Monday, June 05, 2006

Lesson Learned

Plumbing this past weekend. I had to move kitchen sink water and drain over to the right about a foot. At the same time I decided to run a dedicated water line for the fridge.

Lesson: mixing lead flux with lead-free solder is like mixing oil and water. Very bad idea. The solder just ran right off the pipes, not sealing any of the fittings. Using lead-free solder requires lead-free flux.

On my second attempt, I also decided to give the pre-soldered fittings a try. They work great! You can find them at HD. Totally worth the extra 30 to 50 cents per fitting. Just flux, connect, and heat up with the torch until you start to see the solder come out of the fitting.

Now on to fitting drywall to cover up where I had to open up to do the plumbing.

~z