Hello all,
I have two separate leaks. One is inside one is outside. The inside one is in a toilet cistern where the ball valve screws to the water inlet on a pla stic fitting. It was repaired previously with l-sx compound but is leaking again. The outside one is a brass T piece in an waterline.
Would an l-sx saturated bandage over each leak solve the problem? If so wha t should I use as the 'gauze'?
snipped-for-privacy@newsguy.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:
You need to undo the joints and make them properly - the ball-valve should have a fibre washer in it. You can't fix leaks by putting stuff around them. You need to describe of show a picture of the tee so that we can advise.
IMHO LS-X is not a pipe sealant. It's admittedly handy on waste fittings, flush pipes into loos and under taps and odd things like that. But it is about the lowest on the list or "best things to seal a high pressure fresh water pipe with". Others may disagree.
Boss white/Hawk (depending on potable or not) would qualify as a reasonable sealant as would a number of Loctite products.
But in this case you are probably overlooking the correct solution of try a new washer first - assuming you mean the thread of the cistern valve to the pipe fitting - this is a tap joint and should have a fibre washer in it. Try changing the fibre washer.
The nut should not be done up too tight - finger tight and a "bit" with a spanner should suffice. The fibre washer will expand when wet.
If you have some totally different arrangement - a picture would be useful :)
You might also need to dissolve hard water scale off first to clean up the two sides of the joint, and use a new fibre washer.
On the loo one personally, I'd get a replacement valve made of that apparently now rare material, metal. I've had to do this as no mater how much messing about we did, it usually leaked a bit after some months. the material was just too soft to make agood seal before the thead was mangled. brian
Fibre washers did not help with the plastic to metal issue I had. If you are getting a new valve, make sure its the right sort, ie high or low pressure feed. Brian
Yes - me too.
Pegler make all brass traditional ballcocks.
Fluidmaster have a pro range that whilst plastic, the valve thread is brass - I have one of these and it is excellent.
Agreed.
I find the biggest problem with the copper/plastic joint on ball valves is caused by them not being perfectly aligned. Flexible tap connector sorts this nicely.
I had a similar problem with a copper/plastic mating where the original pipework had been "forced" into position and the new plastic/copper interface would not fit squarely placing a lot of stress on the plastic nut whilst trying to tighten it. My solution was to cut the pipe to put in a service valve, then loosely fit all the parts and then tighten the plastic/copper interface first.
If there is an in-line service valve the compression fitting closest to the system can be slackened off to allow more play between the pipe and plastic fitting to allow a more reliable connection.
My other advice is to always buy a new kitchen sink trap before trying to fix the drip from the old one :) Once distorted the old trap will always drip, irrespective of how much gunge you throw at it.
,,,and remember - on most items the thread is not the part that makes the seal - it is the face in the caseof the ball valve, or a olive in the case of a compression fitting.
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