Hello Bob. Here in the UK we use a lead lock to join lead to copper, it's like a brass compression fitting and on the lead side you have a ring and an o ring inside the fitting that tightens all together. Here we still have many houses etc that have lead coming in from outside. I have in my house, it must date back to Methuselar
This was an awsum video very helpful. I have the same problem. It is a city main water lead pipe coming into the house. I do not care what any plumber says. Sometimes you have to be creative to fix a problem. I give 2 thumbs 👍👍 to this plumber.
Definitely I have one that's been kicking my behind and this is my last resort which I do not wanna heat lead.... I'm dumb enough. When I did my first few toilets I remember the oakum? And melting lead into the flange.... uuuugh
I live across the pond and then some in Austria. Vienna has a significant number of pre-WWI apartment buildings and they're all full of lead pipes. Bathrooms and kitchens usually get replumbed as they're renovated but the riser mains are usually still lead as landlords are notoriously cheap. When I was a kid there were times when we had about one leak per year until my parents finally had enough and had all the plumbing redone in the late 90s. One of the more spectacular leaks was in the abandoned basement laundry room mostly used for storage. The tap for filling the big copper kettle had been removed and the lead pipe capped off at some point, outside the wall. One day I came into the laundry room for some reason and saw a thin fountain squirting from that spot across the entire room! Austrian plumbers had massive cone-shaped pliers for cup joints or maybe still have them. Things have changed a whole lot in plumbing over the past 20 years here, from soldering to crimp joints, from copper to MLCP, gas from threaded or welded black pipe to crimped stainless steel.
As an old plumber in the U.K. we used to call the cloth used mole skin (don't know if it really had anything to do with a real mole) the flux used was tallow which smelled pretty bad and the joint used was called a "taft joint" if you used an adapter to thread onto a tap (faucet in USA) you might solder a 'cap and lining' to connect to the tap. The solder used in wide stick as shown in the film here was called "plumbers metal" here in U.K. and was composed of 50% lead and 50% tin.
Bob in the future you can buy canning wax or "Gulf Wax" and it is a paraffin wax also used to make " buddy burners" corrugated cardboard with outer paper removed wrapped in an tuna fish or similar low profile can and added gulf wax to make a heating source this was done by old Boy Scouts as well as many Cub Scouts.
BobsPlumbingVideos Not much here in Houston, But I did see it a lot in the City Of St Louis when I lived there. Plumbers back then were amazing working with the lead. Its a work of art. Not good for health, but cool stuff.
How to Plumbing I actually recommended to this customer to remove all of it. They have small children in the house and that's scary stuff! Love your videos!
In Rome 2000 years ago all the rich aristocrats had lead pipes for their water, unfortunatly they died sooner than the poor people, from lead poisoning.
Ex British Gas Engineer trained in not only gas lead joints but lead water wipe joints, couple of pointers. 1. you don't need a wiping cloth (mole skin) as you are not doing a proper water wiped joint. 2. you are doing a pretty poor gas joint (needs less build up of lead) 3. plumbers black below socket prevents solder runs down pipe. 4. watch your video back, as you apply solder it gets too hot and disappears down the pipe. 5. a roll of solder is all that is required, unless you are (and your not) doing a wiped joint 6. the cup or socket you have formed is too small, try using a turnpin. 7. your flame temp is too high and too close. 8. frankly its a pretty bad joint 2/10 9. you are not a fully trained or qualified to any standard lead worker at best ill informed guess this is how to do it diyer 1/10 for mis information 0/10 for dishonoring real tradespeople.
used to see lead water lines in brooklyn and ridgewood queens all the time back in the 1980's. still hundreds of buildings with lead water mains in nyc .
Anthony Sparapani well maybe where you live.. but in my city anything underground, or commercial buildings must be copper and cast iron. Also we only use pex when we rough in a whole house or making repairs that would cost too much and take too long with copper. Copper and soldering ain't going anywhere
For reference, here on the water utility side, there are pack joint couplings specifically for lead to copper connection. I don't know if that's what you meant by dresser coupling, but Mueller still makes them and most waterworks supply houses will have them. The city I work for has a rule that if there is a leak on a lead service, we don't do a repair. We replace it entirely to the meter. Because of that, we don't use them anymore. Lastly, I know the customer didn't want to pay for a repipe. That being said, cutting and sweating lead to copper is going to cause lead levels in their water to skyrocket. I get that you wanted to get them back in water, but I can't sleep at night enabling someone's future cancer. Sometimes saying no to a job will force someone to make the jump to a repipe.
Fantastic video Bob! I doubt if any other plumber could do a job like that or for that matter if they could, do one as good a you did. Would the placement of an aluminum heat sink the at the bottom of the joint on the lead pipe speed up the setting of the solder in the cup joint? Questions about repairing brass pipe in place. Do they make sweat fittings to join copper tubing to brass pipe?
They're called T.P. "threadless pipe" adapters. Back in the day, they plumbed buildings using threadless pipe which was essentially brass pipe with no threads and the fittings were made using acetylene gas and very high-temperature brazing rods. Take a look at this link-www.mrsupply.com/new_search.php. Thanks much for the compliment, I was actually using a bit too much heat in the video, but my camera was so close to the work I was freaking out about burning everything up! LOL! Happy Plumbing!
Thanks for the link Bob; very helpful ! Bob, are lead closet bends still code in NYC? I know that they can be repaired when they leak on the lead portion but when they are beyond repair do they replace them with PVC? I have seen 4" PVC caulked into cast iron on this old house. You have the best plumbing channel.
it looked like a lot of the solder was ending up in the pipe and dripped inside... what would you do in that case? how can you get it out of there after? is there any tricks? thanks for this great video
If solder gets inside, game over. one big headache to remove it. It's technique, the amount of heat you use and years of trial and error. I admittedly haven't done one of these is quite a while.
Agreed. You could see there was trash in the joint as it was being made. It came from that bar of solder Even when using 1/8 wire solder, we would sometimes sand the solder and make sure the joint was juicy with flux being there to bubble off the impurities.
I own a house built in 1947. Two days ago I suffered a leak in my boiler return pipe. The pipe is old and runs along the bottom edge of the inside wall where it meets the basement floor. The pipe is practically inaccessible, unless bathroom ceramic tiles wall are removed along with drywall. My question is, can this pipe be repaired without replacing it?
they were made from " fustian / moleskin " cloth in the UK, used them when wipng joints, on lead pipes etc, used a " lignum vitea " turnpin to bell out the lead, used a stick plumbers metal ( 60% lead 40% tin ) smear some tallow on the lead to stop it oxidising, and some on the wipng cloth stop it sticking to it, illegal to use lead on any open ended pipe services, only sealed systems, ie heating systems, waste pipes etc, the plumber I learnt it off, use to wipe joints on 4" lead soil pipes, in situ: before woporld war 2, can you use lead legally in the US on water supplies ? we have " leadloc " compression fittings to connect copper and mdpe to lead pipes, here in the UK
How come no shave-hook and turnpin tools used in the lead era to install lead. wiping the joint into a mound all around the joint is in place in the house and those fellas did it while the wiping was being installed
newbie question... How dangerous is it, really to leave lead pipes that way in your house, and why do people not upgrade? especially the (i think he's a ) plumber below who says he still has lead in his house ?
That particular job was very rare, I was shocked to see that they still had lead waters lines throughout the entire three family home. Cost is probably the biggest reason people don’t upgrade. Many’s home in my service area still have lead water main service lines feeding the homes. They may have brass or copper interior plumbing, but the incoming service is lead.
It really depends on your water. If it's hard the lines are probably coated with limescale on the inside and you have very little lead in the water. If your water is fairly soft, you might have sky-high lead levels in the water. I'd recommend having the water tested. Besides, once they're 80+ years old, lead pipes do like to leak and are a bit of a nuisance.
pex not legal in NYC for water, only for heating. maybe they change that soon. repiping all in copper is something you would wait for a full renovation, as tearing down everything is costly. honestly if they still has active lead pipes, they probably haven't done anything major in repairs since the 1950's
Basically if you're not going to complete the joint immediately, tinning (adding a thin coating) prevents the copper from oxidizing and having to re-clean it. You can prepare many pieces and tend to them later without having to constantly reclean.
@@BobsPlumbingVideos Thank you Bob, i had always wondered the purpose of it. Thats cool so if your plumbing in a big job with alot of joints and piecing it all together some of them will sit there for a while while fhe others are being made up and this will protect them.
Before copper tubing they use to make male and female solder nipples which basically were brass fittings with the same outer diameter as today's copper tubing. Made it easy to insert them into cup the joint. The outer diameter of brass pipe was just to big to fit into the lead.
Hello Bob. Here in the UK we use a lead lock to join lead to copper, it's like a brass compression fitting and on the lead side you have a ring and an o ring inside the fitting that tightens all together. Here we still have many houses etc that have lead coming in from outside. I have in my house, it must date back to Methuselar
Also, the way you sweated the lead to copper is illegal here in the uk - i personally only use leadlocs if i have to - if i can use a philmac i will 👍
Leadloc it is. Cheers guys.
I’ve just done a repair like that in a very old house in the uk. This video has confirmed that I did it right !
Excellent! Glad it helped. Bob.
This was an awsum video very helpful. I have the same problem. It is a city main water lead pipe coming into the house. I do not care what any plumber says. Sometimes you have to be creative to fix a problem. I give 2 thumbs 👍👍 to this plumber.
Thank you sir👍 regards, Bob
Definitely I have one that's been kicking my behind and this is my last resort which I do not wanna heat lead.... I'm dumb enough. When I did my first few toilets I remember the oakum? And melting lead into the flange.... uuuugh
I live across the pond and then some in Austria. Vienna has a significant number of pre-WWI apartment buildings and they're all full of lead pipes. Bathrooms and kitchens usually get replumbed as they're renovated but the riser mains are usually still lead as landlords are notoriously cheap. When I was a kid there were times when we had about one leak per year until my parents finally had enough and had all the plumbing redone in the late 90s. One of the more spectacular leaks was in the abandoned basement laundry room mostly used for storage. The tap for filling the big copper kettle had been removed and the lead pipe capped off at some point, outside the wall. One day I came into the laundry room for some reason and saw a thin fountain squirting from that spot across the entire room!
Austrian plumbers had massive cone-shaped pliers for cup joints or maybe still have them. Things have changed a whole lot in plumbing over the past 20 years here, from soldering to crimp joints, from copper to MLCP, gas from threaded or welded black pipe to crimped stainless steel.
It's gotten much easier, and unfortunately "the skill is gone" but I guess that's the price of progress! Regards, Bob.
As an old plumber in the U.K. we used to call the cloth used mole skin (don't know if it really had anything to do with a real mole) the flux used was tallow which smelled pretty bad and the joint used was called a "taft joint" if you used an adapter to thread onto a tap (faucet in USA) you might solder a 'cap and lining' to connect to the tap. The solder used in wide stick as shown in the film here was called "plumbers metal" here in U.K. and was composed of 50% lead and 50% tin.
I thought plumbers bar solder in the uk was 60% lead / 40% tin?
That's an incredible art. Superb video. Thanks for posting!
Thanks very much! you're welcome!
It's amazing to see you work Mr.Sessa,you're one of the old masters for sure (no offense intended.),God bless you and yours.
good tip tinning the pipe with solder to stop the reaction
I used to do wipe joints in the uk . Used to put a bit of bread up the pipe to stop the water
Bread always works! LOL!
I always thought they should develop a product to keep me from needing to sacrifice part of my lunch to make a joint!
@@AmosPressley 🤣🤣
Pre fabricated in the field🤣.good video though.
Bob in the future you can buy canning wax or "Gulf Wax" and it is a paraffin wax also used to make " buddy burners" corrugated cardboard with outer paper removed wrapped in an tuna fish or similar low profile can and added gulf wax to make a heating source this was done by old Boy Scouts as well as many Cub Scouts.
Thanks for that tip! I miss those old candles. Regards, Bob.
Wow that's amazing old leak water lines. Nice video
Thanks Claude, do you see this stuff in your area? Bob
BobsPlumbingVideos Not much here in Houston, But I did see it a lot in the City Of St Louis when I lived there. Plumbers back then were amazing working with the lead. Its a work of art. Not good for health, but cool stuff.
How to Plumbing I actually recommended to this customer to remove all of it. They have small children in the house and that's scary stuff! Love your videos!
Thank you. Good looking out for the kids.
In Rome 2000 years ago all the rich aristocrats had lead pipes for their water, unfortunatly they died sooner than the poor people, from lead poisoning.
Philmac transition couplings my friend. Easy fit and never had one leak...
excellent video, thanks Bob!
Glad you liked it!
Ex British Gas Engineer trained in not only gas lead joints but lead water wipe joints, couple of pointers. 1. you don't need a wiping cloth (mole skin) as you are not doing a proper water wiped joint.
2. you are doing a pretty poor gas joint (needs less build up of lead)
3. plumbers black below socket prevents solder runs down pipe.
4. watch your video back, as you apply solder it gets too hot and disappears down the pipe.
5. a roll of solder is all that is required, unless you are (and your not) doing a wiped joint
6. the cup or socket you have formed is too small, try using a turnpin.
7. your flame temp is too high and too close.
8. frankly its a pretty bad joint 2/10
9. you are not a fully trained or qualified to any standard lead worker at best ill informed guess this is how to do it diyer 1/10 for mis information 0/10 for dishonoring real tradespeople.
Thanks for the critique! Bottom line NO MORE LEAK!
used to see lead water lines in brooklyn and ridgewood queens all the time back in the 1980's. still hundreds of buildings with lead water mains in nyc .
No question about it!
yes used this a few times over the years fell sorry for the up and coming plumbers as this skill is going to be lost
ex silent video thanks ( tell uk)
Absolutely Terry! I grateful I learned when I did, as this technique does get me out of some tough spots. Regards, Bob.
I'm 27 and I see lead everyday, even solder 1 1/4 p traps into lead drains. Living and working in an old city has it's benefits.
Anthony Sparapani well maybe where you live.. but in my city anything underground, or commercial buildings must be copper and cast iron. Also we only use pex when we rough in a whole house or making repairs that would cost too much and take too long with copper. Copper and soldering ain't going anywhere
Candle u can also use it when u doing lead shower pans when u r soldering the corners
You could solder the corners if you wish, but when folded correctly there is really no need to do so.
That stuff makes great bullets when melted down.
Great video, good information. Thanks for the video.
You're welcome, Philip! Regards, Bob.
Try doing it horizontally, no help from gravity, not enough flux
I've done a dozen plus ua-cam.com/video/8_CDta3yVX4/v-deo.html how many have you done?
Would the swage bits help in lead to copper transition?
That top thing is called a turnpin.
Now they look interesting, are they available it the U.S.?
Wow! Ace hardware still carries "plumber candles"...never knew! Even helping Dad with Oakum and lead in 1963!
Bring back nightmares! LOL!
Nice work Man
A little rusty, but it worked! Regards, Bob.
For reference, here on the water utility side, there are pack joint couplings specifically for lead to copper connection. I don't know if that's what you meant by dresser coupling, but Mueller still makes them and most waterworks supply houses will have them. The city I work for has a rule that if there is a leak on a lead service, we don't do a repair. We replace it entirely to the meter. Because of that, we don't use them anymore.
Lastly, I know the customer didn't want to pay for a repipe. That being said, cutting and sweating lead to copper is going to cause lead levels in their water to skyrocket. I get that you wanted to get them back in water, but I can't sleep at night enabling someone's future cancer. Sometimes saying no to a job will force someone to make the jump to a repipe.
Duly noted and understood!
Excellent!
Glad you liked it!
Fantastic video Bob! I doubt if any other plumber could do a job like that or for that matter if they could, do one as good a you did. Would the placement of an aluminum heat sink the at the bottom of the joint on the lead pipe speed up the setting of the solder in the cup joint? Questions about repairing brass pipe in place. Do they make sweat fittings to join copper tubing to brass pipe?
They're called T.P. "threadless pipe" adapters. Back in the day, they plumbed buildings using threadless pipe which was essentially brass pipe with no threads and the fittings were made using acetylene gas and very high-temperature brazing rods. Take a look at this link-www.mrsupply.com/new_search.php.
Thanks much for the compliment, I was actually using a bit too much heat in the video, but my camera was so close to the work I was freaking out about burning everything up! LOL! Happy Plumbing!
Thanks for the link Bob; very helpful ! Bob, are lead closet bends still code in NYC? I know that they can be repaired when they leak on the lead portion but when they are beyond repair do they replace them with PVC? I have seen 4" PVC caulked into cast iron on this old house. You have the best plumbing channel.
it looked like a lot of the solder was ending up in the pipe and dripped inside... what would you do in that case? how can you get it out of there after? is there any tricks? thanks for this great video
If solder gets inside, game over. one big headache to remove it. It's technique, the amount of heat you use and years of trial and error. I admittedly haven't done one of these is quite a while.
Hi, Bob, why didn't you replace the complete water pipings instead???
$$$$, the just wanted it repaired!
@5:23 I have one of those and it still works.
Great video
Thanks Brian! I was a little rusty, but it all worked out, regards. Bob
BobsPlumbingVideos you did a nice job liked seeing how plumbing was done back then
Can you use regular copper flux instead of candle wax ?
If I run out of candle I will!
Agreed. You could see there was trash in the joint as it was being made. It came from that bar of solder Even when using 1/8 wire solder, we would sometimes sand the solder and make sure the joint was juicy with flux being there to bubble off the impurities.
I own a house built in 1947. Two days ago I suffered a leak in my boiler return pipe. The pipe is old and runs along the bottom edge of the inside wall where it meets the basement floor. The pipe is practically inaccessible, unless bathroom ceramic tiles wall are removed along with drywall. My question is, can this pipe be repaired without replacing it?
It's Depends ! in some cases yes, in most cases no!.
bob ....adam cowel lmp say that lead domestic pipe was a smithstonian .....the stop valve was wtf...
Wiping cloths are made from mattress ticking
they were made from " fustian / moleskin " cloth in the UK, used them when wipng joints, on lead pipes etc, used a " lignum vitea " turnpin to bell out the lead, used a stick plumbers metal ( 60% lead 40% tin ) smear some tallow on the lead to stop it oxidising, and some on the wipng cloth stop it sticking to it,
illegal to use lead on any open ended pipe services, only sealed systems, ie heating systems, waste pipes etc, the plumber I learnt it off, use to wipe joints on 4" lead soil pipes, in situ: before woporld war 2,
can you use lead legally in the US on water supplies ?
we have " leadloc " compression fittings to connect copper and mdpe to lead pipes, here in the UK
How come no shave-hook and turnpin tools used in the lead era to install lead. wiping the joint into a mound all around the joint is in place in the house and those fellas did it while the wiping was being installed
Owned those tools a long time ago, mysteriously vanished over the years.
newbie question... How dangerous is it, really to leave lead pipes that way in your house, and why do people not upgrade? especially the (i think he's a ) plumber below who says he still has lead in his house ?
That particular job was very rare, I was shocked to see that they still had lead waters lines throughout the entire three family home. Cost is probably the biggest reason people don’t upgrade. Many’s home in my service area still have lead water main service lines feeding the homes. They may have brass or copper interior plumbing, but the incoming service is lead.
It really depends on your water. If it's hard the lines are probably coated with limescale on the inside and you have very little lead in the water. If your water is fairly soft, you might have sky-high lead levels in the water. I'd recommend having the water tested. Besides, once they're 80+ years old, lead pipes do like to leak and are a bit of a nuisance.
Nice video but honestly I would just repipe the home with PEX or copper
They only had the budget for a repair. Thanks for checking out the video!
pex not legal in NYC for water, only for heating. maybe they change that soon. repiping all in copper is something you would wait for a full renovation, as tearing down everything is costly. honestly if they still has active lead pipes, they probably haven't done anything major in repairs since the 1950's
Great Video, wish you were in NY, How strong and long will lead and copper/brass together hod for ?
When done correctly, a lifetime!
Hi Bob, nice video just curious what does tinning the copper do?
Basically if you're not going to complete the joint immediately, tinning (adding a thin coating) prevents the copper from oxidizing and having to re-clean it. You can prepare many pieces and tend to them later without having to constantly reclean.
@@BobsPlumbingVideos Thank you Bob, i had always wondered the purpose of it. Thats cool so if your plumbing in a big job with alot of joints and piecing it all together some of them will sit there for a while while fhe others are being made up and this will protect them.
Exactly!
@@BobsPlumbingVideos is the parrafin also acting like a flux?
Nice NY accent!
Yes indeed!
more rabbit than Walmart
would it be easier to do lead to brass, then transition to copper?
Before copper tubing
they use to make male and female solder nipples which basically were brass fittings with the same outer diameter as today's copper tubing. Made it easy to insert them into cup the joint. The outer diameter of brass pipe was just to big to fit into the lead.
like a brass ferrul of some sort? I guess there wasn't a need for continued production!!
Bob you had a couple of those fittings in the old pipe you took out that you could reuse.
Bro sell a re pipe. Who tf would let someone drink from lead pipes anymore. Jackal!!
Not everyone has the cash BRO!
@@BobsPlumbingVideos such thing called code....that doesn't allow you to TIE ONTO FUCKING LEAD DUMBASS.
I’m not surprised I have lead pipe in my house.
They sell paraffin candles at my local true value