sweating copper pipe

[mwkellner]

I was doing a small project and was soldering copper for the first time. There were no leaks and I was proud of myself, but I still don"t know much about it. I was trying to reuse some outside fawcets (water hose) that had brass bodies soldered onto copper pipe. I could not remelt the solder to remove the fawcets. Is this how solder works, or did I not heat it correctly. Finally the copper pipe softened and twisted. I bought new fawcets. Please explain what went wrong.

 

[rbortnem]

I'm not a plumber either but I've soldered a lot of joints. It sounds like you didn't get the joint hot enough before trying to remove the copper pipe (which is quite soft hot or cold). The valve and pipe would absorb quite a bit of heat before reaching the temperature needed to melt the old solder and if there is even a drop of water present at the joint it's almost impossible.

 

[Anonymous-0]

It takes a lot more heat to remove that old solder than it did to put it there. You have to make sure you get all the water out of there, too.

MAPP gas will work a lot better than propane for this. You can get MAPP gas in a canister for your old propane torch if you don't need that much heat often enough to justify the MAPP-specific torch.

 

[JMOR]

Heat the faucet, not the copper

 

[MSD]

Try melting new solder on the fitting. If it is hot enough to melt, the fitting will come off also.

 

[M-MAN]

Course there's alway's the chance someone used silver solder & it takes a lot more heat to remove it. OA or a turbo.

 

[jackinok]

two thing on those sillcocks one is they are softer copper on them so they will burst before the pipes do,and most of the time a small hand torch wont get the large body hot enough.replacing them is always the best bet.

 

[mwkellner]

I ended up just getting new ones. I was just curious about it and as I expected y'all shed some light for me. I was using and old handheld torch, it was silver solder and there was water in there as we had just drained the pipes through those same silcocks. Why does a little water make it hard heat up? I thought it might just boil away quickly.

 

[Bob]

It takes HEAT, lots of heat (ENERGY) to boil the water away!
Heat of vaporization

 

[dr sportster]

I'm not a plumber but I think more heat. If you solder on a male threaded fitting you can screw on the faucet then if it goes bad you can just unscrew the old one and screw on the new one.

 

[dr sportster]

If you get water steaming you can stuff some bread in the pipe as a dam until you make the joint then when the pressure comes on the bread will blast out. If this doesn't work it will at least smell like your cooking grilled cheese and you can get hungry and go to lunch.

 

[Stephen Newell]

Once the line has water in it, it makes it more difficult to achieve enough heat to remove the faucets. The water in the line creats steam which cools the pipe. If you have access to compressed air, it would help to blow the water away from the joint you are working on. Heat slowly to dry the pipe first then remove it as normal. Many faucets have a rubber washer on the valve. You need to remove the valve before you start with the torch. When you assembly the new parts you roughen the outside of the male parts and inside the female parts. Then you butter both parts good with tinning flux and put together. Then heat the joint enough the solder will flow into it without the torch on it.

 

[showcrop]

As others have said it probably needs to have more heat applied to the brass. However in that sort of situation I have found that many times even once the solder starts to flow you may not see it because there is virtually no extra to run out unless there is a dribble that was left when it was put together. So what I would do is have one side held securely and gently twist on the other so that I can move it as soon as the solder flows. many times it is quicker than you may think it is.