Paging a real plumber

[harryagain]

Total bollix. I have hundreds of freeze ups. The pipe always splits axially after bulging. I have never seen a properly tightend commpression join pull out either.

[harryagain]

Full of bollix as per usual. If you want to be able to dissemble a pipe the correct fitting to use is a union.

Threaded joints rapidly expend the female side and cease to be water/gas tight if tightened a few times.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You claim to have seen everything that could possibly happen? Are you God

- or just NP?

Watch my lips. That's what happened. I don't care if you've not seen it.

Then you need to learn how to solder properly. The only leak I've ever had with capillary was where the fitting had a pin hole.

Oh - this one wasn't leaking before.

[Onetap]

Unlikely that a soldered joint would fail before the tube split IMHO, but you're assuming the joint had been properly made.

It's still possible if it hadn't been done correctly (wrong clearances, wrong solder, solder overheated & degraded, incompatible fittings, etc.,). There're just so many ways to c*ck it up.

[tony sayer]

In article , harryagain scribeth thus

So thats were all that insulation came from for the "'arry" insulated box house then, all nicked off poor pipes left to freeze;(...

[The Natural Philosopher]

especially with 'silver solder' :-)

[dennis]

Idiot, a tap connector is a union! The thread has nothing to do with the seal.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

It might also depend on how well the pipework was restrained - and where it started to freeze.

In this case the pipework was pretty free to move and the joint which popped an elbow closest to the outside door - which had a big gap at the bottom and top.

I've no idea how well it was made and what type of solder was used, etc. But it did look well tinned after it came apart.

[harryagain]

Bollix. They are virtually foolproof. Solder flux and heat. The only real danger is underheating and failing to clean the copper properly.. & even then a leak is the likely outcome.

[harryagain]

A tap connector is not a union shit-fer-brains. Don't you know the difference between parallel and taper threads?

[dennis]

unions are parallel and so are tap connectors, don't you know anything about what you post about?

[harryagain]

Unions (where threaded) have taper threads. The mating surfaces have either a soft joint or are metal and conical. Here you are shit-fer-brains. Read the second line.

[F Murtz]

Which applies to the pipe thread, not the union coupling thread. this would not apply to soldered unions.

[F Murtz]

OOPS in case we get pedantic, the taper is in connection with the threads that connect the pipe to union.

[dennis]

Don't be stupid, if the thread were tapered you couldn't use a soft mating surface to make the seal. Go and learn something instead of spouting more cr@p.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Just been with my brother who lives in the N of Scotland and asked him if he'd ever seen this - since frozen pipes are going to be more common there than here. And yes - he's had exactly that. The plumber who fixed it didn't express surprise or mention how lucky he was to only have to pay for such a simple repair. So it would be safe to assume it is common enough.

So it would seem there are several 'experts' on here who are anything but.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Since a soft-soldered end-feed join is stronger than the copper pipe, I can't see any point making it stronger still.

(If you pull on one to destruction, it's the copper pipe which stretches and breaks - the join doesn't break.)

[Onetap]

Much as I hate to agree with anything Dennis says, it's a taper seat, Harry, not taper thread.

The union threads are parallel, but the pipe threads by which the 2 parts of the union are fixed to the pipe are usually BSP taper.

Some unions have flat faces and require a washer to seal.

Some (Navy pattern) have a spherical bronze seat and don't need a washer.

[Onetap]

Virtually foolproof when you've done a few. A DIYer making a first-ever attempt with whatever material are to hand is likely to c*ck it up.

You think so? Well, underheating probably might not allow the solder to penetrate the joint.

But there's overheating as well. Use of wire wool. Wrong solder (lead, electronic resin-cored, body solder, etc.,), wrong flux, no flux, imperial pipes and metric fittings, metric tubes and imperial fittings, wrong size fittings, pipe swaged out the wrong size, flux not cleaned off or flux residues not flushed out, etc.,

[Onetap]

Lots of other types of unions, though.