chipmunkofdoom2
Always Making Something
I've just wasted half a day on trying to fix my RO system and will waste the rest of today being annoyed about the entire situation. I need to understand what went wrong for the sake of my sanity.
For reasons that are not important to the story, I replaced all three of my prefilter canisters with new 10" canisters from BRS. I ordered all the parts and assembled the system. For the input side of the system, I used a 1/4" thread to 1/4" push connect fitting that I had in my plumbing box. I purchased the same size fitting for the output side from a local hardware store. For all the threaded joints, I used 5 wraps of teflon tape and hand tightened plus about 2 more additional rotations.
Upon leak testing, the system is leaking from several places, worst from the prefilter output side (the brand new 1/4" thread to 1/4" push connect fitting). I tried tightening the output fitting a few more times to see if that would stop it. It slowed down, but was still leaking. I disassembled, cleaned the threads, and started over with more tape, about 7 wraps. Still leaking. I tried tightening it about as tight as I could. Still leaking. I disassembled, cleaned again, and used an outrageous 10 full wraps of teflon tape. Still leaking on hand tightening + 2, still leaking tightening about as tight as I could with a wrench. I had some teflon paste and decided to try that. It worked for a glorious second and a half, until a leak formed that was faster than it had ever leaked with the tape. The fitting is not cracked, nor is the housing, and the threads look fine.
Wondering if it was the fitting, I tried an ancient 1/4" elbow I have in my plumbing box with a disgusting amount of teflon paste. The fitting basically bottomed out before giving any meaningful resistance, but it's not leaking. This is a hollow victory though; while the fitting is not leaking from the threads, it's leaking from the quick connect part.
First question, why was this rebuild such a disaster? What did I do wrong? I know that tape is technically no good for plastic joints, but right or wrong, everyone in the industry uses tape on RO system joints and we seem to get along fine as a whole. Additionally, the joint still failed even after using gratuitous amounts of Teflon paste, the "proper" joint sealant.
Second question, I'm so fed up with this system that I want to hard weld all the joints together. Can I use standard PVC cement for this purpose? I know this means I'll need to throw out the entire prefilter assembly if anything breaks in the future, and I don't care. At this point I would rather discard the entire RO system annually if it means I never have to waste an entire day doing this again.
For reasons that are not important to the story, I replaced all three of my prefilter canisters with new 10" canisters from BRS. I ordered all the parts and assembled the system. For the input side of the system, I used a 1/4" thread to 1/4" push connect fitting that I had in my plumbing box. I purchased the same size fitting for the output side from a local hardware store. For all the threaded joints, I used 5 wraps of teflon tape and hand tightened plus about 2 more additional rotations.
Upon leak testing, the system is leaking from several places, worst from the prefilter output side (the brand new 1/4" thread to 1/4" push connect fitting). I tried tightening the output fitting a few more times to see if that would stop it. It slowed down, but was still leaking. I disassembled, cleaned the threads, and started over with more tape, about 7 wraps. Still leaking. I tried tightening it about as tight as I could. Still leaking. I disassembled, cleaned again, and used an outrageous 10 full wraps of teflon tape. Still leaking on hand tightening + 2, still leaking tightening about as tight as I could with a wrench. I had some teflon paste and decided to try that. It worked for a glorious second and a half, until a leak formed that was faster than it had ever leaked with the tape. The fitting is not cracked, nor is the housing, and the threads look fine.
Wondering if it was the fitting, I tried an ancient 1/4" elbow I have in my plumbing box with a disgusting amount of teflon paste. The fitting basically bottomed out before giving any meaningful resistance, but it's not leaking. This is a hollow victory though; while the fitting is not leaking from the threads, it's leaking from the quick connect part.
First question, why was this rebuild such a disaster? What did I do wrong? I know that tape is technically no good for plastic joints, but right or wrong, everyone in the industry uses tape on RO system joints and we seem to get along fine as a whole. Additionally, the joint still failed even after using gratuitous amounts of Teflon paste, the "proper" joint sealant.
Second question, I'm so fed up with this system that I want to hard weld all the joints together. Can I use standard PVC cement for this purpose? I know this means I'll need to throw out the entire prefilter assembly if anything breaks in the future, and I don't care. At this point I would rather discard the entire RO system annually if it means I never have to waste an entire day doing this again.
