Not a drop. Not a single solitary drop. All week, I've been banging my head against soldering that fixture, and in a mere two hours, by taking a different approach, I fix it.
Now to tackle installing that new shower fixture. And here's where the fun really started. Soldering copper pipe is something that looks deceptively simple when you're reading instructions. Clean pipe, apply flux, heat joint, remove heat, apply solder, and Bob's your uncle! And as long as you're dealing with the pipe itself, that seems to be the case. The trick is that you have to get things hot enough to melt the solder, and stay hot enough so that the solder will stay melted as capillary action draws it all the way around the joint and make a good solid seal.
My problem is that the shower fixture I got is basically one bigass hunk of solid brass, and it takes a LOT of heating to get to the point where the solder will melt and stay melted. I think my propane torch isn't QUITE hot enough - probably should have gotten a MAPP torch. I managed to get the pipe for the bathtub spout securely soldered on, but the water supply lines refused to cooperate. The solder would melt, but would not be drawn into the joint. I think it took so long to get heated up that the flux boiled away by the time it was hot enough.
I decide that this is a good time for a pressure test. I cap off the outlet on the top (it's for the shower), and solder on the pipe for the bathtub spout and cap it off, too. Install the pressure test cap onto the fixture, and open the valves.
I think you can tell where this is going. It leaked like a sieve. The soldered joints were all fine, it was the inadequately-tightened screw-on fittings. Then I noticed that the hot water shut-off was dripping. Probably got it too hot when I was soldering it on and melted one of the inside plastic bits. I have no idea why they thought it would be a good idea to put plastic bits in a valve that needs to be soldered on and thus get really hot. Bah. Shut things off, and head to Lowes for a new valve.
I'm browsing the valve aisle, grumbling about damned valves, when the wall o'fixtures catches my eye. Specifically, a 5/8" OD compression to 1/2" MIP coupling. This will fit on the end of the copper pipe, and terminates in a 1/2" male fitting the same size as the ones on the fixture. A light goes on in my head. I head over to the supply lines, and see one that will connect this fitting to the fixture. I buy three fittings and three supply lines.
When I get home, I cut the copper pipes holding the fixture in place, and unsolder the shutoff valves. I install some 2x4s to mount the fixture on (I was planning to do this anyway), then hook up the supply lines and turn the water back on.
Not a drop. Not a single solitary drop. All week, I've been banging my head against
soldering that fixture, and in a mere two hours, by taking a different approach, I fix it.
Over the next few hours, I keep checking to make sure it's tight. There's a very small amount of seepage from the coupling on the hot water pipe. I keep tightening it up, but it won't stop seeping. Not dripping - even left overnight, it didn't even seep enough to make one drop, but any moisture is too much when it's inside a wall (or even outside).
I poke around on the web, and the consensus is that compression fittings are a great timesaver, but if they get jostled or rotated, they may start leaking. As this is going to be on the inside of a tile wall and inaccessable, I wasn't feeling too comfortable. Then I see flare fittings mentioned on one page. Doh! I even saw them on the wall o'fixtures, but they didn't register. Pick up three flare couplings, and a flaring tool on the way home. Pop off the compression fittings, pop on the flare nut, use the flare tool to flare out the end of the pipe, and tighten down the fittings.
Again, not a drop. Not even any seepage. Despite what it looks like, that hose on the right
is not bent. The photo angle makes it look like that.
One final bit of plumbing. I have to replace and cap off the pipes that deliver water to the
sink and toilet, to make it easier to get the wall up. Once the wall is up, I can slice off
the cap and install a nice flange and valve.
The burned spots on the wall were there already. They're just a little bigger now.
I am now DONE WITH PLUMBING until it comes time to hook up the sink and toilet. I took a few wrong turns, and it was a learning experience, but it worked out in the end. And there was much rejoicing.