# Plumbing supplies on hand.



## spregan (Aug 6, 2011)

As usual I'm learning from my mistakes. I was trying to play plumber this last week, when we had a copper elbow joint go bad. I thought I had gotten all the parts I needed, but hadn't. I didn't realize this until 9 PM, and in our little town the only thing open after 8 is the gas/convenience store. I had to keep the water off until the next day until I could finish after work, and the family was not happy! This got me thinking though. How much of a supply of plumbing parts should be kept on hand, in case logistics are down for awhile? What's the line between frivolous, and enough on hand to do the job?


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

I have copper, PVC and various threaded galvanized.



spregan said:


> How much of a supply of plumbing parts should be kept on hand, in case logistics are down for awhile?


Ummm... I kept going until the wife threatened divorce. YMMV

I have seen my Grandpa fix a lot of plumbing leaks with old innertube rubber and a hose clamp. Make sure you've got plenty of those!

Indoor plumbing is overrated anyway......


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

I wouldn't worry too much about it. If things are down too long you won't have any water pressure anyway.

Other than that be sure to have the parts needed to splice in a water valve and keep some garden hose on hand. That way you can always use the hose to get water where you want it until you can get the parts needed to fix it right.

Like LincTex said, keep some hose and clamps around. You can temporarily cure a lot of problems with hose and clamps.


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## ZoomZoom (Dec 18, 2009)

I'm a big believer in SharkBite fittings.
http://www.sharkbiteplumbing.com/

They're a push on fitting. Push it in place and you're done. An elbow would take all of about 5 seconds to install.

Oh, and I keep a lot of standard plumbing things around. Not enough to do a house but it's nice to have spare pipe, connectors, washers and wax seals + all the stuff to install them.


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## rawhide2971 (Apr 19, 2013)

Sharkbites....keep a few of them in the right sizes and you can sleep easy at night. They might be pricey but worth EVERY PENNY (DOLLAR) THEY COST....:2thumb:trust me on this if you never pay attention to anything else I ever post.....:cheers:


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## TheLazyL (Jun 5, 2012)

spregan said:


> ...How much of a supply of plumbing parts should be kept on hand, in case logistics are down for awhile? ...


I was young and newly married. The house we bought was 100 years old and needed a lot of sweat equity.

I made a pencil drawing of the plumbing project with measurements and a parts list.

Trip to the local hardware store for a truck load of pipe and fittings.

Back home shut the power off to the well and start ripping out the old pipes.

Trip to the local hardware store for a bigger pipe wrench.

Back home and start installing the copper pipe.

Trip to the local hardware store more fuel for the torch and more pipe and fittings. Somehow the number of fittings needed has changed from the point I made the drawing and the first trip to the hardware.

Trip to the local hardware store for more parts and hacksaw blades.

Project completed! :2thumb:

Turn on the electric to the well. Bad leak at a fitting at the bottom of a pipe, shut the power off to the well. Water in the pipe prevents me from applying enough heat to unsolder the joint. Cut the pipe to let the water drain out. Resolder the leaking joint but I don't have a coupler to join the pipe from where I cut it to drain the water.

Trip to the local hardware store for a coupler and arrive 5 minutes after they closed.

40 years later I'm a bit wiser (at least when it comes to plumbing).

I still make a pencil drawing of the plumbing project with measurements and a parts list. I triple or quadruple the amount of pipe, fittings, torch fuel, solder, tools plus one or two of everything else they have in the store. Between these new parts and the ones left over from the umpteen previous projects I can now finish with only 2 or 3 trips to the hardware.

To answer the OPs question. I now have enough leftover plumbing parts to completely plumb a 50 story skyscraper except for that one last part to make it all work. :surrender:

Plastic milk cartons make excellent gasket materiel for late Saturday (stores all closed) emergency repairs.


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## ZoomZoom (Dec 18, 2009)

TheLazyL said:


> and needed a lot of sweat equity.


Let's see, 40 years ago. I guess you now know that sweating a joint when doing plumbing doesn't mean the drips from your forehead down to the doobie hanging out of your mouth.  That many trips to the store, you had to be high.


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## 8thDayStranger (Jan 30, 2013)

Duct tape and JB Weld will fix anything.


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## Caribou (Aug 18, 2012)

SharkBites and PEX tubing. I keep the flexible PEX so that I don't have to use elbows. The SharkBites fit copper, PEX, and CPVC at least.


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## weedygarden (Apr 27, 2011)

*plumbing parts, barter items*

IF we have running water, sooner or later we will all need plumbing repairs.


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## Wellrounded (Sep 25, 2011)

We have stand alone water systems, bore and rainwater. We have 1/2" and 3/4" copper inside. 2", 1 1/2", 1 1/4" and 1" rural poly outside. We keep at least two of everything . We're a long way from town and nothing is open after 12 on Saturday anyway. If we stick a pipe (happens all the time here as we didn't plumb most of the place) we don't just fix it we put in provision for a tap or take off, saves extra work later, so we keep enough stuff on hand for that in each rural pipe size. For the house plumbing, well I've got a bit of a habit of moving stuff around (walls, doorways, kitchens etc) so I'm in the habit of keeping quite a bit of stuff on hand  
Water is the most important commodity to us here without it there's not much we can do, so reticulation and irrigation fittings and pipe are pretty high on my prepping supplies list and lots of em.


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## spregan (Aug 6, 2011)

LazyL your story sounds very familiar  Thanks for the advice everyone. The biggest problem with this last plumbing job was that my wife and three teenagers where here and you would have thought the END had come, smh. A couple weeks a ago I was building a fire pit and hit an old gas pipe. The gas company insisted on replacing all the old pipe when they came to access the situation, luckily free of charge. It took 5 days to get gas back to the house, but it wasn't that big of a deal because the family was out of town for a week.


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