I own an older house and I was under it yesterday to install some heat tape on the water pipes. I noticed a seeping from a T in the hot water line that receives from the hot water tank and then splits to go the washer and off to the rest of the house for it's hot water needs. The side that is leaking goes to the washing machine and is not a long run.

I was thinking of replacing it with PCV and went to the local Lowe's and got the necessary pipe and fittings. It was occurring to me, though, that if the seeping has rusted the threads inside of the T (there is rust where the water is coming out) then I may have a larger problem -- unhooking everything that attaches to the T so as to replace it (the T). It is copper coming from the hot water tank (that connection is okay) and galvanized coming out of the other two sides of the T, which is galvanized. I was imagining :eek: -- and trying to prepare for the worst so hit the books a bit.

I was reading in an old Do It Yourself book that I could cover the whole T (or the seeping joint) with an epoxy.

Is that true, and if so, what kind of epoxy do I need to get?

Thanks, Mike Wertz

Well, you need a dialectric union when you mix copper with galvanized otherwise corrosion results. No direct galvanized to copper connection is allowed.

You may not be able to remove it, but you could cut and thread in place.

In any event, your going to have to get rid of the direct copper to galvanized connections.

I doubt you will get much support for the epoxy here. It might work if you sandblasted down to clean metal. Is most of your house galvanized? Eventually likely you will have to replace whatever you have.

I would remove all the galvanized you can reach including the tee. Cut the galvanized if you have too. The copper ends in a male pipe thread adapter? Buy a copper tee and screw it onto the copper. Then start with CPVC male adapters screwed into the tee. Run them to where you took the galvanized apart. It would be best if you could use male pipe adapters to go into a fitting. Otherwise a 3/4'' Shark Bite coupling may fit a 1/2'' galvanized. Check their recommendations. A 3/4'' CPVC compression union should. Be careful to restrain the pipes. It is possible for the end of the pipe to blow out of a CPVC union. I have used a number of them for copper to CPVC with no problems, but back them up by wiring the pipes together. The section of CPVC between the copper and remaining galvanized will break the copper to galvanized connection. There isn't a consensus here on how important dielectric fittings are. My position? I will leave others argue about it and stay away from galvanized.

Note, add ground wires to jumper sections of plastic pipe. All the metal pipes in your house need to be tied to the electrical system, although the gas company may disallow connecting to their pipes.

Thanks K.I.S.S. and labman,

I am impressed with how much I did not know about this. Diaelectric connections and Shark Bite connectors are whole new concepts. Obviously I am not well versed in this stuff. Just enough to be a bit dangerous, it would seem.

I have read your post a few times, labman, and think I have a picture now of what I need to do. I will research the Shark Bite connector (I googled that and they look like a good bet) and thanks for the added info on the need for the ground wires. I would not have thought of that.

One more question. How do you wire the pipes together to avoid a blowout?

Thanks again.

It helps if there are other fittings to keep the wire from sliding. I have put hose clamps on the pipe to keep the wire from slipping.

I think I found just the coupling that your looking for on page 7:

Legend Valve

Thanks, Kiss. I got the initial problem fixed with a diaelectric connection and changing everything past it to copper. I do, however, have a pinhole leak in the line that goes to the outside spigot and the compression coupler looks like what I was looking for. I bought a 1/2" patch at the local Lowe's, but it was for copper and did not fit the galvanized. I am not sure that I was comforatable with the patch, anyway. I did the other changeout last weekend and will be fixing the line to the outside spigot this weekend. I will check Locke for the galvanized compression fitting. They have an outlet here and have a better selection in things than does Lowe's.

Someday I will likely have to change everything to copper -- but that is a retirement project, I think.