Be Your Own Plumber

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As you build your system of drainpipes, secure them every 4 to 6 feet with wooden blocks and flexible metal straps. The easiest metal strapping to use comes in a roll that’s pre-punched to accept screws. Unroll what you need, cut it to length with tin snips, then wrap it underneath the pipe and drive a couple of anchor screws into surrounding floor joists or wall framing members. Use a tape measure to guide pipe placement and slope by following the underside of the subfloor as reference. If that surface isn’t handy or trustworthy, put a carpenter’s level on the pipe. Slope the pipe so a quarter to half of the bubble lies outside the level lines so the water will flow correctly.

Learning to do your home’s plumbing does more than just save you a bundle of money. When the job’s done and you’re cleaning your tools and putting them away, you’ll enjoy the satisfaction of a job well done.

Learn to Solder Copper Pipes Successfully

Plumbing your bathroom with DIY-friendly PEX-AL-PEX water supply lines (see “Easier Plumbing with PEX,” June/July 2006) offers many advantages. While you can buy fittings for making solder-free connections between old copper piping and new PEX, you also can solder transitional fittings to bridge the gap between copper and PEX when replacing drains and toilets. You might even want to stick completely with copper pipes to keep costs down. Regardless of your situation, soldering is surprisingly easy to learn.

Soldering (also called “sweating”) is a process that uses molten metal to join copper water supply pipes with a bond that’s strong, permanent and waterproof. Plumber’s solder originally was made of lead, but because lead is now known to be toxic, solder is now mostly made from tin. But regardless of the metal it’s made from, the soldering process involves the same three steps: clean and heat the metal, add solder and then let the joint connection cool and harden.

All good solder joints begin with brightly polished, dry copper pipes, because molten solder flows best into the pores of clean copper. Both the inner and outer sides of every joint — as well as the solder itself — must shine before assembly. Use 120-grit sandpaper or an emery cloth to polish all outside surfaces of plumbing joints, and use a wire brush made specifically for this job to clean inside surfaces. Before you assemble the joints prior to soldering, coat both halves of each joint with flux, a Vaselinelike substance that helps the solder flow and bond to the copper piping.

Now assemble the joint, put on your safety glasses and light a hand-held propane torch. Heat the joint area with the tip of the flame until the copper itself is hot enough to melt the solder when it touches the pipe. It’s vital that the heat of the pipe, not the flame, melts the solder. You know that you’ve completed a well-soldered joint when you can see a silver line of solder flowing on its own all the way around the pipe joint. A solder connection doesn’t require much melted metal, so use a light hand when applying it. If your solder melts and sticks to the pipe in blobs, then the pipe isn’t hot enough. If you want clean-looking joints, wipe the joint with a damp rag to remove excess solder when it’s still molten.

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