07/10/2026
How does people make repairs like this to people’s homes, charge them for it, & then go home & sleep at night??? 🤯
Nobody likes paying for a plumber, I get it. But I would rather pay somebody for a quality repair that comes with peace of mind that it was done correctly, it comes with a warranty, also you know that company is insured & will come back if anything should happen.
Luckily, this customer’s home is on a crawl or when this shady repair blew apart, it would have cost them tens of thousands of dollars. 😳
After thirty-one years in the trade, just when you thought that you have seen it all, & I come across this. I have never seen this & I absolutely no idea how it held as long as it did.
For just the average joe, at first glance, this repair may actually look alright, but let’s look at it alittle closer.
I am speculating, but my best educated guess is that there was a shut off valve located here before & it was either nonfunctional or leaking. So the unskilled plumber or handyman, cut out the old valve for it to be replaced.
The new valve that they attempted to put in is called & made out of CPVC (Chlorinated Polyvinyl Chloride). It is a plastic valve that was intended TO BE GLUED ONLY with a special solvent called Flow Guard Gold. But since this unskilled laborer does not know how to solder, he attempted to add lots of thread tape around the copper pipe & force the plastic fitting onto the copper. smh
Secondly, the pipe was not long enough after the old valve was removed, so the wannabe plumber used a product that they call, “Sharkbites”, a short piece of copper & forced it into the other side of the CPVC valve.
Sharkbites, which I call, “Lego Fittings”, are only used by the inexperienced and/or lazy people. I have fired employees for using a Sharkbite fitting. These fittings are a push/pull fitting that you can connect & disconnect waterlines with just two fingers. They are unreliable & nothing but a shortcut to take the easy way out. If you ever hire any plumber or handyman & they bring in Sharkbites to use, please, immediately dismiss them.
Sharkbites are easily identified by the orange plastic collars. There are also other manufacturers that use other colors like green & gray.
Some customers may look at my pricing & say that I am too high. Actually, it is that other companies & handymen are too cheap.
Peace of mind with quality parts & workmanship, backed with warranties & World Class Customer Service that cannot be matched, does come with a cost. But when it comes to paying someone else to come back & do it right, or someone flooding or burning down your home, the more expensive guy is worth every penny! 🤗
If you ever need a plumber & you want to have that “Peace of Mind”, give us a call!
Retro Plumb Inc
601 S Main St
Rocky Top, TN 37769
(865) 895-0692
