TODarling
U.S. Army Retired
Premium
join:2004-11-27
Fort Smith, AR
| Re: water heater installed right? Found this on a DIY site.
The last step is to wipe the joint. With an old, old rag (which you're going to throw away and never use again), perhaps moistened slightly, folded to several thicknesses to protect your hand from this very hot pipe, quickly wipe the excess solder and flux away. Your goal is a bright, clean, shiny joint, with clean copper on both sides and a little band of silver-gray right at the joint, with no big blobs of solder or streaks of flux. You might imagine you can skip this step, because an unwiped joint doesn't look too bad at first, either, but a few weeks later, the residual flux will have corroded the exterior of the pipe and left ugly green streaks. (Also the greasy flux residue will be impossible to paint, if it matters.) |
