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.”

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?

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.