Arriving home to a leaking water pipe one day and after further investigation there was potential for more… thankfully I spotted this early and there was minimal damage. In fact, this leaky fitting was directly over the washing machine and the lid was open… lucky!
Copper pipe can corrode over time causing pin hole leaks. There are lots of reasons for copper corrosion but suffice to say it usually leads to small pin holes that ultimately leak. Copper is expensive and PEX is the up and coming choice of plumbing in the future, its cheaper and easier to work with, but I stuck with copper.
… and after further investigation of the copper pipe in the house I found some more corrosion that needed to be addressed.
I had to replace about 8 feet of copper.. I thought about replacing it with PEX but I had the copper fittings on hand. Here is a portion of the pipe that was replaced and a picture of the finished repair.
There are numerous tutorials on soldering copper pipe, it takes patience, cleanliness and heat to get good solder joints.
I use these basic tools for soldering pipe… click here for Video on soldering copper pipe
