper hence the industry hasn't moved.

Plus, like PVC pipe, it takes away much of the 'value add' a plumber brings for people who don't like working around flame, having stuff have a pinhole leak, and having to work around flame again.

Supposedly it can be used for potable water and is approved for it in some localities and is generally approved for sprinkler pipe. With copper prices what they are lately I can't imagine who is using copper for that, however. When copper was cheaper it probably allowed a contractor to use less expensive labor to install sprinker who might otherwise have been prone to accidentally burning down buildings or scratching their heads with a lit torch.

Paul

Reply to
P. Thompson

If you are talking about the fiberglass used in boats, it was almost all polyester resin, not epoxy, until recently. Even now, most of them are still using polyester.

The biggest problem with using epoxy for plumbing is that if it does develop a leak, it's completely unrepairable. You can't take the joint apart and re-glue it. Solder is repairable.

Pipes against wood get soldered all the time. Slip a sheet of metal behind, and even dampen the wood with a little trigger-spray bottle of water if you want to be double safe.

Reply to
Mys Terry

Totally different concept. Even assuming the resin used to make a boat was epoxy (most are not). the boat hull is depending on the molecules cross linking into a strong solid. For water pipe you are looking at bonding two materials. Bonding stregth is an entirely different property.

Reply to
nothermark

I am not a plumber. I really don't like plumbing, but I do what I have to.

Several years ago, maybe ten years or so I had to replace some pipes. Small job. The guy at the hardware store recommended an epoxy. I think it was called CopperBond. I used it and it worked fine. This was on a cold water line and it's still good. It's supposed to work on hot too, but I never used it for that.

You still have to have everything clean and dry, but you have a few minutes to move things around if you need to. Anybody who knows what they are doing would probably do better with solder, but I don't know what I'm doing and the epoxy worked well for me. After ten or so years, I'd call it permanent.

Tom

Reply to
Tom Duller

And the boat analogy is not a very good one for another reason too. Just about every major boat manufacturer has had hull problems at one time or another related to gelcoat blisters, despite the process being done under factory conditions far more perfect than a home pipe repair. Those problems didn't surface until years later.

Reply to
trader4

Used copper epoxy some 21 years ago when I ran a new line to an external hose bib. It is still leak free.

Reply to
Ned

I would upgrade to PEX, its cheap[ so no one will steal it. resists freezing and if it freezes it just expands a little. no harm done. when things warm up it goes back to normal.

i had a mapp gas torch, and when the tank ran out the new one didnt appear as hot.

wikipedia soved that they quit making real mapp gas. the new mapp is propane ehanced with extra volatiles. i had a bunch of copper fittings to do so I bought a air acetelyne torch it works well but cost 300 bucks....

Reply to
bob haller

I've used them with some success.

If carefully done they should be as strong a solder.

They might even be better than some of the new lead free stuff, I'm not sure.

The one great drawback is if you need to remove it later. It's easy to reheat solder and pull it off. I'm not sure how you get glue to release, it may just be impossible.

Reply to
TimR

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