Soldering plumbing attachments

[DanP]

You DO need FLUX when silver soldering copper pipe. A joint made without using a flux could corrode or fail. The flux is used to provide a "clean" surface on the pipe to allow the silver solder to both flow and adhere to the copper correctly.

I respectfully disagree. I would assume that you would clean the pipe properly prior to soldering. I agree that if soldering old or dirty pipe, flux can assist the bonding process.

I spent 10 years soldering copper pipe on a daily basis with and without VERY experienced plumbers on high pressure steam, gas and water lines and I have never seen anyone use flux on a clean pipe. I very rarely had leaks and NEVER got called back to fix a corroded or failed joint.

If you clean the pipe with a bit of emery, which should be standard practice, you DO NOT need flux. It does not hurt to use it but it is totally unnecessary

Dan

[savage]

Just passing on a tip given to me by an "Old school" plumber, when soldering a pipe and internal water is a problem (as mentioned in a post above) an easy fix is to "stuff" the offending pipe with bread, pack it in until you have enough time to solder the pipe. Then when ready, just turn on the water and the bread softens and passes through the pipe and tap with no debris getting stuck in the tap or fittings.