this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2025
21 points (95.7% liked)

Home Improvement

10767 readers
6 users here now

Home Improvement

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

My house is due for some plumbing work and I have decided to go with copper pipe for said work. The thing is I am garbage at soft soldering copper. I never do it so I'm awful at judging the temp and I hate dealing with flux. On the other hand I'm a refrigeration mechanic so brazing copper pipe is my bread and butter. I could practically make a good leak free braze joint with my eyes closed. Also, considering most of the plumbing will be copper to copper connections, I could just use silphos filler rod and not have to worry about flux for most of it. I know brazed joints are not standard for water pipe but I already have the tools, the skill set, and I don't see any way it could be worse than soft solder. Sure it's overkill but is there any other reason I shouldn't just braze my water pipes?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] Canonical_Warlock@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yep there are crimp fittings but they cost more and the seal in those fittings is only rated to last so long. Of course that is a very long time (50 years I think) but I still prefer sweat fit copper that lasts for the life of the pipe.

[โ€“] Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 2 points 15 hours ago

When the hammer is your only tool, then the rest of the world consists only of nails :)