Sharkbites! Not just for Surfers anymore

For far too long I have had a leak in a pipe in the basement. It was the pipe that flows to the front yard faucet. The leak was not in the pipe itself, but rather in the on/off valve; it would leak only when turned on, but would not when off.

This valve:

Most likely the leak was due to a crack in the washer on the inside, and it's possible I could have repaired just that, but it's an old connection and I wasn't feeling good about it.

My preferred solution was to replace the valve with a new one. What I did not want to do, however, is call a plumber, or do any form of welding or sweating.

Enter Sharkbites. Sharkbite connectors are a really interesting widget that connect pipes without sweating and, most importantly, leak free. Their design is quite ingenious; the inside of each connector piece has "teeth" which grip into the pipe and, coupled with a tight seal, create a leak free connection.

After watching some videos and performing some measurements and calculations, I determined that what I needed was a small piece of new pipe, one Sharkbite connector, and one Sharkbite valve. I already had the pipe cutter.

Before one begins to cut pipe, one must remember to turn the water off through the pipe first. Thankfully I actually did that, and did not flood the basement nor completely soak myself.

Slicing the pipe to achieve the desired new length looked like this:

That's a pretty awe inspiring site, really, to see a main pipe completely severed. If you'll look really close you'll see that the portion of the pipe on the right is leaking a little water; it wasn't completely empty, which I was expecting, so had a bucket nearby.

I won't bore with the details other than to say that the connectors just snap right into place. They really do. Once I learned how to adjust them properly I was able to snap them onto their correct location.

Pretty spiffy, no? And, as advertised, it is leak free! I no longer need to turn this basement valve off or on to use the outside yard faucet. Just as importantly, I didn't need to pay for a plumber.

I'm almost looking for another pipe that needs fixing now.

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(c) All images and photographs, unless otherwise specified, are created and owned by me.
(c) Victor Wiebe

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About Me

Sometimes photographer. Wannabe author. Game designer. Nerd. 
General all around problem-solver and creative type.

Creator of What I Learned Today Hive community: https://peakd.com/c/hive-131257/created

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