Monday 10 October 2011

Connecting plastic to copper pipes

On our April cruise we had (another) overheating problem. Fortunately I spotted the cause fairly quickly: a plastic connector had come adrift from copper pipework in the cooling system.


The top two photos are before, and the bottom two are after I remade the joint.



Was it just bad luck that the connection came apart here? Or is it a common problem when trying to connect plastic to copper?


After I'd tightened the connector we had no further problems.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Being a very old fashioned plumber I look at that sort of plastic fitting and think they should only be used on hosepipes in the garden ! Good old Yorkshire fitting would be my choice.

Halfie said...

Andrew, presumably plastic was used for flexibility - the pipework connects a vibrating engine to the calorifier - and cheapness.

Nev Wells said...

Ease of use and better frost protection saw me replace a lot of the copper with plastic when I replace the calorifier recently. I still agree the once connected and sweated on Yorkshire fitting gives a feeling of fit and forget but on a boat I don't think anything is fit and forget - not in my experience anyhow.

Nev

Anonymous said...

What gets put into a new boat ?
I recall when PTFE tape came out and the chap I was apprentice to said he would stick to hemp for back boiler joints.