Trying to replace water pressure regulator

Start with the nuts. I can't imagine the copper will not unscrew from copper. Worst case, you can unsolder the copper pipe fittings and replace them with new.

If you can wait a bit for the job, the valves can be found cheaper on ebay.

Okay. I'll look there too.

You should call a plumber.

That would deprive us of a month or more of amusement as micky tries to actually repair something in his home. I do have some sympathy for him as he deals with nominal sizes that vary between black iron, rigid copper, soft copper and various plastic offerings plus the inevitable sexual problems.

I hadn't thougbht of that.

Sure there's a lot to learn, but how will I learn if I don't try?

Maybe if I can't do it myself, I'll call a plumber.

If you get an identical valve, it should be pretty simple, as long as there is enough room and movement to unscrew the fittings (in the right order).

Stomach ache today, feel queasy.

tomorrow I'll empty the wardrobe and I should have enough room. Will have to scrape the corrosion off of it even to see even what brand it is, let alone what model.

Do you think they'll still sell the same valve after 45 years? Maybe there will be a good conversion chart or dimensions chart.

How much money in terms of parts will you waste learning? How many more of these repairs do you expect to do in your life?

I'm kidding here. I need water and I'll definitely call a plumber if I can't do it myself.

Probably nothing. Most of the learning is reading and asking questions online, and the rest is that it will take me longer the first time than it would if I were to do it a second time. In fact, if the pressure regulator costs me $150, the plumber might charge 300. Plus of course his charge for labor which is 115 for the first 30 minutes and 45 for each 15 minutes after that. So that's 205 to 385 for labor. 500 to 700 total. I asked my neighbor how much they had paid for the same job but he didn't know. His mother may be the one who paid, or he didn't want to say**, or he forgot.

I do have to buy a bigger pipe wwrench, maybe even 2.

You might be interested in the waterpump pliers. I have some smaller ones that I bought, but the big ones I found on top of a trash barrel at an auto repair shop. The pivot had broken , it was in 2 pieces, and he'd thrown it away. I found a screw and nut and presto, a good set of waterpump pliers. Never looked the price up before but I see they sell for about $25.

This one, only every 45 years. But it's okay. By the third time, I don't enjoy it much anymore. By then a given task is work, not fun.

Made some progress (cleaned out the wardrobe in front of the pipe and removed its back.)

Very corroded but scraping off, I don't see the name of a maker, just small print, no model number. Plus it's only 5 1/16" long, shorter than anything sold online. Partly it's short because it has no fittings at the end, just female threads inside.

There is no possibility of unscrewing because the copper pipes have threads soldered on which are screwed right into the regulator. No nuts involved.

IIUC, I'm supposed to cut the pipe a couple inches both above and below the regulator. Then I can use any regulator. (Somehow I'm more scared to cut the pipes than I would be to unscrew something.)

But I'm pretty confused which one to buy**.

And I'm confused how to connect to the pipes. When the first plumbers did it, they could just screw the pipes into the regulator, since they were not right next to the wall until the last steps. But now I can't do that.

Now I think I might be able to reuse the ends of the pipe that I cut off, make the connecting pipes shorter and then use a Sharkbite connector to connect the stub and the pipe for input, and a Sharkbite "slip coupling" at the top. It slides deep onto the pipe and then is backed out to mate with the other pipe.

It's only a couple inches from a cinder block wall, but I still should be able to solder on to the imput pipe a threaded connector, right. I've soldered copper pipe several times before -- I have solder, torch, and flux -- but not right next to a wall.

BTW, looks like I may not need a pipe wrench after all. Polymer seat? Should I prefer that? It's the same price, but I don't know if it's better or worse.

If it helps, I had the 'toilet from hell'. I was sick and tired of 'handymen' on Next door virtually screaming flapper when you could hear it flowing and releasing through the shark bite valve. We had no way to cut the pipe or solder it back together, so got a plummer. In addition to replacing the toilet with a much better Toto, the plumber's extra costs were 600$ to cut out the old pipe after decontructing the oak plank wall then putting the planks back together.

The flapper had nothing to do with it.

Is the input completely drained? If there is still water in it you have a heat sink that will be hard to overcome with a propane torch.

Probably just means that it's approved by female members of the PPF, the Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Union. You can trust them.

Check with your plumbing inspectors office or local code for approved regulator requirements.

There might be some movement available after separating the union from either end, and maybe removing some pipe hangers., Or, you could cut the threaded fitting into the end, then un-solder the remains of the threaded fitting. Then screw the replacement threaded fitting onto the regulator, then solder that to the pipe end.

A metal shield, with a wet towel behind it to protect the wall from heat.

The union is easy to screw onto the regulator after soldering the union to the pipe and screwing the other end onto the male thread already on the pipe.

The "union" is a dis-assemble-able joint. When indtalling water heaters or softeners or water meters - and even main shut-off valves I like to use unions - makes replacement the NEXT time a breeze.

NPT Female is national pipe thread female - solder plus NPT means it has a "socket" you can solder a pipe into ore you can thrad a NPT pipe fitting into it

Okay, but more info to follow.

Okay.

Very helpful.

Aha.

I'm making progress. Pretty much wasted 2 days doing nothing... It seems I am more afraid to cut the main water pipe than I was to cut off the valve at two of the toilets, even though a) there is no water to leak out anymore, b) if I do create a leak with a bad repair, it would have been worse in a 2nd floor bathroom where it would drip into the first floor and the basement too, compared to a leak in the basment 15 feet from the sump pump, and which already happened a week ago.

And I also signed up for a plumbing forum and 40 hours later still waiting for approval. When I entered my own email etc the Captcha never came back; Registering with Facebook didn't work (as it usually doesn't for the last several months), and registering with Google seemed to work but they never send me an approval email and I still can't log in.

But with time, I've resolved some stuff and realized if I cut out the old one I might be able to wire brush it and get a model number.

But I can't find my little or big tubing cutter. So off to Home Depot. That was good.

Bought parts to use either solder joints or Sharkbite. Haven't quite made up my mind.

I've been debating whether to also put in a quarter turn cutoff valve, given that my gate valve works pretty well, but otoh, maybe it won't always. I spent a lot of time looking at parts on Amazon and Home Depot (Amazon is no cheaper on these things I think but they give better descriptions and more user comments.) In person I saw that in addition to a sharkbite cutoff valve, they sell a slipjoint cut-off valve, so I can accomplish both things with one part.

I had looked at reviews for several regulators and a constant complaint was that only one nut etc. was included. And you coudl see the effect in the stock at the store. Some of them had no nuts because people whose package only had one nut felt entitled to take one from another box. I couldn't find them for sale separately. But I realize that you're most likely going to firmly connect one end and the connec the other end with the union, as Clare explained. So that's why only one is included. One guy seemed to understand this, sort of, he said "One might be enough for ssome installations but not for mine."

Spent 300 dollars or so, so I finally decided to get emailed receipt too. It turned out it's just an image of the paper receipt. I thought it would be more formatted. But that's okay. Also the attachement is just named eReceipt.pdf, not HomeDepotReceipt, liks it should be named, so I could find it more easily months from now. My oil delivery company just calls their attachments "ticket" even though I wrote them about this and other flaws in their system a year ago.

Polymer seat seems to be less common, which is why it's noted, and sometimes called a soft seat and I forget the advantage but probably doesn't apply to me since I'm average and it's uncommon.