In one of the larger companies in Sweden in the third largest city Malmö that sell to both other companies and consumers none of the staff knew what I was talking about when I mentioned that BSP and NPT are different. Neither people on the floor nor people answering the phone. These were what appeared to be experienced plumbers. It’s amazing.
The world of pipe fittings
81–90 of 270 posts
Re: The world of pipe fittings
#82This article sucks. Lots of bad info from an inexperienced plumber.
How the US military, nuclear power plants, and plumbers worth their weight in salt do fittings: 3-4 times around the (male) fitting with PTFE tape, then a light amount of pipe dope on top of the PTFE tape.
Also, DO NOT buy the cheap PTFE tape as suggest. Buy the milspec tape. Your big box store will have both and you'll know where that money (a couple dollars at most) went.
Re: The world of pipe fittings
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
My complaint is that plumbers frequently do poor work for the money. We had some come and install an instant water heater and they cut an ugly hole in the side of the house without much thought. At one office I worked in they called Roto-Rooter (a non-union franchise that is likely to wreck your pipes and require a call to the union plumbers afterwards) who claimed that we'd flushed a condom down the drain (very hard…
> My complaint is that plumbers frequently do poor work for the money. Hehe - now you can feel like an IT customer. I think most people feel the same about IT but the domain is just more wide and prone to excuses.
people feel that way about stuff they have to pay for, generally.
Re: The world of pipe fittings
#84This 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…
My complaint is that plumbers frequently do poor work for the money. We had some come and install an instant water heater and they cut an ugly hole in the side of the house without much thought. At one office I worked in they called Roto-Rooter (a non-union franchise that is likely to wreck your pipes and require a call to the union plumbers afterwards) who claimed that we'd flushed a condom down the drain (very hard…
> My complaint is that plumbers frequently do poor work for the money.
Considering the quality of many expensive website and software implementations I've been required to use throughout the years at various jobs, this problem is not unique to plumbers.
Re: The world of pipe fittings
#85That'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.
Sinks are one of the few areas that I don't think one can get out of using threaded connections on the supply lines (haven't seen push-to-connect for that last leg yet). A lot of them use NPT threads, and NPT is very easy to put together in a way that will have a slow leak. Even a single drop every few minutes can cause big problems if left unattended for long enough. Also, a lot of the connections are in locations that are a headache to reach, even with a basin wrench.
Getting a good seal on a sink drain can be a little tricky the first time too.
Re: The world of pipe fittings
#86In 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…
> Also, in my experience, when someone inexperienced first learns what pipe tape is, they try to apply it to everything. That’s me. Whoops.
Tape causes massive contamination problems with fuel and hydraulic systems.
Its not that the Teflon reacts with hyd oil, its that the inevitably little tiny bits of stuff physically jam/ruin seals and clog nozzles.
Re: The world of pipe fittings
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ugh, I applied it to PVC pipe, which made it leak, sigh.
There’s no problem applying it to a threaded connection in PVC. Unless you mean that you’ve figured out a way to apply to a fitting that’s meant to be glued? In that case I commend your abundant creativity.
My experience is that even one wrap of PTFE tape on threaded PVC causes it to loosen and then leak, and it's recommended by youtube/google to not use it. (Some say sealant is ok).
Re: The world of pipe fittings
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just to be clear, I'm not trying to discount the skill and knowledge of professional plumbers. It's an incredibly complex field (especially since they need to be familiar with decades of different pipe technology), and usually involves working in filthy parts of the house no one else wants to go into. They deserve every penny.
Normally the market is supposed to correct these things but sadly we've created a culture that looks down on physical labour. Now there is a small group that can charge whatever they want.
They can't charge that much or people will do their own plumbing. It's fussy, but most routine things aren't too hard to do one step at a time. Sometimes you get a new faucet with an internal leak though, experience might have helped diagnose that without taking everything apart 20 times. Sometimes there's a big job like replacing a lateral, which is yeah, time to hire a pro.
Re: The world of pipe fittings
#89I 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…
Can confirm - also started using PEX recently, and it is fantastic - wouldn't go back for anything! Straightforward, solid, more resistant to freezing (tho I still drain/blow out the outside lines in winter). I've even had zero problems with the PEX-copper fittings; I generally just attach straight onto a cut pipe rather than an NPT fitting, so that may account for my different experience. I've run a few new lines in…
There are two problems with PEX in the shop, one real one joke.
The joke one is PVC + UV = shrapnel, and frankly given enough time and vibration PVC doesn't need UV to shatter, so old timers hearing you're using plastic in the shop will freak out. (edited for those who don't get the joke: Pex will definitely split or crack under UV but AFAIK never shatters, so using PVC is a major OSHA violation but using unprotected Pex is mostly safe although maybe economically unwise)
The real problem is the melting point is unimpressive and you're like one lathe chip away from an air leak. Not catastrophic but annoying. Murphy's law is air leaks only happen when you don't have time to slap a new fitting on, or when your collection of fittings is empty/missing and the store closed five minutes ago.
Re: The world of pipe fittings
#90This article sucks. Lots of bad info from an inexperienced plumber. How the US military, nuclear power plants, and plumbers worth their weight in salt do fittings: 3-4 times around the (male) fitting with PTFE tape, then a light amount of pipe dope on top of the PTFE tape. Also, DO NOT buy the cheap PTFE tape as suggest. Buy the milspec tape. Your big box store will have both and you'll know where that money (a coupl…
Milspec, lol. Doesn't that normally equal as cheap as they can get away with?
There is a high-density thread sealing PTFE tape that works a bit better than the el' cheapo generic white stuff (although it's usually white too). Anything marked as such should be sufficient unless you are working on an oil rig or nuclear reactor.
EDIT: Unless the package has MIL-T-27730 on the tape, labeling it milspec has no meaning.