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Apprehensive-Egg374 OP t1_j651xvt wrote

Reply to comment by squarebacksteve in How can I add a second 1/4 inch water line to under my kitchen sink? by Apprehensive-Egg374

Thank you so much!

Here are some better pictures of the pipe. This is brass?

https://imgur.com/a/YotJUGx

Also, the fitting you gave me is technically for PVC. It would be ok to use for those pipes if they are cut off?

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squarebacksteve t1_j65eb7g wrote

Hard to tell if it's brass or not, but I'm leaning towards yes. The angle stop definitely is. If you rub sandpaper on the pipe it should look gold if it's brass, silver if steel. If you have a nice strong magnet to test with the brass will not stick to it. That link I posted is for a PVC transition but it says it's also for ips. PVC, iron, steel, and brass piping all have the same outside diameter, so it should fit. I've never used an IPS one because I've never had to and in general I prefer not to use shark bites (they very rarely fail but are not the most reliable method of repair) but from the description it does say it works for IPS. If you do have to use a shark bite, the pipe must be damn near perfectly smooth and without scrapes or burrs or else it will damage the shark bite's o-ring and cause a leak.

I don't think you'll have an issue unthreading the old valve, I just want to give you some emergency options.

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Apprehensive-Egg374 OP t1_j65kkq8 wrote

Ok—thank you so so much! I’ll let you know how it goes!

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squarebacksteve t1_j65y1nd wrote

Please do!

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Apprehensive-Egg374 OP t1_j6e1hth wrote

To be honest, I’m getting tempted to just leave it all as it is, and just add in another 1/4 tee above the current 1/4 tee for the fridge and leave it all be. At the end of the day, my initial question was just “can I add a Tee on top of the Tee” and I got my answer which was a yes lol

At the end of the day, if the pipe coming out of the wall snaps, there doesn’t seem be anyway to solve the issue other than taking that pipe off. Which can then cause the pipe in the wall to snap off and cause a bigger headache. Worse, it’s possible that when I try to take off the valve, the piping in the wall is galvanized pipe and that snaps off in the wall. I don’t really have the thousands of dollars it would cost to hire a plumber to fix that issue. Given how I don’t know if the pipe in the wall is an old rusted and corroded galvanized pipe that could snap in an instant when I try to remove the old valve, I feel as though this is just to risky for me.

I don’t know. What do you think? Do you think it’s really a small risk? I’m just scared the pipe behind the wall might be an old and corroded galvanized pipe that can burst and cause me issues. Even if the pipe coming out of the wall bursts, I don’t know if using that shark bite is the best idea since it’s “technically“ not made for brass but PVC. And I assume I’d have to remove the pipe to rethread it. So this whole job just seems very risky and I just don’t know if it’s worth. If something breaks, it doesn’t seem like I could permanently fix it without calling in a plumber and spending $1000+. I’m from NY so it’s really expensive here.

You have any thoughts? You think it’s low risk and I could do it? If something breaks, you have any other suggestions in case the shark bite fitting doesn’t work on the brass?

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squarebacksteve t1_j6ffhtv wrote

It's easy for me to say I'd go for it, but I could fix it if it broke, and I kind of have the muscle memory to know "this is gonna break if I have to wrench on it harder". If one of my employees just added a tee, I'd be irritated because it would be lazy work, and the customer doesn't hire us to do lazy work.

But! Adding another tee is 100% possible, and while I would never do it, you definitely can and I give you my blessing to just add the tee and leave it at that 👍 it'll still be better than government work!

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