SharkBite

I might have mentioned earlier about some dumb ass plumbers that the PO had and they capped a copper pipe with a steel cap. This is a bad idea as the dissimilar metals will create a galvanic reaction. Oh, that's stupid gutter installers. Anyways, a galvanic reaction is a little like a battery, and causes the "less noble" ( think left side, away from the noble gasses on your periodic table) to corrode. Insert exhibit "A"... A galvanic reaction.





Enter Exhibit "B" a SharkBite. This is a half inch cap that has little teeth which will hold the cap into place. All I need to do is create a clean cut and shove this little sucker on the pipe, which is half inch.

A SharkBite Cap...





The Finished Product....



Now, of course this project should have only taken 5 minutes, but there were some technical difficulty with cutting the pipe cleanly and I needed my sawzall to remove some of the old drop ceiling in the basement ( which was coming out anyways). There was a little collateral damage.

These shark bites appear to be a great thing. The half inch cap cost me $4.09 plus tax, but it did save me the trouble of breaking out the torch and burning the house down while using it. It's also reusable with their little doo-hicky. One bonus with these is you can use any one of them to connect dissimilar pipes like copper to CPVC or PEX. I think will try these again!

Update:  Thanks for the comment.  I suppose that explains why the SharkBite is also corroding.  Also I was wondering if it's possibly having a reaction because of other locations that have iron attached to the copper and many of the pipe clamps are also steel.