Found a leak in the main drain pipe while in my crawl space. It’s 1-1/2" copper tubing, leaking from a crack in the middle of a section with no joins nearby. I got one of those epoxy/resin pipe bandage kits to try to just patch it, but as I was working the epoxy over the crack, my fingers went through the bottom of the pipe in a spot a couple inches upstream of the crack. After further inspection for other weak spots, I’m figuring on replacing about a foot of pipe.
The pipe’s in a weird spot where I really don’t want to try to use a torch to sweat in the new section. Push-connects in this size are hard to find and expensive as hell, but I saw these shielded neoprene couplings and they seem like they’d be perfect, plus they’re inexpensive. Does anyone have any experience with these?
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Weirdly enough I just had this done in my place. Word of advice, replace as much of the copper as you can in that area. If you have 1 leak now theres a good chance another one along that line will pop up not long after. I should know since I had about 5 leaks in 10 years. We finally ripped out all the walls so we could do the entire run to prevent any new ones again. The link you sent was exactly what we used to link the existing pipe where we cut to the new PVC pipe put in its place. Just make sure both pieces fit snug together through the connector before tightening and thats it. To cut the pipe out we just used a sawzall with proper blade to cut through it.
I really didnt know much about any of this so most of this was from the help of my father who pretty much does everything lol. So I hope my advice is correct as he is not a plumber but just someone who does everything. With that said he has done 2 full remodels of houses basically himself and passed inspections on them without issues so I do trust his advice.
I used one of these on my 4" PVC drain pipe three years ago when I installed a utility sink in my basement and have not seen a drop. Unsure whether its up to code, but it is working well.
They are great, I’ve had one installed for 8 years now with no issues so far. I cleaned the sections of both pipes with alcohol before installing, then laid down a bead of silicone and installed the fernco on top of that. Its recommended practice for joining to cast iron since it is so rough on the surface, might not be a bad idea for you.
