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On our garden irrigation system we had to sand down an old PVC pipe, which had swollen from age, to accept a new union, but we now have a leak at that new union. We used the purple solvent and PVC cement recommended and all other unions are fine. There's not enough room to cut it out, so we have to find a way to fix that leak. Any ideas? It's in the pipe coming out of the pump, so there's up to 60 pounds of pressure on it.
Not clear on what you mean by the old pipe being "swollen from age".
Maybe the existing pipe is the thin walled type...not schedule 40, which is thicker and more substantial.
Repairing an in-line leak can be a real pain sometimes, especially like you said, if there isn't a lot of room to work.
You have to really make sure that ALL the water is out of the line when you are making the repair. If there's any water in the line, the cement won't grab and hold properly and you'll have a leak. The same holds true after you make the repair. The cement has to dry thoroughly before you turn the valve back on and allow water to run through it again. Make sure the ends of the pipe where you are making the new repair are perfectly clean...any debris left on the pipe will cause a leak.
I've bought pvc parts in the past that were defective, and not perfectly round...but didn't realize it until the repair was made and it didn't hold.
Using the wrong cement can also present problems. I personally prefer the dark blue heavy duty cement over the clear stuff. It holds better especially at unions with a lot of pressure.
Sometimes, if you are short on space and need to make a repair, you have to divert the line and either go up, across and down again to rejoin to the existing line...or sideways, across and over. Hard to advise you since we can't actually see the situation.
Just remember though, that the more angles and turns you make, the more water pressure you lose. If you don't have a lot of heads running on that line, it may not effect it too much. Again, hard to say w/o seeing what you're up against.
If you're leery about trying to repair it due to the space factor, you might save yourself a lot of headache by having an irrigation guy come and do it for you.
I had a pipe "baloon" on the discharge side of my well pump. It was indeed sch. 20 which was too thin for pressure coming out. Your best bet is to run sch. 40. Can you cut the section out and put in a slip fix?
