Kitchen Sink Leak from Soldered Connection to Drain Pipe

I have a kitchen sink drain that is leaking from the soldered connection between the house drain pipe that looks to me like copper and the first length of pipe that leads to the trap. I've attached some pictures. Can someone give me some advice as to the proper course of action I should take? I'd like to remove the soldered on section of metal pipe and replace it with PVC, but I'm not sure how to desolder the connection or how to join the PVC to the copper pipe. I guess I would use a torch to melt the old solder and then pull out the pipe but I've never done that before. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

From what I can see, there is NO way to unsolder that piece of pipe without burning the house down, unless you remove a lot of the wall around it. But even if you do get it out, I doubt that you have the necessary experience to put it back together properly. Trying to convert to PVC will be more difficult than just replacing it with copper. Call a plumber.

You could desolder that metal portion of the p-trap fairly safely if you had some experience, but you would most likely end up melting that highly illegal electrical wiring setup you have for the disposal. Luckily you have a fairly long stubout of copper, so just cut it out the elbow a little further back with a hacksaw and adapt to PVC from there and use a new PVC slipjoint p-trap. There are plenty of posts that will tell you what you need to know if you search.

Or could he just go and get some plumber's epoxy...stuff "hardens like steel." Would likely stop the leak. Just be sure to prepare the surface properly.

Billy Mays. Gone but not forgotten.

Nothing you do from the outside will last very long. If you are lucky, that chromed piece doesn't stick too far into the pipe. I guess that doesn't really matter, as you could just cut it off, and even if it was still there, solder on a Desanko connection and convert to plastic from there. there may not be enough ID to use a Desanko if soldered onto the copper unless you went far enough in to get all of the part that is there now. But, you probably have enough room to use a no-hub connector and a plastic stub to attach one.

You could cut the copper off behind the soldered joint and use one of these.
http://www.fernco.com/plumbing/residential-plumbing/tubular-drain-pipe-connector

John

HAH!
Yeh, I would prefer the Fernco. I have used one like that on a similar situation in my bathroom. Just get a sawzall metal cutting blade and try to keep it perpendicular to the pipe.
From the looks of it, not sure you can fit the sawzall in there, though...