Today I worked on rerouting some copper pipes in my bathroom so they wouldn’t be exposed. I wanted to install a local shut-off valve so I wouldn’t have to turn off the main water supply outside just to work on the pipes in the bathroom. I bought a 1/4 turn ball valve which needed to be soldered onto the copper pipe. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to heat up the connection, both copper pipe and valve, in order to get the silver solder to melt and leave a tight seal. Some of the reasons include
- a bit water dripping in the pipe which prevents the connection from heating up to a high enough temperature to melt the silver
- the valve was made of an alloy which doesn’t conduct heat as easily and as quickly as copper
After getting fed up with soldering and wasting tons of time, I discovered an amazing, but expensive, product by Shark Bite. They make push-in removable pipe fittings and installing them takes literally 5 seconds. Just push the fittings into the pipes and you’re done. See pics below of some of their fittings.
Believe it or not, these fittings ACTUALLY work!
