I bought a new bath/shower two handle 8" spaced valve unit. It has threaded supply unions, but the supply lines are not threaded. What do I need to convert the lines? Can I install stop valve and flexible lines to the threaded valve body hot/cold connections?

You'll Probably Have To Sweat Some Fittings On There To Get What You Want As Far As Threads

Yeah, you'll have to do some soldering...

Here's what you do..

1) learn to sweat solder. It's not that hard, and the books at home depot have good instructions. You'd be best off to buy a bag of fittings (probably 90deg elbows are cheapes) and a 10' piece of pipe to match (1/2" is very likely the size in the shower) and practice with them. You won't need the whole 10' for your job, and the fittings are cheap enough that it's worth practicing. You'll probably get the hang of it after four or five tries. A common learning mistake is actually OVERheating the joint, which makes the solder run out like water and will cause pinhole leaks. Also, flux is very important, as well as *shiny* copper where the solder will be. Make sure all pipes etc are dry before you start.

2) get a couple of the appropriate threaded fittings, in copper. Also some pipe (left over from your practice and probably you'll need some 90 elbows too. If you got a ten-pack to practice with, you'll be golden.

3) measure and lay out how you want to connect everything. Probably you'll have one butt (inline, straight) connector each for hot and cold, and one 90 degree elbow.

4) cut all the pipes and fit everything together dry, make sure it's all going to work and that the pipes go all the way into the fittings.

5) Here's the (mildly) tricky part... solder the threaded fitting to the first (usually veryt short) piece of pipe, but do NOT solder the other end of that pipe into the 90 elbow. Use teflon tape and screw the threaded fitting into the valve (because you can still turn it with only a straight pipe coming out).

6) NOW assemble the rest of the stuff, and solder all the joints.

You're on your own for the showerhead and/or tub faucet, but you probably have the idea now...



Good luck!
~aaron



.