Q: Will ungluing broken pipe comprise the integrity of the existing pipe?

A: When the broken pipe is cut off at the fitting and then heated from the inside with a Pipe Debonder, the heat conducts through the pipe wall until the glue interface is softened. A precise computer program controls both time and temperature for the thickness and size of pipe. When the glue is soft, the fitting is still cool to touch. The warm pipe is soft enough to bend around itself and be removed with the patented extraction tool, but the barely warm fitting socket is undamaged and ready to re-glue immediately.

The integrity of the pipe being unglued is certainly compromised; but that pipe is already broken and being replaced.

Many plumbers are used to using a Rambit or holesaw for the same purpose, which certainly compromises the pipe too as it cuts it into small pieces. It is the integrity of the fitting that matters here and a hacksaw blade, chisel, or holesaw all risk scoring the socket wall, increasing the chance for a leak.

Properly ungluing leaves the fitting uncompromised and with no scar.

Q. Will plumbing inspectors have an issue with fittings that have been debonded and reglued?

Generally not. If a plumber were installing a new piping system in a building, and he quoted using all new parts and then was found to be using used fittings, that plumber would be in violation of his quote, but not necessarily the code. Regluing a fitting that came apart is frequently done in every plastic pipe application around the world and is accepted by most plumbing inspectors. In fact, ungluing pipe is often the preferred repair method because the it requires fewer fittings and fewer glue joints and the repair looks identical to the original installation.

Many of our customers are municipalities, the organizations that employ inspectors!

Q. PVC and plastic pipe is cheap. How is the price of the Debonder justified?

A. The price of the small Debonder is $900 and is for ungluing 1/2″ to 4″ pipe. (Up to 3” for schedule 80). It unglues PVC, CPVC, & ABS pipe. Almost every repair is made in less than 30 minutes and without any new fittings. If you save a few trips to town or a few $100 valves, it pays back fast. Plus, you get your customer back on line much quicker, which many customers will pay extra for. Most of our customers tell us they paid back the price of their Debonder within the first few uses.

The savings in fittings is the least important cost advantage of ungluing broken pipe.

The big savings from ungluing plastic pipe is the reduction in downtime for your customers. The savings to you comes from all the trips back to town to get fittings that are not on your truck. Whether or not you charge for your time, you spend it. Ungluing allows almost every leak repair to be completed without any fittings and in less than 30 minutes by ungluing both ends of the broken pipe and putting in a new piece. If the pipe is long, at most you need only one coupling and no trips to town.

Think about this scenario: One broken pipe coming out of a wall or out of concrete where you have to dig it out generally costs a whole day and $1000. Debond the fitting in 10 minutes and charge for the value you create, not the short amount of time you spent. Your customer is back up within an hour, not a whole day. So you save down time which results in lower labor costs for you or your crew. Repairs are made such that you can’t tell there was a break and you can get rid of previous repair couplings cluttering up the system.

Technology has value. Your customers won’t ever call your competition once they know how quickly you do repairs and make design changes.

Q. Can’t I just use a heat torch and get the same result as the Debonder, for less money?

A. Any heat source supplying the right amount of heat uniformly to a pipe will allow it to soften and be removed. If you really want to avoid buying a Pipe Debonder, but still unglue successfully, you can use a piece of steel pipe or heavy wall tubing just slightly smaller than the ID of the plastic pipe you want removed. Heat it to orange with a propane torch and hold it inside the pipe until the pipe is soft enough to unglue. If you repair plastic pipe often enough, it is far faster and more professional to use the Pipe Debonder. It works every time without scaring the socket with a screwdriver or needle nose pliers.

Can you really unglue 3″ or larger schedule 80 pipe with a heat gun? Pipe Debonder can, every time, no problem.

Q: I haven’t come across the need for a Debonder. Why do I need one?

A. The primary use of the Debonder is for breaks and big design changes. One customer installed 21 two-inch schedule 80 tees in an 80-foot-long run. Then he glued in 21 half-inch reducer bushings into the tees. The next morning the architect changed the design to 3/4 inch. The only choice was to rebuild the entire manifold, taking most of a day. No combination of suppliers had 21 two-inch tees in his town. The cost to rebuild this manifold was $5500 including flying fittings.

The other option was to unglue the bushings. Using a hole saw to remove the spokes on the reducers and a 7 minute Debonding cycle, the half inch bushings were removed in 3.5 hours. The whole job was completed in less than 5 hours and the cost was reduced to $600. These situations don’t happen every day, but justifying the Debonder was simple in this situation.

Q. How else can I use the Debonder?

A. You likely have a boneyard of glued fittings, flanges, and valves you could put back in service. The value of those salvageable parts is probably worth much more than the cost of the Debonder. Unglue those and reuse them or sell them. You can even charge other plumbers to unglue their boneyards of materials! Plumbing schools debond pipe everyday to save the cost of the fittings and the cost of disposal. In that sense, Pipe Debonders are environment friendly and green.

Q. Can older pipe be unglued, even on pipe glued years ago?

A. Absolutely! We’ve had customers unglue pipe that was originally installed more than 25 years ago.

Q. Will the Debonder stand up to being bounced around in my service truck, and can it be used in tight areas without the risk of igniting insulation or wood?

A. Yes. All Pipe Debonders are built very robust. They all come in hard shell cases that you can stand on and the cases are foam lined to protect the tools. They will stand up to being bounced around in a truck.

The small Debonder is 6 inches long and 4 inches in diameter. That is how much space is needed to fit it into the broken pipe so it works in tight spaces. It’s especially useful for closet (toilet) flange repairs where the pipe is cut off from the inside and the Pipe Debonder inserted through the floor to unglue the WYE or SWEEP. The heat element is guarded and only heats the plastic enough to peel way from the fitting. As long as there are no flammable gasses in the area or in the pipe system, there is no fire danger.

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.

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.

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.

Q: I have a stack of PVC pipe sitting outside in the weather and it has been there for several hot summers. The heat causes the ends of the pipe, in particular, to become squared slightly and difficult to fit into a fitting socket because it is no longer perfectly round. What can I do to re-round the pipe?

A: Use a PIPE DEBONDER tool, which is normally used for ungluing broken plastic pipe from glued fittings.

The heat from a debonding cycle can be used to soften the pipe sufficiently to allow it to be removed from a fitting. It can also be used to re-round pipe ends to their original perfectly round shape.

Using the next smaller size thermal cycle (for example if you have 3 inch pipe that is be re-rounded, use the 2.5 inch cycle for the same schedule (wall thickness) as programmed into the PIPE DEBONDER. The heating of the inside of the pipe will relax the pipe and allow the stacking stresses to be relaxed to where the pipe can obtain, on its own, its original round shape. When it cools, it can be inserted into the fitting it is to be cement bonded to.

Another trick is to slip on a coupling of the same size to the end of the pipe to force it round. After a few minutes to cool, the pipe will stay round for a long time.

From the discharge of a pump to a tee which splits the flow in two directions where the break occurs between the tee and the shut off valve on that leg of the piping system, if the broken pipe can be separated by 6 inches using unions or other features, the debonder may be used to unglue both  the tee and the valve where a short piece of pipe is re-glued and the repair is not evident where it cannot be determined there ever was a break there.  This is important when clean piping systems are desired and the use of couplings at every connection to a manifold occupy a lot of space and look messy.  They also create more opportunities for additional leaks.

If the piping system consisted of only one tee and two glued valves, the replacement of a broken pipe requires one tee, two valves, and 3 couplings  –  14 glue joints total.  Ungluing the broken piece allows the reuse of the tee and both valves and requires no couplings and only re-gluing two joints.  And the piping stays tidy and neat.