U-Bend disaster; fess up or keep schtum?

First of all, congratulations on knowing how to cook pasta properly!

I can't see why a kettle full of boiling water would cause a U bend to come adrift. We frequently (twice a week) rinse pasta this way and my U bend (if you follow my drift) has remained in place for 15 years?

Duff job by a bloke if you ask me. Mind you I have a SWMBO and two teenaged daughters, so I'm rarely right.

Dave

Why should this be a problem? Any u-bend worthy of the name should eat pasta-wash without complaint at any temperature upto boiling.

Only you can say... I'd suggest a plumber, but that might be indiscrete. ;-)

R.

Yes, you are probably right! Bloody silly men and crap parts from

Keep quiet. There's no reason what you did should cause a problem.sinks are made to accept and deal with a lot of water.

Oh just ignore it. There's no point in trying to reason with a man in a tantrum :-)

Mary

This shouldn't happen and suggests that perhaps the components such as the waste are fitted together without allowing for expansion. Plastic can move quite a bit, and of the seals aren't good, can pop apart.

Probably best to tell him that it's leaking, but no need to mention your suspicion. That was just the final thing, but it could have happened at any time.

Suggest he goes and buys a packet of those blue things for ladies. The adverts say that you can swim and ride and lots of other things while using them, so fixing a sink whould be no problem at all. So it wouldn't.

Well of course I told him it was leaking, rolling eyes etc.

Blue? eh? Bung him a beer and a packet of nuts, isn't that the male equivalent?

Better option.

Give him the beer but keep hold of his nuts until he has completed the job. That way you will have his undivided attention. And maybe he will tighten it up properly this time!!

Isn't he lucky that you are cooking the tea anyway?

What sort of pasta ?

Dave

Nah, no way can I see that a kettle of boiling water would cause the trap to leak. Our sink often gets lots of hot water, right up to boiling, and that doesn't leak. In our case, more often it's an over-enthusiastic use of the waste disposal unit that blocks the pipes, but that's another story altogether.....

Now you can *really* piss him off and display some superior knowledge. Ask him did he use solvent weld waste pipes and if so is he *positive* that the waste pipe is compatible with solvent weld joints? In essence, there are two types of waste pipe, one is compatible with solvent weld joints, one isn't, so won't seal and secure the joints properly. Somehow, the idea of a kettle of boiling water causing the leak suggests to me that this could be the problem, BICBW.

If he's used the more common (in the DIY sector) compession or screw type fittings, ask him if he's certain that all the compression rubbers were fitted. Also, some of these fittings have a large plastic washer that sits between the screw cap and the compression rubber ring, to aid the sealing process. Maybe he missed one of these out.

can you enlighten the uninitiated as to how we tell which is which from our stock of partly used lengths in our garages?

Solvent welding requires either ABS or PVC pipes and fittings.

Push fit typically uses other materials like polypropylene, and that won't weld with the solvent used for the others.

If you have a length of pipe, it will normally have the material named on the outside. You can also feel the difference if you have both. Polypropylene has a slightly oily feel to it.

Depends on her grip. I was thinking along those lines ...

A mole wrench might come in handy.

Mary

Careful, Suz. It's sometimes better to flutter one's eyelashes and feign ignorance or he might say, "You do it then since you know so much!"

On the other hand, to make sure of a good job it MIGHT be better for you to do it.

I've sometimes casually remarked that I'll get a man in to right something, that always gets a positive response. I think he feels that his manhood is threatened.

Mary

Bloody wimmin...can't even operate a kitchen sink without screwing it up!

:)

sponix

You can also tell because push-fit pipe fits a solvent-weld fitting like a turd in a shirt sleeve (to use a technical term imparted to us by a lecturer at Tech many moons ago!).

So, OP, your SO could not have attempted to solvent weld push-fit pipe. Possibly he forgot to apply solvent-weld adhesive to solvent-weld fittings or many other explanations are possible, but the bottom line is if he did it he should fix it or get someone in who can!

Does anyone one know why they are called 'mole' grips BTW?

Dave

"david lang" typed

It was the brand name of one sort, as in Mole Grips.

I much prefer 'Vise-Grips' myself.

I still have the 5" pair I bought myself for my 20th birthday. My brother sent me a 4" tool more recently.

Somebody Mole & Sons, Newport, S.Wales afair.

Err beg to differ. Been there, tried to use polypropylene with solvent weld till I realised it weren't working![1] And the fittings and pipe went together well.