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Doing plumbing on your own can be super fun and very rewarding. Unless you DIY plumbing project will become a shameful disaster. Then it’s everything, but fun. Trust me.
Anyway, I believe it’s pretty obvious what a plumbing disaster means… just think about it. Flooded house, a few inches of water in your living room and hundreds or thousands of pounds to fix everything.
And the look of your better half, that says it all.
You know that saying “happy wife happy life”, right? Yeah, that would be the exact opposite. You don’t want that, no one does.
Luckily, since you have landed here on our page you are in good hands. There are few things you can do to avoid plumbing disaster and we are about to present all of them below.
You will learn how to dodge the most common DIY plumbing mistakes by utilizing simple tricks.
Below you will find easy to digest comprehensive list that will save you a lot of unnecessary hassle. No need to thank, enjoy. Ready? Cool, let’s dive in!
This is definitely what you should start with. You can’t do any DIY project without a good set of tools. And it doesn’t apply only to plumbing, but to every project.
However, it might be especially true when it comes to plumbing.
There is an old saying “have more tools than you need”. Now, you don’t have to go too crazy, but there is nothing worse than realizing in the middle of the task that you don’t have a tool you need.
There is an old saying “have more #tools than you need” - there certainly is a lot of wisdom in that #DIY
You can find some tools sets on Amazon, but I would recommend talking to staff in one of your local stores. They will definitely be able to advise, just make sure you have the basics:
You want to also have spare parts like slip joint nuts, some washers plus copper and plastic pipes as needed.
That’s even more important than having full set of tools. Locate your shutoff valves and be sure what they control. Ideally there should be a valve for each room with plumbing installation, i.e. bathrooms and kitchen.
Although, it’s not always the case it’s not a reason to be worried.
You just need to be sure which one is the main one. They might be hidden behind the access panel, in some sort of the box, below the sink or in the basement.
If you have a few of them and you don’t know which one controls what then just turn on your taps and close the valve. Then flush the toilet too, you might have had a happy-go-lucky plumber who mixed few things here and there.
Depending on the project you might want to analyse and check your entire installation to see which pipe goes where.
This might seem tricky, but all it really takes is practice. Once you know the basics and you’ve got a small torch, solder, flux and copper pipe you’re good to go.
Below you can find a short video that will show you the entire process.
Pro-tip: copper pipes must be completely dry before soldering (sometimes called sweating).
It might seem like a natural thing to tighten everything as much as possible, but this is the quickest way to plumbing disaster. Over tightening can actually damage your fittings.
The same applies to tap handles, any connections and everything related to plumbing.
It is something plumbers do get a feeling of over time. It comes with an experience, but as a rule of thumb just hand tighten it, don’t crank too much. Otherwise you risk a leak that might not be visible straight away.
The best #advice anyone could give you is to document all you do when taking things apart. It will be so much easier to put it back together again #DIY #plumbing
Pro-tip: to join dissimilar metal pipes you have to use dielectric union to avoid corrosion. Every metal has a different electrode potential and dielectric union prevents them from touching one another.
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