Robert: If you are in a tight spot to sweat solder, like close to a wall (like 90° valves for sinks always are) use a 1/4” piece of cement board between the joint and the wall. It’s fireproof and I use them all the time when I’m doing plumbing.
Shell: The easiest way to find out if plumbing exists back there is to drill a hole in the grout between the tiles big enough for a coat hanger, about a foot above the spigot. Bend a hanger and wiggle it wildly. You can hear the ring of the hanger on copper clearly if it’s back there.
It’s not 100% because you might have a supply line but if you don’t have a small scope to look into the wall, it’s a good go-no-go gauge. You can fill the hole with epoxy and then grout back over it either way. No silicone as it fails and grout doesn’t like it.
If you want to add a shower there’s a lot of work. Not hard or technical work, but a lot of work. The hole you cut has to be at least 8” across because mixer valves aren’t small or easy, and you’ll never really be able to waterproof the cut lines. So, better to tear it all out.
If you do that, you can put the shower in for about 400$ by yourself in two 12 hour days. If you want to do a bad ass job, make it 600$ and the same time.
They’re approved in every state for even underground work. I don’t use them unless brazing would be impractical due to tight spaces, but to be fair, my main line into the house has a ball valve sharkbite.
I was wondering more about a plumber (or my dad's voice in my head) saying, "Just sweat that on there, and you're done." Part of me wants to do the job 'right', with a 69-cent fitting and some solder, but I'm no better than fair at soldering with a blowtorch while jammed under a sink. I'll gladly spend $10 to turn a frustrating 1-hour job into a 10-minute job.
The following user(s) said Thank You: SuperflyPete
Your stuff looks much better than I imagined. You can replace that valve and the fitting with cpvc, or another flex, whatever. If you have acidic water the plastic is likely a quality choice.
I was imagining the flexible tubing that you use to attach your valve to the faucet, with a hand-valve in the middle.
You can unscrew that valve from the wall and replace it sweet and easy, assuming your threads on the wall side are solid.
The following user(s) said Thank You: SuperflyPete
They’re approved in every state for even underground work. I don’t use them unless brazing would be impractical due to tight spaces, but to be fair, my main line into the house has a ball valve sharkbite.
I was wondering more about a plumber (or my dad's voice in my head) saying, "Just sweat that on there, and you're done." Part of me wants to do the job 'right', with a 69-cent fitting and some solder, but I'm no better than fair at soldering with a blowtorch while jammed under a sink. I'll gladly spend $10 to turn a frustrating 1-hour job into a 10-minute job.
My brother is a high end Master plumber. I asked him about Sharkbites and he said that he only hates them because it makes “normal people” able to do things themselves which may not be legal, safe, or both.
As long as you don’t bury it (like a Fernco fitting) you’re all good.
I don’t suppose the shower wall with the faucet backs up to a closet or another room by any chance? If so, it might be easier to go at it from the back since sheetrock is easy to patch.
SuperflyTNT wrote: My brother is a high end Master plumber. I asked him about Sharkbites and he said that he only hates them because it makes “normal people” able to do things themselves which may not be legal, safe, or both.
We run across some crazy stuff that was done by a homeowner and my boss always says, “Some people should not be allowed to shop at Home Depot.”
Great question. There is a closet on the other side of the wall with the shower. It makes sense that I should open up that side to see what is going on inside the wall.
Before that step, I'm going to ask my girlfriend to physically show me the physical limitations that she will be facing during her post-surgery recovery. We should be able to reach a reasonable compromise if we focus on what she needs as opposed to what she wants. I promised her that we would do a professional remodeling next year, but in the short term we need to keep the cost low.
I'm working on what should have been the easy repair, which is replacing the shutoff valve under the sink, before I replace the faucet assembly. Now that I am actually in there working on it, I see that all the existing parts are plastic. That's supposed to be a good thing, because plastic parts are easier to work with than metal parts. One side of the non-functioning shutoff valve came off easily, but it doesn't match up at all with the replacement part that I got. The other end, which attaches to the pipe stub coming out of the wall, seems fused together, and I doubt that penetrating oil will do anything to plastic parts. What's worse is that I can only move either my wrench or channel lock about 1/4" at a time before I am hitting my knuckles against something.
I had trouble getting the old shutoff valve off the stem, so I disconnected the other connections and pulled the whole sink and vanity away from the wall. Then it came off easy. Took the part with me and ended up going to three different hardware stores and not getting the right part.because the copper pipe stub coming out of my wall is 3/4". That's a size normally used with garden hoses. At Menard's, I found a 3/4" to 5/8" adapter that would have worked, excepted that all the shutoff valves were machine thread and the adapter was non-machine thread. So finally I bought a shark bite shut off valve. Hope that works.
Plumbing parts are a nightmare, I have discovered. I reluctantly accept that there are a few different sizes available, but there is a frustrating lack of industry standards regarding threading on the inside, threading on the outside, male or female connectors, machine-threaded or not, different terms used by different companies. It's like they are deliberately making things as complicated as possible to keep amateurs out.
I moved on to the main repair, which was to replace the entire faucet. My original problem was that the hot water side of the faucet was leaking, and it recently changed from a slow leak to a thin stream. The good news is that the hot water no longer leaks. The bad news is that cold water leaks like crazy, somewhere above the sharkbite that I installed on that side. Fortunately, the original cold water shutoff valve still works, and so does the sharkbite on that hose. So the rest of the house can enjoy water, just so long as I leave this cold water shutoff valve shut off on this sink. I will take another shot at it tomorrow, but it's Easter, so I am stuck with whatever I have on hand. Starting with clearing a surprise snowfall (only 2", but wet and heavy) from the driveway this morning, it's been a long and annoying day.
By the way, I have to hang a new hvac trunk. It’s punching it through the concrete wall that concerns me. Looks like much foul language is in my future.
I decided to leave the plumbing alone on Easter, because the hardware stores were probably all closed. Upon reflection, I think I know the reason for my new leak. When I was cutting the supply hoses for the sharkbites, I cut one of them using tin snips. The supply hoses are some kind of dark gray plastic, only slightly flexible and very tough. The snips cut just fine, but pinched the hose. I assumed that it would just revert to shape, but had not done so by the time I slipped on the sharkbite. So there may be a slight gap on at least one side of that sharkbite on the cold water supply hose. I cut the other hose using a hacksaw, and no leakage there. Just in case, I am postponing the whole mess until Saturday. We have more incoming snow today and tomorrow, so I will be busy shoveling and blowing and roof-raking for the next two nights.
I put up a ceiling fan yesterday, replacing a smaller, shittier ceiling fan I installed in the fall. It was so nice to have adequate lighting over my game table.
Games
How to resolve AdBlock issue? 
