Soldering Issue

I was soldering a coper pipe and used a paper towel to stop a leak so I could heat up the pipe. When I was done I thought I removed the entire towel, but must not have. Now I don't have hot water in half of my house. How do I get the paper towel out? Will it just desolve over time?

You will have tto figure out where it is in the system...was it a hot or cold line?

What don't you have hot or cold going to?.

It's in the hot line before my kitchen and bathroom split. I'm not sure where exactly it is becuase there are a few bends but i have a general idea. My main concern is if i can get it unlodged with out having to take the plumbing apart.

Disclaimer . . . I'm new here and by no means a professional plumber

If the wadded-up paper towel has killed the hot water to more than one fixture, chances are pretty good it has gotten hung up at the first 90 or shutoff it reached. That at least narrows down the scope of your disassembly. I strongly doubt that it will dissolve in any reasonable amount of time.

For future projects (not that this helps much now...), there's a little kit for about $5 with 1/2" and 3/4" water-soluble capsules and a small plastic stick to insert them into the water line a few inches. They work wonders for stopping annoying trickles. When you're done, you simply hit the pipe with a bit of heat to pop them, and they dissolve in water.

I usually find a way to make sure water doesn't bother me. There is usually something I can open that will divert the water such as a faucet, washing machine, hose bibb. That failing I would use a jet sweat. I do not advocate putting anything inside a pipe.

Point taken... but at least I didn't say to stuff wadded-up sandwich bread in there!

Which, scarily, I have seen licensed plumbers do.

LOL I for one have never shared my lunch with a pipe! The size of my belly says maybe I should have...

There is nothing more annoying then not being able to get the joint up to temp then having to chase all of that water out of the pipe.

Or here is a better one you think all of the water is out of the pipe and then when you start heating water "finds it way" to your joint and starts releasing steam.

Stupid steam if I am not insterested in making distilled water .

Can't pipes ever be level so all the water will just pour out?

What I do to verify if its dry for soldering is put my compressed air gun into the pipe and spray if it mists keep purging.

The bread just gives me nightmares of it getting stuck in an elbow or something I would never do that.

Someone should make something that attaches to your wet vac so that you could just suck the water out or to your air compressor so that it can be pushed out a faucet or something.

That tool is pretty cool wish I knew about it when I replaced all of my rusted tight 1940s shutoffs in my house. They were so cheap they didn't even install a shutoff on the hot line to the water heater. Anyone whos been showered when the cold backflows through the hot line when someone opens both faucets knows what I mean .

Cmosack as for your question there is no easy solution to this you will have to estimate where you think the towel clog is and start cutting pipes then turn the water on a bit and see if it flows. Once the clog is removed join the cut pipes with a sweat coupling.

Not sure why you guys are all against bread. I've used it successfully a few times. It works like a dream and dissolves way quicker than any paper. Just don't use RYE or multigrain bread like I stupidly did the 1st time. Those seeds'll clog an aerator goodnproper.

I fear that the paper won't dissolve that quickly. A lot of tissue paper is designed to disintegrate readily in water so's to be safe for use in septic systems, but that's not the case in paper towels where the trend has been to make them tougher.

If you were lucky enough to find a single fixture that was blocked, you'd be able to open the line there and pull out the block. But if a whole group is blocked, I'd bet you'll have to cut (that is, assuming my assumption that the napkin won't dissolve quickly enough is valid).

paper

You must have used a lot of paper and stuffed it in very tightly for it to be able to completely stop the flow of a pressurized water line. Just leave a tub faucet open for a while. If the water can start flowing through it, it should dissolve the paper fairly rapidly.

What about this version of Plumber's Bread? It looks like a dissolving foam of some kind
http://www.lenoxtools.com/enUS/Product/ACCESSORIES-_SOLDER.html
Might work a little better than pumpernickel

adb said:

Point taken... but at least I didn't say to stuff wadded-up sandwich bread in there!

Which, scarily, I have seen licensed plumbers do.

Click to expand...

Why not? Works.

bread

this is one "old time" licensed, and experienced plumber who has never had the need to use bread. Which means I have never had to worry about it plugging up a line, faucet, or anything else.

frenchie said:

Why not? Works.

Click to expand...

I didn't say it didn't work, I just said it's scary to watch--sort of like those who check for gas leaks with a match. It makes me imagine a crouton trying to squeeze its way through a tiny ceramic disc cartridge.

What did the original poster end up doing?