Copper pipe - solder vs Sharkbite
 

I have a plumber here moving two 3/4” copper supply pipes because I need more room for cabinets.

He asked if I wanted to use Pex or copper, I said the latter, and today he has shown up with a bunch of copper Sharkbite fittings.

I am a little disappointed. Don’t plumbers solder copper fittings any more?

I'd be disappointed too. Sweating copper joints is easy and time-tested.

Just did my own to replace an outside faucet - had to go back a couple of 90s to get better access.
Clean and flux are key. Heat the opposite side to where the solder touches.

The thought of it is far scarier than the actuality. And it’s a LOT cheaper to do it myself.

Sounds like he’s not a real plumber! Propress is an alternative, shark bite is not.


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I thought they all did those crimp/compression fitting now for copper.

Here in New Zealand we braze copper pipes. I don't know why everyone doesn't. It's stronger than solder and probably stronger than the surrounding copper pipe itself.

I do my own plumbing and certainly wouldn't use sharkbite type connectors on plumbing pipes.

Lesson learned. :-(

I concur.

Are any of the fittings going to be concealed in any way? If so do not use sharkbites!
I still sweat copper whenever I use it.
.

Why not do it yourself?

I have used sharkbite on a copper pipe when I removed an old water heater from a restricted space. The new tank was in a different ( read:accessible) location. All I had to do was block off the feed to the old tank. I didn't want to solder in that tight space, so prepped the cut off end and jammed the fitting into place. That was three years ago. If I ever remodel that old bathroom and utility space, I will probably rip out a bunch of old, unused pipe and solder in plugs where appropriate. The structure in that part of the basement was practically built around the plumbing.

Best
Les

If you have bad access or don't want heat you can always use crox fittings. They last longer than the copper pipes and don't fail.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1718486466.jpg

No sharkbite ion my house or any of my real clients. Pex in all my rentals. Sharkbite for temp. work during remodel. After that, they go with old fashion copper. I am just old school that way.

Soldered fittings are the way to go over shark-bite fittings. Personally I think shark-bite fittings are for diy.
Most of my work involved installing copper piping. Pex was being introduced a couple of years before I retired. I used it on a couple of jobs. It was fantastic if running large runs of pipes, just needed more supports.

About 12 months ago I used a Sharkbite fitting to fix an external tap. No problems so far but I wouldn't use them on something you can't get to later (behind tiles for instance).

I’ve been building heat exchangers that use shark bite fittings for several groups at my internship. There’s no skill to shark bite fittings and imho will not last as long as copper (let alone the plastic leaching). The physicist interns could not figure out how to make the shark bite fittings work, so maybe it takes a little higher iq to push a pipe into a bite fitting…. :confused:

Walking around the newly renovated wings, I’ve noticed only the crimped fittings. Very few soldered joints.

Maybe it's only industrial? Or only larger than say 1 inch pipe? I dunno, it's all I see anymore, and the tool that does the crimping is PIMP.