My house is due for some plumbing work and I have decided to go with copper pipe for said work. The thing is I am garbage at soft soldering copper. I never do it so I’m awful at judging the temp and I hate dealing with flux. On the other hand I’m a refrigeration mechanic so brazing copper pipe is my bread and butter. I could practically make a good leak free braze joint with my eyes closed. Also, considering most of the plumbing will be copper to copper connections, I could just use silphos filler rod and not have to worry about flux for most of it. I know brazed joints are not standard for water pipe but I already have the tools, the skill set, and I don’t see any way it could be worse than soft solder. Sure it’s overkill but is there any other reason I shouldn’t just braze my water pipes?

  • speculate7383@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    2 days ago

    I would wonder about leaching. Modern lead-free plumbing solder is safe for drinking water, but is silphos considered safe for drinking water?

    • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      2 days ago

      I’ve found a few references claiming that Sil-Fos brazing rods contain only silver, copper, and phosphorous. They should be fine.

      • Canonical_Warlock@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 day ago

        Yep. Thas is all that’s in silphos. For any work that isn’t copper to copper then I would need to use silver brazing wire which is just copper, zinc, tin, and silver.