Drain line flushing

On our trucks, we keep all our soldering material, such as solder, paste, pipe cutters, emery cloth, inspection mirror and other miscellaneous items, in small tackle boxes. To keep our flux brushes clean, we have travel toothbrush holders we put the brushes in. We take a piece of duct tape and put on one end, so when you put the brush back, you always put the business end in the duct tape side so the handle stays free of flux.

Alec Garrenton

A.T. Plumbing

Roanoke, Virginia

Cutting brittle plastic pipe

When trying to cut through plastic pipe, PVC, CPVC, etc. with ratchet cutters, sometimes the pipe is hard to cut through and may be a little brittle. So just as the blade starts to bite into the pipe, I take a little primer/cleaner and touch the blade with the dauber so that it runs over the blade and flows onto the pipe (you only need a little bit of cleaner). This instantly softens the pipe just enough to make the blade flow through the pipe like a hot knife through butter. This also works great if you are using one-handed 2-inch PVC cutters and you are cutting through 1 1/4- to 2-inch pipe. It makes cutting through any plastic pipe so much easier, and the brittle pipe won’t crack.