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The world of pipe fittings

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Re: The world of pipe fittings

#151

Post by dtgriscom »

hilbert42 wrote: post #125
jcims wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Of course—not being plumber—it often happens that when I urgently need PTFE tape I cannot find it Ahh, young padawan, the way of the elder is to buy a roll every time you have a project to do until you have achieved saturation...where there is a lightly used roll of teflon tape in every drawer and on every surface of your workshop and garage.

Ha! I'm no longer a Padawan so, like you, I'm well acquainted with the practice of spreading things around to the point of saturation. It's not only PTFE tape that I spread around in copious quantities, other notables on the list are screwdrivers (of various sizes and types), superglue tubes (they go off with age anyway), propelling pencil leads, keys, USB and computer cables, USB pen drives, computer mice, adhesive…

When I was a kid, my mom's theory on pencil purchasing was that if she bought enough, the house would be so saturated that you could shake a curtain and a pencil would fall out.

Re: The world of pipe fittings

#152

Post by weare138 »

victor9000 wrote: post #75
weare138 wrote: post #69

That's funny. I literally just finished installing a new kitchen sink and faucet at home. Holy crap was it a pain in the ass.

What was tricky about it? Having never done it, it seems somewhat straight forward in my mind.

The process itself is straight forward but I had to work in a really tight space under the sink. That was really what made it a pain in the ass. I had to lay on my back and cram myself underneath the sink in the cabinet to reach everything plus I'm a 6' tall goon so that definitely wasn't helping either. You're just stuck in an awkward and uncomfortable position most of the time.

Re: The world of pipe fittings

#153

Post by bluGill »

radlad wrote: post #49
cmclaughlin wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like PEX, but I know opinions vary What’s not to like about PEX?

I believe it's less durable than alternatives.

Actually pex is probably the most durable. Water is corrosive and will slowly dissolve metal pipes .

Pex has zero UV resistance though, sp if exposed to sun at all it is the least durable.

Re: The world of pipe fittings

#154

Post by iancmceachern »

azalemeth wrote: post #58
jkqwzsoo wrote: post #9

In case anyone from the US reads this, BSPP and BSPT fittings are rare and incredibly frustrating here, as our NPT (National Pipe Taper) threads are different and the selection of BSP(P/T) fittings is extremely poor in comparison. Also, I work with NPT fittings quite a lot: > For what it’s worth, I tightly wrap the tape 10 times round the male thread and get an enraged mountain gorilla to tighten it up. This is a WTF…

I particularly hate the confusion that BSP and NPT cause. They're almost interchangeable (differing, iirc, probably on the angle of flank) and will get about three turns in and then leak or fail under pressure. In my world, this has led to graduate students spraying liquid nitrogen around. It's clearly the case that the two probably were supposed to be identical but diverted due to manufacturing differences in the di…

Little nit pick. BSP is British.

Re: The world of pipe fittings

#155

Post by iancmceachern »

agsamek wrote: post #66

This article doesn't touch much about why plumbing is hard. I'm from Poland so I'm not only IT but also a plumber ;) Plumbing is hard because it is not forgiving. It's as binary as IT except you can learn the outcome with some delay, once you learnt about a damage caused by a leak. Either you do a pressure tests right or repair can be expensive. And bugfixing is always tricky. Water also goes down whether you like it…

Yes, and it's even less forgiving when it's a gas, or worse a flammable gas, or 3000 psi hydraulic fluid.

Re: The world of pipe fittings

#156

Post by Scoundreller »

TEP_Kim_Il_Sung wrote: post #141
jaggederest wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I've found it's very frustrating looking for "genuinely zero lead" brass and bronze. Almost all scrap has lead in it to some degree, and even new metal often has a trace.

Remove about 82% of lead from bronze using this one weird trick! https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250155103_Removal_o...

I was hoping for something involving a particle accelerator and making gold.

Re: The world of pipe fittings

#157

Post by robocat »

beerandt wrote: post #127
skeptical_dog wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The english word, too, is derived from the Latin for lead: plumbum.

Except the meaning is to plumb, as in to level, as in to get water flowing downhill. The lead refers to the (lead) plumb bob used to determine the direction of vertical and therefore what's level.

https://etymology.en-academic.com/27822/plumber

https://etymology.en-academic.com/27820/plumb

It appears you are wrong, and the person you are replying to was correct. Perhaps when baldly contradicting someone, you could make some effort to back up your opinion.

Re: The world of pipe fittings

#158

Post by iancmceachern »

georgeoliver wrote: post #93
agsamek wrote: post #66

This article doesn't touch much about why plumbing is hard. I'm from Poland so I'm not only IT but also a plumber ;) Plumbing is hard because it is not forgiving. It's as binary as IT except you can learn the outcome with some delay, once you learnt about a damage caused by a leak. Either you do a pressure tests right or repair can be expensive. And bugfixing is always tricky. Water also goes down whether you like it…

I had a funny experience a week ago. One night working on a hobby web project it took me three or four hours to debug something, I finally got to bed around midnight thinking "boy, programming is hard". The next day at work we had to find a broken heat wire in a tiled bathroom floor, running 1000 volts through the wires to try to fuse the broken wire, then heating the floor up and searching with heat-sensitive paper…

I once had to jackhammer a 4 foot wide, 26 foot long, 4 foot deep trench in my basement to replace the sanitary sewer in my house. It was old terracotta pipe and had tree roots growing into it and eventually blocked the flow. It was doing that that helped me be so thankful to have an office job. I also had to lug all the rubble upstairs in 5 gallon buckets.

Re: The world of pipe fittings

#159

Post by iancmceachern »

Scoundreller wrote: post #98
radlad wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it's less durable than alternatives.

There’s definitely a “right” way and a “wrong” way to do it. Having each fixture connection being a “home run” without any fittings between source and destination really reduces a lot of vulnerabilities. Having a central manifold that lets you easily turn off any tap is nice too. A condo building I lived in did something wrong (I suspect) either a bad batch of PEX, or more likely, a batch that sat in the sun for a wh…

Also using the compression fittings with a good crimping tool, not the push to connect fittings IMO is more durable and reliable.

Re: The world of pipe fittings

#160

Post by iancmceachern »

thedanbob wrote: post #6

I had a major plumbing problem some time ago (leak in the house’s main line) and paid a plumber way too much to dig a hole and fix it. I of course wasn’t about to pay him to fill the hole back up, and while it was open I took a good look. That’s when I discovered PEX. PEX is wonderful: easy to work with, inexpensive, simple to fix if you screw something up. I wish all plumbing was PEX. I briefly installed an NPT flow…

Pex is awesome, I replaced my entire house with it, I couldn't have done it myself otherwise and had a great result.
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