DIY Home Improvement Forum banner

How big of a problem might it be when a sticker is left in an ABS pipe fitting?!?!?

3K views 4 replies 4 participants last post by  hammerlane 
#1 ·
My friend was a little lazy when putting together some ABS pipe fittings. He didn't take the item sticker off a reducer before gluing it in place. I pointed out the potential problem that it could cause a weak weld at that point, and the weld probably isn't even complete at that place. He's not worried, but i always worry about the details. Does anyone have an idea of how big of an issue might this be? Could it prevent the piping system from passing code? Is that sticker going to break down over time and cause a leak? This particular fitting shown in the picture is a vent section, so it wouldn't cause a water leak, but possibly a very slow sewer gas leak. There was another connection of two inch pipe to three inch pipe that was a drain section... and now i'm having trouble sleeping.

Should I be worrying?

 
See less See more
1
#2 ·
A sticker that got accidentally glued inside a PVC joint will not cause a problem in a vent (not water filled) section provided that some plastic to plastic contact was made around the sticker.

But next time you should be careful and remove the stickers.
 
#3 ·
I Always tell people : Think about a leak in a vent pipe the size you're talking about, then think about the size of the vent opening in the roof. Figure out the outrageous amount of pressure the sewer gas would have to be under in order to overload the vent through roof, and start leaking out of a weak joint like that in order to get any amount of sewer gas out of the "leak" at all.

You could always water test it.

If you're that worried about it, cut it out and replace it. How many other fittings are like that?
 
#4 · (Edited)
Experiment

Yeah i wasn't really too worried about that particular fitting and the potential leak of sewer gasses. There are two reducer fittings associated with the vent section, and there is one reducer fitting in the drain section. The reducer in the drain was the one that I was more concerned about. But I also know that those couplings are larger, and therefore the sticker covers less relative are, so hopefully there is plenty of plastic to plastic welded area. I'm going to assume so, because today it got buried under concrete, and I have no plan to rent another jack hammer.

I was more annoyed than anything. I've spent the last 4-5 days learning all about plumbing and when to use sanitary tees, vs wye tees, vs double fixture fittings, etc. I spent a lot of time planning this out, making sure that my new bathroom plumbing work first attempt and will serve me well for a long time to come. And then when i saw that my friend didn't take 30 extra seconds to remove the sticker that could obviously weaken the weld, i was pretty annoyed. Today, without my asking, he removed that one section and replaced it, which was nice of him... but i wasn't going to worry about it too much further.

Anywho, last night i decided to do a little experiment to see what a weld on top of a sticker might do. Firstly, i found an extra reducer fitting. I noticed that the sticker covers 3/4 of a 2 to 1.5 reducer fitting section. That leaves a potential of 1/4 of the reducer to still complete the weld, which should be okay for the most part i would think. (but still annoying!)



I then grabbed an extra sani-t, with an exposed sticker. I cut some larger diameter pipe into two small sections. I applied glue to the piece of large pipe and the sticker and stuck them together. I then applied glue to the other piece of large pipe and a different section of the sani-t, sans sticker, and glued them together. I let it sit up over night. In the photo below, the section glued to the sticker is on top, the section glued directly to the abs is on bottom.



The next morning I tried taking them apart. The good news is that the glue stuck to the sticker pretty good. The bad news is that the sticker ripped right in half easily, and came off the sani-t without much of a fight. As is suspected would happen.



The other glued section without the sticker between was incredibly strong. Try as i might, i could not tear them apart. Thus confirms the fear that there will be NO WELD between the two sections of abs where the sticker is left between them. Of course I'm not saying that any coupling welded together with a sticker left in there is doomed to failure, but I would certainly say that is a sub-par welding job, and it should always be worth ones time to make sure that there is no sticker or other paper or debris stuck between two sections of pipe before welding.

Tomorrow i'll try to bust apart the old fitting between the sani-t and reducer coupling. If i seen anything interesting I'll post up the results.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top