I've struck water! More old house plumbing mysteries and a Sharkbite question

Doing PEX home runs in this old two story. Shut off water in basement and at the meter in backyard. Opened taps and drained water through a low tap in the basement and proceeded with hooking up the previously run PEX lines. Hot water lines first, I cut the main trunk in the powder room ceiling and made all the connections. Cut the cold water trunk and a steady flow of water ensued. After emptying a 5 gallon bucket twice I temporarily routed the stream outside. I guess the flow at 2 to 3 gallons an hour. It showed no sign of decreasing. With no water we go to a motel and hope it's stopped by this morning. But it's not and seems about the same rate. I need to say this is at a high point except for the bathroom fixtures immediately above the cut. And ZERO water has gone through the main water meter in the 20 hours it's been shut off. No water was coming from taps that were opened while or just after draining. Where the heck is this water coming from?????? I know you can't answer not being here but I'm finding this curiouser and curiouser😳
The only solution I see to be able to continue is to use a SharkBite connection as I can't use a sweat as planned. But this will be in an enclosed ceiling location. Are Sharkbite connectors dependable enough for such an application?

I have used SharkBite fitting everywhere with good results. The most important things are:

#1 Make sure the surfaces you are biting on too are clean, smooth, and deburred. Even the smallest little dingle dong will scratch the fittings wall and cause a slow leak.

#2 Make sure the fitting is ALL the way pressed on.

#3 Buy the little $1.00 removal tool just in case you need it.

Is it possible you're siphoning all the water out of your water heater?

I am personally comfortable with shark bites but if you want to go with your original plan you'll need one of these; http://jetswetstore.com/products.php. Not cheap but it gets you where you want to be.

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Originally Posted by Michael Weber

Doing PEX home runs in this old two story. Shut off water in basement and at the meter in backyard. Opened taps and drained water through a low tap in the basement and proceeded with hooking up the previously run PEX lines. Hot water lines first, I cut the main trunk in the powder room ceiling and made all the connections. Cut the cold water trunk and a steady flow of water ensued. After emptying a 5 gallon bucket twice I temporarily routed the stream outside. I guess the flow at 2 to 3 gallons an hour. It showed no sign of decreasing. With no water we go to a motel and hope it's stopped by this morning. But it's not and seems about the same rate. I need to say this is at a high point except for the bathroom fixtures immediately above the cut. And ZERO water has gone through the main water meter in the 20 hours it's been shut off. No water was coming from taps that were opened while or just after draining. Where the heck is this water coming from?????? I know you can't answer not being here but I'm finding this curiouser and curiouser😳
The only solution I see to be able to continue is to use a SharkBite connection as I can't use a sweat as planned. But this will be in an enclosed ceiling location. Are Sharkbite connectors dependable enough for such an application?

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I suspect your shutoff haven't completely shut off. My old house had two and they both needed to be very tightly off or they would leak

Well, as embarrassing as it is to admit I found the problem. I had shut off the valve on the down side of the meter and meter still shows no flow. Even the little red indicator that spins fast at very small flows had not moved. In desperation I shut off the valve to the inlet of the meter and the flow stopped. Don't know why. Seems to me that Not only would water have to be leaking unregistered through the meter itself but that also both the meter outlet valve as well as the basement valve have to be leaking. The later is possible as it's old but the meter valves are relatively new and turn smoothly but tightly over their 180 degrees of operation. Stranger still is the fact I've previously turned off the meter outlet valve with no issues. Just makes zero sense to me. Anyway, thanks for the tips and suggestions.

I'm thinking I wouldn't report that to your utility :D

While you have it off, add a second shut off. Mine leaked badly so I stuffed bread in and added a second.

I now have SharkBite in my kitchen ceiling and I have no concerns...the three things that Marcus mentioned are spot on, especially the "fully inserted" one. DAMHIKT!!! :D

Again thanks for the tips and info. Water is finally back on so no motel for a second night. Had no leaks on soldered or PEX connections. Was surprised, especially for the soldered ones I couldn't see the backside of. Very superior hot water delivery times with no 3/4 inch hot trunk line. Used 3/8 lines to sinks. Less wasted hot water as well.

Valves on both sides of my 42 YO meter leaked so I put a SharkBite ball valve just past the meter. Makes it easy to shut off the water when I leave on vacation. SharkBites are great when working with copper and sweating the fitting will be a chore.

Is it any easier to use on copper than on pex?

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Originally Posted by Pat Barry

I suspect your shutoff haven't completely shut off.

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That's the most likely culprit. Had the same thing on a not-so-old house (c.1965), but it was just a trickle that remained after closing the valve and I was able to clear enough water out of the lines to make the solder connection I needed before it got wet again. Your city water supplier should be able to provide/install a new valve with a pressure meter. And with water conservation being the priority it's becoming, they're usually pretty quick about it.

Re sharkbites-- I've used four of them and one leaked. Admittedly, not a statistically significant sample. I've done 1000+ sweated copper joints and, to my knowledge, none of them have leaked. I wouldn't put a sharkbite in an enclosed space unless I really had no other choice.

I had one leak, most likely my fault for not cleaning it up good enough. My friend that we hired as a contractor to do a bunch of work on our house used one to disconnect a broken water-powered backup sump pump that had no shutoff and its been fine for 3 years. And I used a pair of them to replace a section of pipe that developed a pinhole leak up in a wall behind the tub at our old house. I could reach up there no problem with 1 hand but sweating in a section would have required cutting a hole in the wall behind. From below I could use sharkbites and they worked fine for the 2 remaining years we were there.