Is soldering copper a thing of the past

[LouisCribben]

I noticed in my brothers new build, there is a lot of copper pipes for heating and water.
Every single joint is a copper compression fitting, no soldering done anywhere.

Is this the new standard, or just a lazy plumber.
My 1987 built house has only soldered joints, not a single compression joint anywhere

 

[onq]

I thought it was all plastic piping now?



ONQ.

 

[Towger]

Nope old school, compression is quality, solder (cheaper fitting and faster to do) is next and plastic is cheap (less skill and unproven over time). Better till is using 28 and 22mm, and only doing down 15mm when required.

 

[onq]

When you say "unproven over time" lets not forget copper pipes fail too, and it depends in part on how the pipes were fitted along their length. We once owned a house where copper pipes ran directly in a concrete screed without covers or insulation [it was an older house] and the concrete caused the copper pipes to perforate!

Have you heard of any plastic failures yet BTW?

ONQ.

[broken link removed]

 

[DavyJones]

Nope old school, compression is quality, solder (cheaper fitting and faster to do) is next and plastic is cheap (less skill and unproven over time). Better till is using 28 and 22mm, and only doing down 15mm when required.

We use 1", 3/4" and 1/2" pipe here btw. Metric pipe is used in the UK.

I would be a big fan of plastic pipe as long as it's unseen, it won't rot, stands up better when put into frezzing conditions as it allows more movement than metal pipes. Impurities in water won't have the same affect as with metal.

I agree that alot of skills may be lost over time, when I started plumbing, in the mid 90's, we used all copper and we would braze them with oxy acetylene, it was a pain dragging the bottles around. With the introduction of plastic pipe, soldering and welding is slowly disappearing as too will the art of pipe bending.

I have oxy acetylene bottles and still braze pipework and gas weld steel pipe but it is mostly in a commercial setting. The domestic market is nearly all plastic.