ABS Repair

[Steve B]

I have an ABS solar collector, I believe. It is black pipe, and runs through a series of short pieces and tees. One of the tees is leaking a bit where it was glued. It is just a very small drippy hole.

I want to patch this.

Do you think it would be better to:

Take my Dremel tool and drill out the small hole, put a screw or small piece of something solid in the hole and JBWeld it?

OR:

Wrap some type of mesh over the top and goop it up with ABS cement, and do about three layers, letting each dry?

This is in DIRECT Las Vegas sun. It is part of a solar collector for a pool, and pressure inside the filter indicates between 7 and 14 psi, depending on the state of the DE in the filter. The leak is nearly at the top of the branch, so I believe the pressure at that point (14' above ground .... 14 x .443) might be less than at the ground level filter.

What are your experiences with this? The short sections between the tees have the small lines coming off of them, and they are all one piece, so a cutout is impossible without losing that whole section.

I believe reaming it out and injecting JBWeld would be the best, but thought I'd ask here first in case anyone has any previous experiences/horror stories with this.

TIA

Steve

[marks542004]

For conventional plastic plumbing pipe if there is a small leak on a seam or a small crack I just goop the pipe adhesive onto it and let it set.

[Bob]

Are you sure it's ABS, and not something like Polyethylene. My supply house told me that ABS (Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene) was discontinued for plumbing purposes because of cracking and joint separation. If it is ABS, you should only use ABS cement (glue).

[SQLit]

ABS is not pressure tested to my knowledge. Find out what the material is and replace it. Chances are you in for several repairs soon. Nothing plastic, or wood stands before the desert sun for long. Grinding or fooling about with the material that is there will only lead to more repairs.

I have lived in Phoenix for the last 32 years.