Repairing Copper Tubing That Is Swollen

hillman · Mon Feb 13, 2012 1:08 pm

Hi guys: My wife and I bought a fixer upper mobile home up in Idylwild California. While inspecting the places where, either, the skirting was damaged or missing, I came across a 1/2" copper tubing that is the hot water feed to the faucet in the back bedroom which is an add-on. It was ran along the ground until the place where it needed to go up to the faucet. Not sure why it was run along the ground instead of up above. Anyway we found a section of the tubing was cut out and repaired with a hose and hose clamps. It was leaking and so I decided to repair it with a new section of 1/2" copper tubing and unions with compression fittings. when we tried to make the repair, the ferrels would not slide onto the old tubing. I discovered that copper tubing swells in the freezing weather. Suddenly it became clear why the repair was made with the hose. The repair is right next to the outside of the home but to replace the entire tube I might need to crawl under the belly where one can only guess what might be living there. There is the possibility that the whole tube is near the outside edge of the home. But I would then have to remove more skirting to make the repair which is better than crawling under but I would rather do the whole repair right where the problem is if I can.

If you can suggest a way for me to make the repair so that it will last and yet not have to replace the whole tube I would appreciate it. Thanks.

Waiting For Your Reply,
Bill

Norm Frechette · Mon Feb 13, 2012 2:37 pm

you can always get throw away tyvek suits to wear as you crawl underneath

http://www.bing.com/search?q=tyvek+suit ... dlt=strict

i would also inspect the entire length of that pipe to ensure there are no other problems that may appear later on. better to do it right the first time.

Greg · Mon Feb 13, 2012 6:30 pm

Bill Hi & welcome. The best advice I can give you is NOT what you are going to want to hear. I would change the whole thing (and any others that look suspicious), because it was frozen it was also weakened. The last thing you want is a blown line when no one is home. Personally when it comes to copper tubing I only use a flared fitting, it requires a flaring tool but they are easy to do and you are sure you won't have a leak.

If it were me, I would replace the copper with PEX tubing. PEX is easy to work with and very forgiving to freeze ups.

As I said, I know that is not what you wanted to hear, but do it once and do it right.

Greg

bobfather99 · Mon Feb 13, 2012 6:48 pm

There is no repairing swollen copper tubing, remove and replace with PEX. The copper does have some scrap value though, lol!!

hillman · Mon Feb 13, 2012 7:01 pm

Thanks guys. Replacing the entire line is the best thing to do and I know that. I had every intention of using pex if I do that. I was just hoping that someone had a magic bag of tricks that they could reach into and pull out a fix for my problem that didn't involve crawling under the belly of the home. The throw away suit was a good idea too. By the way, they don't make one that is resistant to animal and snake bites, do they? Just kidding.

So if I understand correctly, I should be able to connect both ends of the pex line to the same connectors that the copper tubbing was on by means of adapters, Right or wrong? I intend to eventually change all of the plumbing under the belly with pex, but I want to do it slowly replacing sections at a time. So, if the majority of the plumbing is above the belly material, then how can I find it without ripping more holes in the material than I have too?

Thanks guys for your advice. I truly appreciate it.

Waiting for more input,
Bill

Greg · Mon Feb 13, 2012 7:55 pm

PEX has a large variety of fittings available so there should be no problem finding what you need.

Sorry, but the batteries in my Magic wand are dead. It gets used a lot at work.

Greg

hillman · Mon Feb 13, 2012 9:06 pm

Thanks Greg.

Norm Frechette · Tue Feb 14, 2012 7:00 am

hillman wrote:The throw away suit was a good idea too. By the way, they don't make one that is resistant to animal and snake bites, do they?

just "man up" or wear this!

JD · Wed Feb 15, 2012 5:41 pm

You guys are hilarious!

If the copper tube has a threaded fitting attached to the end, then you should have no problem finding a fitting to fit it. Sometimes you may need an adapter to fit the 1/2" pipe thread of a pex fitting, as most places only stock the major fittings. Sometimes you may need a compression fitting instead of pipe thread.

To locate the pipe, you just need to do a rough measurement of where the feed lines go through the floor and then find that spot underneath and start cutting. Everything is clearer and eaiser to plan once you have your hands/eyes on the area to be worked.