Hi my name is Scott........and I am a do it yourselfer! Yup I did some fine plumbing today. Let's keep this out of the plumbers bulletin boards, ok? After getting the old " I'll be there next week" from my plumber (for a few weeks) I happily trucked on down to the big orange box and loaded up on supplies. I bought two of everything I thought I might need and went to work. Oh the joy of flushing and knowing that the end of the line is no longer under my lawn but eventually Boston Harbor. Goodbye cesspool hello sewage treatment plant! Now does anyone know how to fix a leak in pvc?

Is the leak at a glued (excuse me..solvent welded..fitting)?
I've had some pretty good luck with splitting fittings by sawing through the fitting to the pipe in 3 or more places, then sticking a screwdriver in the void left by the saw kerf and twisting until something breaks. It's usually the fitting, but not always. Be sure to buy a couple of extra coups.
Whittle and sand the living heck out of it and use Christie's Hot Blue Glue.
(After all, I'm just a plumber masquerading as an electrician anyhow )
I have a real nasty habit of breaking plumbing every time I stick a shovel in the ground,..and the backcharges are just terrible...S

What kind of electrician are you? Have you NO shame man? To come on a forum and announce to the world you have NO Duct Tape?

I plumbed my house several years ago... I'm sure plumbers would have a good laugh. 3/4" sched 40 (white) PVC for lines, and 1" before the water heater. From footvalve at the bottom of the well to the toilet, which is the last thing on the line, is less than 100 feet, and all but 7' of the hot and 7' of the cold lines is indoors.

I had one leak when finished, under 30 to 50 PSI. It was at an elbow, a slow drip. I cut a coupler in half, turned the water off, released the pressure, dried the area, then glued liberally and held the half coupler over the leaky area. At first it didn't seam to help much, but over time the leak completely stopped, probably due to deposits in the water plugging the hole.

I do get lucky sometimes...

I found a bucket of, well,thick, dark liquid, in a house under the previous location of the toilet during a remodel. THis was boarded up in the floor, within a crawl space. I call it a "localized septic buffer." MMMM.

[This message has been edited by Joule-E (edited 09-08-2002).]

Ok Scott, ..... Fess up time!....

I've put two additions on my home, which lowered local assessment enough that a nieghbor ( a carpenter) stopped and stated that he would help guide me on my current project ( 24x32' barn) if i did his 'lectric work...

( proceeds to chalkboard....)

plumb,level & square
plumb,level & square
plumb,level & square......

Talk about plumbing, I went to go inspect a shed aith an above ground pool. The homeowner was with me as I looked into the trench, there was some white pipe at the bottom of the trench that said, "good for 90 PSI" I believe. So I asked the homeowner if they were running water out to the shed. She looked at me and said, "No, that is the electric pipe to the shed and pool." I told her that it was the wrong kind of pipe, I looked at the permit and saw that the homeowner did the work. She said why was it the wrong kind of pipe, and I said, that it was for water and it wasn't listed for electric work. I told her that an electrician would know the difference. She looked at me, got an angry look on her face and said,"My husband is an electrician!" I just said back that, it was wrong and it had to be changed and left. The worst part was that the trench was over 75 feet long and they had backfilled more than half of it. The next time I went back, the right pipe was in the ground and the trench was left open.

I tackle my own plumbing as well. Plastic piping is very slowly gaining some ground in a few houses in England, but solid copper is by far the most common and preferred by most people.

The installer, an electrical inspector himself, put the service equipment in long before the foreign systems were installed!

Who's at fault here the plumbers, steamfitters, or the owner?

PVC pipe is sometimes used in Austria, but only a handfull of plumbers have the tools for dealing with PVC so solid copper is still the material of choice. I did a hot water heating system (the most common heating system here, typically with a natural gas boiler), together with my father, under the guidance of my uncle who's a licensed plumber. Got lotsa practice soldering that stuff with a torch!

Joe,

I get this problem all the time. I go look at a service and it passes inspection. Then I go back at a later date for say a finished basement, and I see equipment installed in front of the service equipment.

I would say a portion of the blame lies with all three. The plumbers and steamfitters should know better than to install their pipes and fittings there. And even though we might not expect the average owner to understand the subtle details of electrical codes, I would have thought it would be obvious to anybody that you might one day need access to the electrical gear and that the pipework will be in the way. He should have complained to the fitters and asked them to install their pipework elsewhere.

Seems to me... (as an outsider in most respects, I feel ultimately that I have the highest authority in this case ) so here goes.
I figure there are a couple of categories of owners: one who will tear up, tear apart, move around, modify or dismantle just about anything that rests, resides or even slows down on his or her property or within their grasp and the other type is mortified at the thought that they'll mess something up and they'll never touch it even if they're supposed to for visual inspection or minor maintenance.

For the first category, the installer of whichever kind of service or equipment just does their best, gets the owner to sign off on the project and hopefully collects their pay. Going above and beyond the call of duty might include taking a couple digital pics (which may prove to be your saving grace in the future if a problem arises due to their dabbling), providing some sort of instruction (as to maintenance issues, codes that apply, etc).

The second category only requires your card, the offer to come do a free annual safety check (or discounts on whatever maintenance is necessary) and a handshake.

For both parties, there's some wisdom and headache prevention to be found in one of the things gov't buildings are known for - tape on the floor that denotes a "DO NOT DO ANYTHING IN THIS SPACE" warning. Those that dabble will happily remove it and those that don't will step around it as if it warned of the plague.

I tend to pick and choose the things I dabble in and electricity is one I don't mess with. I'll tear into just about anything as long as it's unplugged (watching out for capacitors, too) but not necessarily with the expectation that I'll be putting it back together and hoping it'll work much to the dismay of the telephone guy who left a spare phone at our house when I was a youngster (boy, was I in trouble that time!).

I don't mess with plumbing at all and a clogged sink can unravel my day in a hurry!

And natural gas equipment, my furnace for example, takes some courage to even light and can 'eat my lunch' when it blows out in the middle of the night.

[This message has been edited by BuggabooBren (edited 09-09-2002).]