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Had the faucet at the front of the hovel develop a drip, it got worse over a couple days. The building is CB, copper plumbing in the slab. The faucet was original to the house, 1980. Thought it should be a simple task to shut off the main supply, disassemble the spigot, replace the washer and packing. We had witnessed neighbors struggle with this issue in the past, some went so far as to have to bust out big pieces of block to repair.
Day 1:Bloody valve would NOT come apart, only got to replace the stem packing on the first go.
Day 2: Got two new faucets, one to replace the original male pipe thread, which had been soldered onto Ā½" copper. Another with a Ā½" compression fitting just in case. Plan was to cut the old one off (SawzAll!) as near to the outer end of the copper stub as possible, torch the remaining brass off and sweat the new one on. Not to be that simple. The main shut off valve leaked and allowed a constant drip, could not get the remaining brass hot enough with propane to remove it. Dremel and cut-off wheel, slice the brass into smaller bits with cuts parallel to the pipe and being careful not to get into the copper. It came off in pieces using propane and ChannelLock pliers, although slowly. Put the compression fitting spigot on and called time out. Three hours of fussing for what should have been a half-hour task. But wait!! There's more! A fine misting/hissing from the back gland nut appeared about an hour later.
Day 3: Got another compression fitting faucet the next day, just in case I'd over-torqued the first one and split the Chinese brass of the body. Got out the Epoxo88, POTTED the replacement fitting in the stuff. Hey, they built UH1's with it, why not? Finally now leak free.
Three days of fettling, it reminded me of working to fix "minor" issues on fifty/sixty year old British cars!
Day 1:Bloody valve would NOT come apart, only got to replace the stem packing on the first go.
Day 2: Got two new faucets, one to replace the original male pipe thread, which had been soldered onto Ā½" copper. Another with a Ā½" compression fitting just in case. Plan was to cut the old one off (SawzAll!) as near to the outer end of the copper stub as possible, torch the remaining brass off and sweat the new one on. Not to be that simple. The main shut off valve leaked and allowed a constant drip, could not get the remaining brass hot enough with propane to remove it. Dremel and cut-off wheel, slice the brass into smaller bits with cuts parallel to the pipe and being careful not to get into the copper. It came off in pieces using propane and ChannelLock pliers, although slowly. Put the compression fitting spigot on and called time out. Three hours of fussing for what should have been a half-hour task. But wait!! There's more! A fine misting/hissing from the back gland nut appeared about an hour later.
Day 3: Got another compression fitting faucet the next day, just in case I'd over-torqued the first one and split the Chinese brass of the body. Got out the Epoxo88, POTTED the replacement fitting in the stuff. Hey, they built UH1's with it, why not? Finally now leak free.
Three days of fettling, it reminded me of working to fix "minor" issues on fifty/sixty year old British cars!
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