ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Confessions of a DIYer

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!