Leaky pipes and faucets are very common plumbing issues in houses and they can be very irritating. Putting up with a dripping sound or putting a bowl under a pipe to collect leaking water are usually not on anyone’s list of favourite things to do. This article will teach you how to fix that leaking pipe joint in your house so that you do not have to put up with leaks anymore.
- Types of joints: Before you learn how to fix a joint, you should first know what is a joint. A joint is simply a connection between pipes. In domestic plumbing, there are three common joint types that are used. They are soldered joints, compression joints and threaded fittings. In this article, you will learn how to fix a leaky threaded plumbing joint in a PVC pipe.
- Turn off the water supply: The first thing you want to do is to turn off the water supply to the pipe with the leaking joint. You do not want to cut off a joint only to have water flooding all over you. Additionally, for you to successfully fix the joint, the surfaces of the pipe and joint must be very dry to enhance adhesion.
- Saw off the pipe: You need to saw off the pipe on both sides of the joint. You are to cut the pipe at least one inch away from the joint. You can use a PVC pipe cable saw to do this. It is a more manoeuvrable option than a regular saw. Cut through slowly if using tube cable saw as it can heat up and melt the pipe which will make the cuts end seal back together as you cut through.
- Disconnect the joint: Using your pliers, while holding one side of the fitting, turn the other side and keep turning it until they become separate.
- Clean the joint and pipe: You need to clean the pipe as well as the two parts of the fitting to remove water and any debris. Clean the pipe ends with a PVC cleaner. For cleaning the threads of the fittings, you need a wire brush for the male fitting and wire bottlebrush for the female.
- Reconnect the fittings: Apply pipe joint compound to the male fitting’s threads then thread the fitting into the female fitting using the pliers you used to turn them apart- or wrenches if you do not have pliers. Ensure that you thread them together till you have a snug and tight fit.
- Attach a coupling: Now that your fittings have been placed back together, you need to put them back as a joint. To do this, you would need a coupling. Apply PVC glue to the ends of the pipes and join them together with the fittings in between, using a coupling.
Once you have followed through with all these steps, your pipe joint should be as good as new. You can now turn on the water supply and let water run through the pipe so that you can test the joint to ensure that the leak has indeed been fixed. Be careful with all the steps because if you miss one or do it wrongly, your leak will not be properly fixed and you will have to do it all over again.
