Testing Plumbing Without Water

okay so I said in a previous video when I was looking at soldering that I would do a video on air testing and a lot of people quite interested in that so here we are this is the basis of my air test kit basically I go and get a Schroeder valve this Schrader valve that you get on a car tire fits perfectly inside a 15 millimeter compression fitting you don't need to do anything else that seal there is absolutely perfect for that I don't know whether it was ever intended to be that way but that's the way it is so you can put that into any compression fitting that you have on the system and a lot of the time if I'm air testing looking for leaks on a central heating system for example then I put this on one of the radiator valves just disconnect the pipe work that nut goes over the Schrader valve you just give it a little pull like that so that it takes it through in exactly the same way as it fits into a car wheel and then you really don't need to tighten these up anymore than hand tight because the seal is is so good on there so that's absolutely fine so now we have a fitting so as I said you could put it onto a radiator valve or anywhere else that you've got a 15 mil fitting you can put a push fit connector onto there anything you like and just hook it up to your system wherever and however you can you just have to be a bit inventive about that so once you've done that is just a simple question of pumping the system up with a bit of air now at this point I really have to give you a warning and the warning is that it is quite dangerous to pump air into any container if you like because if the valve blows off for example if you you're looking at something like a central heating system you've got compressed air in the radiators and everything else you've got a huge amount of power that's built up in that system and if any of the fittings were to pop off I say compression fitting or whatever it will shoot across the room like a bullet first thing is on building sites they don't allow air testing to be done if air testing is done you have to cordon off the area so if I'm working on a site and I'll do air testing I have to do it when nobody's around so stay late everybody goes home and you just do your bit of air testing so just proceed with caution it's one of those ones where I actually made a video some years ago and took it down because I thought oh this this is potentially dangerous for people so there's a lot of things in life that are dangerous I mean using a standing knife is dangerous using a blow lamp is dangerous so it just requires thought the way I do is just with an ordinary bicycle track pump I just Pump It Up gently if you've already got air in the system so all you're looking to do is charge it up a little bit just to see how it goes now I have charged up to three bar I've even charged up to six bar in the past but under really cautious circumstances you can do that but just generally if you just put one bar in there and you just leave it there if there's a leak you're gonna find it you know that one bar is going to find it basically just leave it there for 24 hours or whatever you like and if the pressure is still holding after 24 hours you know the system's good to go now please please please do not go putting some compressor onto the system leaving it there and walking away because you will produce a huge amount of stalled energy and it can have serious consequences so if you can't hear the leak you can sometimes find the leak just by painting around a little bit of washing up Liquid around the joints if there's a leak you'll see the bubbles I hope that's given people enough of a warning and air testing is not wrong but it's just that it has to be done under really well controlled conditions and a lot of people aren't capable of that if you're not capable if you're not sure don't do it water test it the reason I like air testing is because if you find a leak you just solder the joint or whatever you've got to do to it you haven't got a flood you haven't got to drain all the water out of the system in order to make the repair you can just let the pressure out the system go around do your little bit of soldering and then pump it back up again and you know you're okay hopefully you won't have any leaks but who knows we all do even the best plumbers do it

Channel: Skill Builder

Views: 66,936

Keywords: pressure testing, pressure test, how to do plumbing, plumbing inspection, plumbing pressure test, plumbing test, how to pressure test a radiant system, how to pressure test water lines, pool pressure test, how to pressure test drain lines, Schrader Valve

Id: fkqmOYW0Qa4

Length: 4min 26sec (266 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 25 2022