What plumbing contractor would work without a cell phone in today’s marketplace? There are many technology enhancements contractors use daily such as computerized invoicing, email quotes, and text messaging to customers regarding status of installations and repairs.

There is new technology that can have a big effect on productivity and that is the ability to unglue plastic pipe joints in order to make repairs quickly and not having to go back to the store for fittings.

Consider a break above ground between a tee and a valve where there is ample space to put in 3 couplings and replace the tee. Now imagine being able to cut the pipe at the tee and at the valve and then unglue both of those joints. Installing a new piece of pipe into the original valve and original tee can be done in less than 20 minutes, depending on the size pipe. It requires no fittings andno trips to town for parts if you don’t have enough couplings, valves, or tees on your truck. Your customer is back up and running in a half hour and generally is willing to pay premium for the reduced down time. You get the job done without parts, in less time, and charge the same, and sometimes more, than if you replaced the fitting.

Technology gives you a distinct advantage over your competition that cannot unglue pipe. Your customers know you can get them back up much faster than other plumbing contractors and they start thinking of never calling anyone else but you for their repairs. Adding a high technology tool, your Pipe Debonder, to your capability pays for itself every year many times over, but the biggest advantage to you is the increased revenue and profits your business earns because of the new capability you added using new technology.

Most users save enough money on the first 2 jobs to pay for the Pipe Debonder. They cost $899 with free shipping for ½” to 3” pipe sizes. Patented technology, made in America.

“Assembling a large manifold in a new building consisting of a 2-inch main with 11 schedule 80 PVC TEEs, each with a 2 x ½ inch reducer bushing, I received a new set of architectural drawings changing all of the bushings to ¾”.

I had just glued the half inch bushings into place that morning. Rebuilding that manifold would have required 11 new TEEs and half a day. My customer invoice would have been $480 in materials plus $360 in labor plus $180 time to chase parts for a total of $1020.

Also I couldn’t find 11 2” TEES in my city so I wouldn’t have been able to complete the work until the next day.

What I actually did was use a sawzall to cut the spokes out of each bushing leaving a thick wall glued in the TEEs. The remaining wall thickness of the cut bushing was a little thicker than 2 inch schedule 80 pipe, so I used the next larger size, 2.5” schedule 80 and selected that cycle on my Pipe Debonder. The resulting cycle time was 8.5 minutes. I used my small Pipe Debonder to unglue all 11 bushings in about 90 minutes. I was able to reuse every TEE.

After I picked up the new bushings, I re-glued the 11 TEEs in 30 minutes, completing the job in about 2 hours.

Total cost: $180 labor plus $148 for bushings plus $180 for a total of $508, a savings of $512. Plus I could complete the change order the same day.

This one job paid half of the cost of my Pipe 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!”

Sometimes we get questions from potential customers, or just people interested in the plumbing industry, what the benefits are of the Pipe Debonder.

The bottom line is that we believe that we provide the plastic pipe industry with unique tools to save significant money for any repair to glued pipe systems.

The primary and most significant benefit is the reduction in down time.  For the worst repair requiring at most, couplings, and at least, no fittings at all, the normal down time from arriving on the job to system back on line is usually cut by 65 percent for 3” to 6” pipe, cut by 80 percent for large pipe, and cut by 50 percent for small pipe.  Most of our customers charge less to unglue pipe than they do for normal replacement of fittings repairs, but some actually charge more because the customer always gets back on line within two hours. We all know there’s a value in speedy repairs!

We have never heard of a customer going to another plumber for being overcharged because he can unglue joints.

The second benefit is the labor savings.  Shorter down time also equates to less labor required.

The third benefit is the savings in fittings and valves that are not replaced.  Naturally, the larger the pipe, the more is saved.

A fourth benefit is a cleaner job. Rather than clog up a piping system with couplings every time a break occurs, debonding both ends of a pipe run allows a repair to be made where the repair is not evident and the pipe system is as clean as the original installation.

One customer recently wrote to tell us that the Debonder is the greatest plumbing tool ever created. While we certainly realize there are a lot of great tools on the market, we’re honored to provide tools that help customers save time, money, and frustration.

More than one PIPE DEBONDER customer has gone into business, not to install piping systems or repair broken pipe, but rather to unglue these “bone yard” piles of re-usable PVC, ABC, and CPVC fittings and put them back into inventory.  Understanding that this is a completely new market, salvaging valves and fittings on a labor only basis can be profitable for both the contractor and the debonder.  The small debonder (to 3 inch size) sells for $900 and rents for $80 for 2 days.  In 2 days’ time most bone yards can be salvaged, but rather than the contractor renting the debonder, the new business owner can salvage $1000 or more of valves and fittings in a day.  If he does it for $65 per hour and makes $450 per day and saves the contractor $1000 in parts, it is a win-win for both.

Pipe fittings to 6 inch are more valuable and take longer to unglue, but the recovery value is even a higher ratio than for small pipe sizes.  For example, a 6 inch schedule 80 CPVC flange list cost is $245.  A 4 inch schedule 80 PVC union list cost is $138.

Recovering the value of really large fittings is even more evident.  A 12 inch schedule 80 PVC tee list cost is $2440.  The LARGE DEBONDER sells for $6400 and rents for $500 for 2 days.  At $120 per hour to debond large pipe fittings and valves, many thousand dollars of otherwise unusable fittings can be reclaimed for a few hundred dollars of labor.

Specialty businesses set up to unglue pipe have a large initial opportunity to make money and save the contractor money.  The same is true for municipalities for water delivery and waste water collection and treatment facilities.  It also is true for irrigators such as golf courses and parks.  And every water park has lots of glued fittings that are of no value without being debonded.

One clever businessman has gone beyond ungluing bone yards for his customers to where he buys them at 18% on the dollar, unglues them, and offers them on a web site for available used fittings for 45 percent to 70 percent on the dollar.

Many times the pulled apart joint was not fully seated and the ridge of old glue must be scraped off to allow the new joint to fully seat. The reduction in bond area for the glue to hold is reduced in half if the pipe was only seated half way into the socket. Gaining the safety factor of doubling the bond area usually is enough to make the new joint last.

Sometimes the joint was made with the pipe in so much tension, a coupling and short piece of pipe needs to be added to remove the tension. Many times plumbers will support behind the fitting that came apart with materials that resist the motion that caused the pipe to pull apart.

Realistically, what is the difference between a re-glued joint that failed and a re-glued joint that was forced to fail by debonding it? In the second case, the joint that had not failed is likely to produce a better joint than the one that did fail. Just after debonding a broken piece of pipe from a fitting, the joint surface is in perfect shape to be re-glued because it is clean and warm and it will accept the new primer and new glue better than it did on its first joint.

Surely it is possible to scar the socket wall during extraction and cause other damage to fittings and valves in the process of ungluing it, but Debonding Systems has never heard of a joint that leaked after being re-glued following a proper debonding cycle using a Pipe Debonder tool. We are sure that some day it could happen and we will hear about it, but after 8 years of un-gluing pipe joints, we know of none.

One other point: should there be a lot of the original joint that was never glued or primed properly or if there is a lot of dirt in the original joint, the best way to remove this dirt is to do it right after it is unglued when the socket wall is hot and the glue soft. Besides that, most of the dirt in a glued joint comes out with the pipe, leaving the fitting pretty clean.

There is no ASTM testing data available that we know of for indicating the strength of a re-glued pipe joint.

I discovered a leaking 1-inch PVC sprinkler valve in my outdoor box.

The box was built with an 8 way cross manifold where my system has the primary inlet and 5 zones of the possible 7 being used. The valves are glued to a short piece of pipe and then glued to the manifold.

The conventional method of repairing this leak is to replace the manifold. The installer built the manifold with short pieces of pipe to every alternate leg so that the valves wouldn’t bump into each other. The inlet to the manifold has a glued 1-inch ball valve installed. Two of the zone valves have lengths of pipe long enough that I can cut them off such that I can install couplings on the pipe and reuse the valves. The other three valves must be scrapped and replaced.

The job entails replacing the manifold, the ball valve, three of the zone valves, two caps, and three couplings. In all, it requires 18 glue joints to rebuild my system. My sprinkler installer says that the job will take him about 2.5 hours including wiring and testing, provided that he has all of the fittings and parts on his truck. If not, he must go back to his shop or supply house, costing another hour. Total down time is half day after arrival. Total cost to the installer in fittings and parts is $39; $85 is my cost. Labor, including drive time is four hours at $95 per hour, which is $465 plus tax for a total of $495.

The latest technology for glued pipe system repairs is ungluing and reusing fittings, replacing only the pipe that is broken. This requires a Pipe Debonder tool that is commercially available. Ungluing the one joint from the manifold to the leaking sprinkler valve requires these steps:

Disconnect the wiring to the leaking valve.

Remove the soil two inches below the manifold at the leaking valve.

Cut the pipe to the leaking valve ¼ inch from the manifold and remove the valve.

Insert the Pipe Debonder into the manifold and run the 1-inch schedule 40 cycle (which takes two and a half minutes).

Remove the piece of glued pipe from the manifold.

Glue in a new piece of 1-inch pipe to the manifold.

Glue in a new zone valve to the pipe.

Connect the zone pipe to the valve.

Connect the wiring to the valve.

Total time for repair is 20 minutes. Fitting cost to installer is $12; $23 for me. Labor cost is one hour plus one hour of driving time for two hours at $95. Add parts and tax for a total of $227.

My savings is almost $200 and repair time is less than a half hour versus 2.5 hours for a conventional repair.

I want my sprinkler installer / repair contractor to have ungluing technology. Do you?

Owning a home comes with plenty of benefits, but there’s always things that go wrong and systems that need repair. Plumbing repairs can be one of the messiest, most expensive and time consuming systems to fix when things go wrong.

Traditionally, plumbing fixes involve cutting pipe, adding fittings, installing new joints and, in some circumstances, removing walls and flooring.

There’s a better way.

One homeowner recently said,

“I just learned about being able to unglue plastic pipe joints with a heating technique called Pipe Debonder. It seems so simple and fast to do repairs by ungluing fittings rather than replacing them with new ones when there is a broken pipe or leak.

I could unglue the pipe myself if I had the tool, but for a normal homeowner like me, the cost of the tool is too high for the rare breaks I experience. My contract plumber certainly would use it every week making his investment paid back quickly.

When I need plastic pipe repairs, I ask my plumber if he can unglue pipe when I ask for a quote. A plumber who can unglue fittings, valves, and toilet flanges can have my system up and working faster, saving me down time and saving me money while allowing my plumber to make more money in less time.

In tight spaces, repairing a broken pipe using the existing fittings and valves doesn’t require adding couplings to every leg of the replaced fittings so the repair is much less messy. Valves don’t have to be moved. Floors don’t have to be torn up. The whole job is faster and more tidy. When the repair is completed, you can’t tell that there was ever a break.”

Can your plumber unglue pipe?