Common Plumber Mistakes for Newbies and How to Avoid Them
Plumbing repair yourself can save you tons of money, but there are tons of little things you might not think about that can ruin your DIY projects. Here are a few mistakes that hobbyist plumbers often make.
In this video from This Old House, Richard Tretevy demonstrates a couple of unexpected mistakes that occur when you don’t have a lot of plumbing experience. For example, you don’t want to use a regular wrench to tighten any chrome-finish fixture because you will inevitably scratch the chrome and your new sink will no longer look like new. The correct tool is the strap wrench , although you can cheat by wrapping the chrome fixture with a towel.
Other errors include accidentally warping old pipes with a wrench (loosen the pipe wrench so that the pipe touches not only the teeth, but also the back of the wrench) and using screws of the wrong length.