The Genius of Shark Bite

[Weldangrind]

I had an excellent plumbing experience, and I hope you benefit from it.

I got tired of contorting myself into the crawl space every time I need to shut the main water supply off in the house. As well, the original main valve dates back to the early eighties, and it's a stem valve. Stem valves are awful compared to ball valves, and mine tend to dribble each time I use it. It eventually dries up, but I'd really rather leave it alone. I could replace it with a ball valve, but I'd have to rely upon the City main valve that's outside, and they're not great either. My municipality is in the process of replacing all of the meters and valves, but that will take time.

I located the main pipe in the laundry area, and that's the second stop, right after the front garden hose valve. I hesitate to solder a new valve in the laundry area, because there's always the risk of fire due to the proximity of the floor joists.

Enter Shark Bite. Since I already had a 1/2" ball valve with female NPT ends, I just bought Shark Bite fittings, wrapped them with teflon tape and screwed 'em into the valve. The instructions that came with the fittings say that the pipe should be clean and free from burrs, and it should insert 1" into the fitting. I tested that with a scrap piece of 1/2" copper pipe, and I found that the actual insertion depth was 7/8".

I then measured the overall length of the valve and Shark Bite fitting assembly, transferred that to the pipe I intended to cut, and then subtracted 7/8" from each end. A tubing cutter followed by a little sanding of the pipe prepared the surface.

Here's the pipe before surgery:



Here's the cut:



Here's the fun part. You simply slide the pipe into the fitting until it stops, and then slide the other end onto the remaining pipe until it stops. That's it. Voila:



Let's say the valve isn't in the ideal position, because the handle hits something. No problem, just rotate it:



If you need to remove it for any reason, just use the removal tool. Sorry about the fuzzy photo. It simply snaps over the pipe, and you then press it into the fitting and pull the pipe out. The beauty of this design is that a Shark Bite will accept copper, plastic, whatever. I bought the fittings and adapters at Home Depot. Removal tool:



The only caveat is that you must be able to pull the two pipes apart buy about 2" to then insert them into the fittings and push them in. I had a small drip at both ends where I hadn't fully tightened the fittings into the valve, but I was actually able to tighten them after installation.

Try it. You'll be happy.