# copper rough in



## JohnnieSqueeze (Mar 23, 2016)

doing a whole house. ive done a lot of remodels but this is the first whole house ive roughed. any suggestions from more experienced guys? obviously, I hope, I have hammer arrestors and air chambers for risers, but anything to be extra sure to ensure the longevity of the water piping?

Thanks!


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## breplum (Mar 21, 2009)

Air chambers do not work. Over time the air is absorbed by the water. They were only allowed when you had accessible petcock drains so that they could be serviced annually. 
Fully ream pipe, use only long sweep fittings if hot recirculation is considered. ProPress 90s solve that nicely.
I will refuse the job if customer doesn't want recirc.






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## chonkie (Jul 31, 2014)

Slab on grade, pier/beam, tree house? When you say rough in, which phase do you mean? All we do is slab on grade, so to me, rough in is stage one, all the underground pvc and h20 lines stubbed up in appropriate wall locations. I've never had to install hammer arrestors at rough in.

To add to what breplum already said about a full reaming, make sure to protect that copper from touching anything that will speed up corrosion. I've seen in many remodels where the copper was not protected through the concrete and it looked like it wore away, or where they secured the copper right up against rebar or whatever and it got jacked up.


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## OpenSights (Mar 23, 2015)

Copper rough in. It’s probably been a decade since I did one! Cost is too high for anyone to pay around here, at least for my customer base. Repair, all the time. Same rules, just takes longer than pex.


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## 89plumbum (May 14, 2011)

Cut my teeth on copper underground’s, if that’s what your doing?

One guy looping and one building manifolds.

Loop soft copper up plumb so manifolds go together with ease. 

We were just as quick with copper as pex & pb.(showing my age)

Also, if this is a big house. Any copper you install make sure to solder it in so it becomes part of the structure in case it walks off the job. That way your covered.


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## Tango (Jan 13, 2018)

chonkie said:


> Slab on grade, pier/beam, tree house? When you say rough in, which phase do you mean? All we do is slab on grade, so to me, rough in is stage one, all the underground pvc and h20 lines stubbed up in appropriate wall locations. I've never had to install hammer arrestors at rough in.


For us above ground rough-in we have to put hammer arrestors on everything except the toilet. This means we have to install them on the rough for bath/shower. However contractors in my area don't do that because no one knows, no one to check and once the drywall is set you can't see if they put them in or not.

I upsell a lot of those but most people don't want any until the fridge leaks causing a lot of trouble.


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## JohnnieSqueeze (Mar 23, 2016)

?


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## Debo22 (Feb 15, 2015)

JohnnieSqueeze said:


> but anything to be extra sure to ensure the longevity of the water piping?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> ...


Use type L not M


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## JohnnieSqueeze (Mar 23, 2016)

Debo22 said:


> Use type L not M




Always L for the cold
M for the hot
K for my beer tap

LOL! 

Type L is all I use sir!


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## Alan (Jun 18, 2008)

In reference to the LS 90's :

I was in a house one time where whoever plumbed the recirc line used 1/2" soft copper and a conduit bender to make nice even smooth long sweep 90's. Think 12" sweeps. 

I know from experience that a lot of heat and a conduit bender can make some nice sweeps in hard copper as well. :surprise:


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## Master Mark (Aug 14, 2009)

JohnnieSqueeze said:


> doing a whole house. ive done a lot of remodels but this is the first whole house ive roughed. any suggestions from more experienced guys? obviously, I hope, I have hammer arrestors and air chambers for risers, but anything to be extra sure to ensure the longevity of the water piping?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> ...



I suggest you use bassit straps or some kind of plasitc hangers instead of metal pipe hangers....on the joysts... they dont creak and moan on the hot lines like the metal ones will do..... 

if it is in concrete I would cover the copper lines with aramaflex 100%....

I would use oaty tinning flux and wipe the joints.....

some air chambers are a good idea but not necessary....


if you know how to solder it should not be too difficult.....:vs_laugh:.


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## Tango (Jan 13, 2018)

Alan said:


> I know from experience that a lot of heat and a conduit bender can make some nice sweeps in hard copper as well. :surprise:


Not allowed in my area...


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## chonkie (Jul 31, 2014)

Alan said:


> I know from experience that a lot of heat and a conduit bender can make some nice sweeps in hard copper as well. :surprise:


I hope you know you annealed the copper. It softens the hard copper because it weakens the material. Add in the bending and the possibility of it bursting is now greater.


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## JohnnieSqueeze (Mar 23, 2016)

Master Mark said:


> I suggest you use bassit straps or some kind of plasitc hangers instead of metal pipe hangers....on the joysts... they dont creak and moan on the hot lines like the metal ones will do.....
> 
> 
> 
> ...




roughed in 2 days. yup I can solder, its the torch that usually doesnt want to keep up. 


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## JohnnieSqueeze (Mar 23, 2016)

breplum said:


> Air chambers do not work. Over time the air is absorbed by the water. They were only allowed when you had accessible petcock drains so that they could be serviced annually.
> Fully ream pipe, use only long sweep fittings if hot recirculation is considered. ProPress 90s solve that nicely.
> I will refuse the job if customer doesn't want recirc.
> 
> ...



are there other benefits to recirculating the hot water piping other than instant hot water?


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## Alan (Jun 18, 2008)

chonkie said:


> I hope you know you annealed the copper. It softens the hard copper because it weakens the material. Add in the bending and the possibility of it bursting is now greater.


Not me. I refused to do it. My boss did it because he was too cheap to buy a roll of soft copper for an under-slab loop. They make soft copper for a reason.

:vs_laugh:


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## Alan (Jun 18, 2008)

JohnnieSqueeze said:


> are there other benefits to recirculating the hot water piping other than instant hot water?
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


If you pipe it into the bottom of the tank it helps to keep the drain open for flushing and replacement someday.


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## mtfallsmikey (Jan 11, 2010)

All good advice, other than the heating/annealing.
Best advice I can give is make sure you rough everything in before Sparky and the Tin Knockers arrive.


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## skoronesa (Oct 27, 2015)

As far as bending, yes it is against many local codes but if you are using "bend quality" L copper it still doesnt get thinner than M pipe starts out as. I have never successfully bent M, annealed or not.

Mueller streamline L is bend quality aka semi-soft copper meant for bending. A couple older guys around here bend as much as possible. A couple other brands are bendable too. Bell and howell, great lakes, a couple more too. Not cerro or reading, usually not chase either. Luckily our supply house almost always only has mueller, probably because guys request it.

Annealing copper does not make it weaker, it actually makes it less likely to break, at least as far as I have seen from freeze-ups. Many of the houses around here have soft copper lines ran for water mixed in with regular copper so I have seen plenty of comparisons.

You can order a combo 15mm/22mm bender from the uk, they bend copper all the time. The 15mm side will be a bit tight for 1/2" but it will work fine. The 22mm side fits 3/4" perfectly.

I have yet to see evidence that not reaming leads to erosion of the fittings. Almost no one around here reams copper. I usually do but have gotten lax lately. It may be a tad noiser but doesn't seem harmful.

If you learn to bend copper it is much faster than fittings and obviously many fewer joints. It does however require you to think in 3 dimensions and has actually given me a headache. Usually I only bend copper on the clock for simple things that the customer will see and appreciate. I will occasionally give someone my 30 minute lunch to do something more complex, just so I can have my name on it.

When done properly bending copper is a much better option. And it looks damn fine too!


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## Alan (Jun 18, 2008)

skoronesa said:


> I have yet to see evidence that not reaming leads to erosion of the fittings. Almost no one around here reams copper. I usually do but have gotten lax lately. It may be a tad noiser but doesn't seem harmful.


I've fixed plenty of pinholes in pipe immediately following a fitting - even the run side of a tee, and pull them apart only to find evidence of an unreamed pipe end immediately upstream from the pinhole.

Obviously I can't say for 100% certain that this is what caused the pinhole, but the science behind pipe erosion and turbulence makes perfect sense to me. 

Better safe than sorry. It only takes a couple seconds..


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## Tango (Jan 13, 2018)

There hasn't been any copper installed in houses here since 1990. Poly B, then pex.

Only some commercial places still uses copper for water. I'd say 50% the other half is Aqua rise.

Over here no one I heard of ever reamed copper. Pin holes are very rare. The ones I've seen were to pipes rubbing against concrete or floor joist. Or 30 years old water pipe with many pinholes, with black specs appearing on the exterior too, cause unknown, bad pipe?


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## skoronesa (Oct 27, 2015)

Alan said:


> I've fixed plenty of pinholes in pipe immediately following a fitting - even the run side of a tee, and pull them apart only to find evidence of an unreamed pipe end immediately upstream from the pinhole.
> 
> Obviously I can't say for 100% certain that this is what caused the pinhole, but the science behind pipe erosion and turbulence makes perfect sense to me.
> 
> Better safe than sorry. It only takes a couple seconds..


I agree with you, and like I said for the most part I do ream. I have a lenox pipe cutter I was given that has a nice deburring blade which pops out. You can get a 10 pack of awesome noga deburring blades for 3$ shipped from israel. I took some 6" long pieces of rebar, drilled 1/8" holes, and popped in a small magnet to hold the blade. I keep one in each tool bag.

However, around here pinholes are never an erosion issue. We have so much lime that the pipes are basically cement lined. The few(like 5) buildings we service that get pinholes we just replace with pex 10-20' at a time and they are isolated cases. I assume they have electrical leaks somewhere. 

If you look at a modern copper fitting the inside diameter of the fitting is slightly smaller than the pipe. The non-reamed edge if not too great isn't anymore of a restriction than the fitting itself. I would worry more about cutting too fast.


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## skoronesa (Oct 27, 2015)

That said, our guys get their asses reamed if they don't ream gas pipe.


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## Tommy plumber (Feb 19, 2010)

skoronesa said:


> That said, our guys get their asses reamed if they don't ream gas pipe.


 












Fuel gas code book and plumbing code book state: After cutting of pipe {and threading if galvanized steel} the pipe shall be returned to its original bore-or words to that effect.

I must confess, I was trained by hacks who never reamed the copper tubing. In fact {1} former boss didn't even use a fitting brush on copper fittings! He had me pre-fabbing tub & shower valves when I worked for him as an apprentice. He only instructed me to use sand cloth on the copper before soldering. He didn't even have a fitting brush-what a hack.

It was only after I went to a different company that I was told what a fitting brush is. And the newer company that showed me how to use a fitting brush did not ream their pipe either.


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## skoronesa (Oct 27, 2015)

Tommy plumber said:


> Fuel gas code book and plumbing code book state: After cutting of pipe {and threading if galvanized steel} the pipe shall be returned to its original bore-or words to that effect.
> 
> I must confess, I was trained by hacks who never reamed the copper tubing. In fact {1} former boss didn't even use a fitting brush on copper fittings! He had me pre-fabbing tub & shower valves when I worked for him as an apprentice. He only instructed me to use sand cloth on the copper before soldering. He didn't even have a fitting brush-what a hack.
> 
> It was only after I went to a different company that I was told what a fitting brush is. And the newer company that showed me how to use a fitting brush did not ream their pipe either.


This winter I went to a house with another guy that was piped in the 90's. We had to fix about 20 burst joints. It was terrible, the baseboard on the second floor had old antifreeze so it only slightly froze but it was enough to push apart almost all of the joints because they didn't clean the pipe or fittings, only fluxed. We were in the finished basement living room cutting holes in the popcorn ceiling. 

I am sure not reaming, which they didn't do either, gave the ice more surface area to push the joint out. The lack of solder was insane, almost none wicked in the joint, many only had a ring of solder near the outer edge.

I am sure back in the day when zinc chloride fluxes were used that cleaning wasn't necessary, but with modern fluxes that aren't as corrosive you absolutely must sand/brush/clean the pipe and the fitting.


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## skoronesa (Oct 27, 2015)

Alan said:


> I've fixed plenty of pinholes in pipe immediately following a fitting - even the run side of a tee, and pull them apart only to find evidence of an unreamed pipe end immediately upstream from the pinhole.
> 
> Obviously I can't say for 100% certain that this is what caused the pinhole, but the science behind pipe erosion and turbulence makes perfect sense to me.
> 
> Better safe than sorry. It only takes a couple seconds..





I finally ran into one 1/2" 90 this past december on a recirc line which had a pinhole that might have been from erosion.






.


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## KanePS (Jan 19, 2019)

I recently installed two commercial hot water tanks for a new school that's being built and my foreman insisted that I install water hammer arresters on both hot and cold lines before it enters the tank and after it leaves. Isn't redundant since I have a big expansion tank right next to the tanks?


I'm currently working at a new RCMP station (federal police) outside of town and I got to install type K for recirc and hot lines( type K dulled my milwaukee automatic cutter like you wouldn't believe so I resorted to using my trusted rigid # 15). It was fun installing those prison sink/toilet combination which are considered high pressured somehow and required solenoid valves for hot and cold, so much rebar and reinforcement of the cinder blocks.


So glad i'm not working outside this weekend in -26 C.


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## canuck92 (Apr 1, 2016)

Meet with homeowners and make sure they've picked an finalized there finishes befoir you start the rough. Through my experiance with houses the most frustrsting part besides other trades who dont communicate what there doing is indecisive homeowners who change there mind. ( example they change there mind an buy a shower valve that requiers 3/4 not 1/2 )
And since your roughin it in with copper it would be even more frustrating moving you piping after the fact an then having to navigate around hvac. 
But yea factory made arrestors at the end of long runs. Or use point of use arrestors at appliances and fixtures. And L for both hot and cold.


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## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

chonkie said:


> Slab on grade, pier/beam, tree house? When you say rough in, which phase do you mean? All we do is slab on grade, so to me, rough in is stage one, all the underground pvc and h20 lines stubbed up in appropriate wall locations. I've never had to install hammer arrestors at rough in.
> 
> To add to what breplum already said about a full reaming, make sure to protect that copper from touching anything that will speed up corrosion. I've seen in many remodels where the copper was not protected through the concrete and it looked like it wore away, or where they secured the copper right up against rebar or whatever and it got jacked up.


The lime and calcium in the concrete will eat thru the copper if not protected,that why I insulate all my underground water piping if copper or pex insulate it all under concrete,takes longer but don’t have to worry about it


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## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

Alan said:


> In reference to the LS 90's :
> 
> I was in a house one time where whoever plumbed the recirc line used 1/2" soft copper and a conduit bender to make nice even smooth long sweep 90's. Think 12" sweeps.
> 
> I know from experience that a lot of heat and a conduit bender can make some nice sweeps in hard copper as well. :surprise:


You can take the ridgid 1/2” benders and bend hard copper with them,we did a school and used the heck out of them benders,it was type L copper to also no heat is needed


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## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

```
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chonkie said:


> I hope you know you annealed the copper. It softens the hard copper because it weakens the material. Add in the bending and the possibility of it bursting is now greater.


Nah,don’t believe it,I have bent hundreds of 90’s in 1/2” L hard copper but we never heated it up,still there today and hasn’t busted 20 yrs on some of it


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## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

Master Mark said:


> I suggest you use bassit straps or some kind of plasitc hangers instead of metal pipe hangers....on the joysts... they dont creak and moan on the hot lines like the metal ones will do.....
> 
> if it is in concrete I would cover the copper lines with aramaflex 100%....
> 
> ...


We use the one hole talon straps


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## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

@mj;


Alan said:


> I've fixed plenty of pinholes in pipe immediately following a fitting - even the run side of a tee, and pull them apart only to find evidence of an unreamed pipe end immediately upstream from the pinhole.
> 
> Obviously I can't say for 100% certain that this is what caused the pinhole, but the science behind pipe erosion and turbulence makes perfect sense to me.
> 
> Better safe than sorry. It only takes a couple seconds..


You either had corrsive water or a bad batch of trump made copper lolol


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## sparky (Jan 8, 2014)

Tommy plumber said:


> Fuel gas code book and plumbing code book state: After cutting of pipe {and threading if galvanized steel} the pipe shall be returned to its original bore-or words to that effect.
> 
> I must confess, I was trained by hacks who never reamed the copper tubing. In fact {1} former boss didn't even use a fitting brush on copper fittings! He had me pre-fabbing tub & shower valves when I worked for him as an apprentice. He only instructed me to use sand cloth on the copper before soldering. He didn't even have a fitting brush-what a hack.
> 
> It was only after I went to a different company that I was told what a fitting brush is. And the newer company that showed me how to use a fitting brush did not ream their pipe either.


We never ever ream copper pipe and rarely ream gas lines,works just fine,bosses don’t want you to ream nothing for one it takes to long and second if you do service work why it may give you work later on down the line lolololol


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