Ungluing Pipe: A Customer’s First Experience With the Debonder

Pumps, pipes, and fittings at a water park.

This time, we’ll let a customer in Arizona do the writing:

“When I received my Debonder, I read the well-written operation manual and I thought I understood the tool pretty well without having operated it.  I practiced on a smaller joint and it really worked, just as the guy at Pipe Debonder told me it would.

The next morning I was on the job at a water park where I had a leaking 6 inch schedule 40 ELL coming out of the concrete.  Digging it up would take a long time and make a mess for the park.  I brought along two 6” ELLs anyway just in case it didn’t go well.

After 30 minutes of arriving on the job, I had shut off the water, drained the line, cut off the pipe (too long, I add), and plugged in the Mid-Size Debonder.  The cycle was 11 minutes.  Because I foolishly cut the pipe off 1/2′” too long, the Debonder was not inserted far enough into the fitting, but the extraction tool removed the broken pipe anyway.  It was very easy to do.

To my amazement, the fitting was not an ELL, but a TEE and I didn’t have one with me.  After removing the broken pipe, I cemented a new piece of pipe to the TEE.  Then I cut out the ELL above it and using two couplings and an ELL, I reconnected the system and turned on the water.

All in 30 minutes.

I was amazed how much time and money this Debonder tool saved me on just this one job alone.

Knowing how simple it is to reuse fittings, I now wonder how I got along without this tool all these years.

I called the folks at Pipe Debonder to congratulate them on a well designed and well built tool.  They asked me why I didn’t debond the ELL and reuse it rather than replace it.  Honestly, I didn’t even think of it because the part is not expensive for Schedule 40, but I can see that there would be no couplings in the system and the repair would be undetectable had I used my head and my new Debonder to save that ELL as well.

GREAT NEW INVENTION!”