Chipping away at PVC

As I said yesterday, it’s now my job to replace the broken PVC pipe in the Sprinkler Valve Assembly. So today I went forth, did battle, and conquered!

The problem I faced was a straight splice connecting two ¾” pipes between the valve assembly and the old ball-valve shut-off. The splice was flush up against both the valve assembly and the ball valve so there was no way to cut the pipe and re-splice it. My only recourse was to remove the in-line splice. The good news is that Nathan had a Dremel Tool (a small hand grinder) for which I was able to buy a small rotary cutter bit. I used the bit to cut a slot lengthwise into the in-line splice without going deep enough to damage the internal pipe. Then I stuck a screwdriver into the slot and twisted it thereby causing the splice to breakaway from the pipe, or at least partially break away. It actually came away in pieces, but with careful chipping and prying it did come away.

Once I had the splice off I was able to clean up the surface of the pipe and install a new splice to which I connected the new pipe and new ball valve. I know this sounds confusing so the short version is: “I came, I saw, I conquered.” The sweetest part about this victory is that when I explained my plan to the experts at Home Despot they all assured me it would never work as PVC glue ”melts” the parts together like welding and they would never come apart in any usable fashion. Ha! So much for experts! I spit on their expertise! I’ll post a couple of photos showing the pipe stub and how I connected a new, relocated shut-off ball valve to the valve header.

Tomorrow I’ll hang the heater tape and the insulation and the job will be done.
Gee, isn’t this fun! Well I had a good time.

Later,
Fixit Frank