After I'd had my first cuppa this morning, Mary informed me that she had some unpleasant news. I'm never quite sure whether she's tweaking me or not, which is part of what makes life fun. She wasn't this time: there was again a leak under the laundry sink. Said leak was not near the repair site from a few months ago but only a couple of inches away. Awright, so it's time to replace the whole pipe, which entailed moving a couple of jugs from under the sink. Awright, maybe 30 jugs of various and sundry chemicals. You know the stuff that accumulates in a laundry room, right? Bleach, detergent, gallon of hydrochloric acid, gallon of glacial acetic acid, half a dozen assorted phosphoric-acid metal treat soups, Birchwood-Casey aluminum blackener, jug of caustic metal cleaner ... the usual stuff. I also had to move the washer and water softener a bit to gain access. The other end, near the water meter, was gonna be painful no matter what because it's under the laundry sink. My old bod doesn't fold up as easily as it once did, and then there's unfolding. But the leak wasn't gonna fix itself and bandaids clearly wouldn't suffice. Many modern plumbers don't solder copper plumbing, they use some kinda compression fittings that don't seem expensive compared to the labor charge for installing them, even though they're priced like goods sold in a jewellry store. Bah! I don't trust them newfangled gizmos. Probably last as long as it takes the plumber's Rolls-Royce van to clear the driveway. Only took me two trips to Home Depot. If I lived further away I'd plan more carefully, but it's only a couple of miles. On first trip I got some pipe, a 90 elbow and a 45 elbow. Got home, started disassembling. Hm, the pipe terminates in one end in a solder-type gate valve. The valve seems to be OK but sometimes re-soldering used plumbing can present problems, gate valves are only about 7 bux and this one must be at least 30 years old. Back to Depot to get a new valve. Also got a new ground clamp for two bux. I'd debated getting 5' of pipe because I was pretty sure that would suffice, but a 10 footer was only 3 bux more (12 vs 9) and 3 bux is cheap insurance five minutes after the store closes with my job incomplete. Good call, Foreman. I cut the main run, 48-1/2", and then I cut the short dogleg 7". Pieced it together. Didn't fit, not even close. WTF??? Oooohhhh! After I'd carefully cut the 48-1/2" length I'd then cleverly cut the short piece out of the measured piece. Measure twice, cut once -- then do over because I'd carefully measured and cut from the wrong stock. Oh well -- I had my $3 insurance policy! The soldering was completely uneventful this time and the joints look better than most pro work he said modestly. Wiped joints even. Damn, I'm good! OK, so I use tin-silver solder that costs about 25 bux a pound, so what? Pardon me for knowing what works, right? The antimony-based lead-free solder sold for plumbing is a lot cheaper and it works reasonably well on new work if everything is perfect -- but things are seldom perfect in repair jobs. The tin-silver stuff melts at about the same temp (430F) as the antimony-based lead-free stuff, but it wets and flows on reasonably clean copper even better (considerably better) even than the old lead-tin solder. It also wets and flows readily on brass, steel and stainless, and it's considerably stronger than lead-tin. Heat joint gently until a swipe with the solder leaves a streak, heat a bit more, touch solder to work. WHAM, it melts and flows all round and into the joint like water. It's good shit, Maynard! Job done, tenuously turn on water. This is always a moment of truth. Two leaks. Phew! Leaks are obligatory in repair work. If there were no leaks it would probably mean that the house will collapse tomorrow just after the meteor strike. Both leaks were associated with the union-like joints associated with the water meter. A bit of heavy lifting (senior grade) with my biggest croissant wrench fixed those, still had a one drop-per-second drip. I'd about decided to let it drip and the hell with it when I realized where it was actually originating. It was the packing nut around the stem of the main shutoff valve, which I'd shut off to do the job. The old nut probably got backed off a bit when I re-opened that valve. It just needed a bit of snugging. That happens with old nuts... Voila and hoooahhh, we're as dry as a dissertation on Cleopatra's cosmetics.
Post-mortem on old pipe: something had been eating it. Wall thickness was about .026". I could easily bend it over my knee. Might have been electrolytic, don't know. New pipe will surely outlast me so I don't care. Tomorrow I shall carry all of the tools back up the stairs that I carried down the stairs today in many trips.