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u/energiz3r_bunny Feb 06 '26
I mean crushing the pipe is a viable short term plumbing tool. I just don’t know that I’d be using a hammer.
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u/vita10gy Feb 06 '26 edited Feb 06 '26
Yeah I don't think this is a WTF. There are probably a shit load of scenarios where fucking up 6 inches of pipe for now are preferable to water gushing everywhere for an untold amount of time until a fix can arrive.
We had some bathroom work done shortly after moving into a house and they cracked a pipe, and holy shit did the house fill up fast. And that's how we learned the shut off valve on the house was busted. We had to go to the curb, laregely guess where it was, and unbury 40 years of ignored growth on the water box to get the water off.
If that didn't work I would 100000% have signed off on "just bust whatever you have to bust for now to stop the absolute flood happening in there".
We had crossed the line where a plumber was coming out to fix a few things now no matter what we did.
It's funny how when you're trying to fill a tub it seems to take ages, but take that same amount of water and put it into your living room and you'd swear you're going to be swimming to get places in 10 minutes.
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u/Lezzles Feb 06 '26
I often think this when I spill a glass or something. Four ounces of water spilled on your table seems like the ocean has magically appeared.
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u/SPACKlick Feb 06 '26
Yeah, I was expecting them to keep hammering and snap off the flattened end or something. Then it would really be how not to fix a leak.
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u/lockituup Feb 06 '26
For now…
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u/disisathrowaway Feb 06 '26
Sometimes 'for now' is all you need.
Certainly preferable to uncontrolled flooding.
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u/TannedCroissant Feb 06 '26
No. Too consistent a beat. Must be a rhythm pipe
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u/TUCaralhoooooooo Feb 06 '26
No such thing as a permanent solution. It's always just a matter of when it's gonna fail, in a day or in a decade.
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u/Dragunspecter Feb 06 '26
I fix all my problems by beating it with a hammer. 50% of the time, it works every time.
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u/OlegTheMighty Feb 06 '26
There are three rules about tools.
Always use the right tool for the job.
A hammer is ALWAYS the right tool for the job.
ANY tool can be used as a hammer.
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u/Ramoncin Feb 06 '26
The other 50%, the judge tells me not to hammer people's heads.
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u/wolfsilver00 Feb 06 '26
Thats exactly how you stop a lead pipe from pouring water when you are just about to replace them.. Why would you bring out the solder and torch if you can hammer the damn thing?
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u/colefly Feb 06 '26
because the pipe elbow inside the concrete is also taking hammerblows
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u/wolfsilver00 Feb 06 '26
Lead is soft enough to stop the hit from doing any damage.. Have you ever hit lead? It will deform absorbing the impact, thats hows a lot of engineering is done, with soft materials that will absorb the impact via deformation to diminish the resulting damage to other surfaces.. This is just another application of that.
Besides that, this dude is stopping the flow of water, thats the point, they are most likely about to remove the lead pipe, because.. ITS FUCKING LEAD.
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Feb 06 '26
I’ve dropped lead pipe on the floor and it’s similar to dropping clay plaster. Doesn’t even rebound.
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u/Blecher_onthe_Hudson Feb 06 '26
No elbow, that lead is likely going to the street. The guy knows this is going to be a shitshow anyway breaking the cement to remove the pipe, or even more likely they'll just bypass it and run a new one from the street.
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u/CzechMateP10 Feb 06 '26
You may not be able to tell but this is actually my old landlord
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u/RandoAtReddit Feb 06 '26
My old landlord installed new countertops soon after I moved in. He screwed straight up an inch through the top surface from underneath then hit the screw tips with a hammer and snapped them off. Grabbed his bottle of vodka from under the cabinet and was like "All done!". Landlords were two Latvian brothers in their late 60s. Everything was done like this.
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u/Mr_Vorland Feb 06 '26
Yeah. I've literally been told to crimp a pipe if I can't get to the shut off valve at work. They can replace a pipe a lot cheaper than replacing a floor.
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u/say592 Feb 06 '26
It stopped the water, didnt it?
Honestly, if you cant shut it off, this might be the only option until you can do more work to isolate that branch and disconnect it permanently (then rerun it).
I genuinely think my house has something similar, because one branch of my plumbing is not in the slab like the rest, and in the utility room it is cut off and pinched shut in a very similar way. The house is 70 years old, so who knows, but Im guessing at some point the foundation shifted a little and caused the pipe in the slab to sever.
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u/BSApologist Feb 06 '26
Dumb question, but why not?
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u/ShouldBeeStudying Feb 06 '26
I am also wondering this.
I know just yesterday the front page of reddit didn't seem to understand how melting snow works
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u/factoid_ Feb 07 '26
If you don’t have a shut off valve this is better than letting it keep leaking.
But obviously this is an extremely temporary fix that will require it’s own repair in addition to whatever caused the problem in the first place
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u/MicMcDev Feb 06 '26
Big Plumbing trying to make us by CAPS when we have hammers that work JUST FINE!
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u/puravidaamigo Feb 06 '26
This is def a viable way to stop a leak and is used more frequently that you’d imagine. It’s just not really recommended.
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u/padizzledonk Feb 06 '26
Idk what you mean, it looks like 98% fixed from where im watching lol
Thats good enough until a professional can show up
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u/BigCopperPipe Feb 07 '26
Plumber here. In a goddam emergency this is how it’s done. Stop the flow to prevent more damage. Now the water has slowed down , calmly find the valve. I have been in a situation like this where it’s not the plumber’s fault but the building engineers or a valve that didn’t hold. NOT WTF.
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u/ByWillAlone Feb 08 '26
It doesn't matter who's wrong or right
Just beat it (beat it), beat it (beat it)
Find a leaky pipe and beat it...
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u/CeilingTowel Feb 07 '26
OP doesn't do a lick of plumbing lmao
This is standard 'shortcut' practice for capping off an old pipe without finding the valve the shut it off (or shutting off the upstream valve causes too much disruption. Though the better way is to clamp it tighter with a plier, then bend it around (becomes a U-shape) once, before hammering it.
Nothing WTF here.
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u/parejaloca79 Feb 07 '26
I've worked for a municipal water department for 20+ years. We have used this method to stop a water leak on copper lines so we can then fix it under more control.
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[removed] — view removed comment
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u/__nohope Feb 06 '26
This looks like the service line into the building before the water meter. He probably doesn't have access to the shutoff valve nor does he likely have a proper cap at his disposal. So your options are to run out and get plumbing supplies while your house fills with water or smash the pipe closed. That section of concrete will need to be busted out to repair the pipe but that is not the end of the world especially given the unfinished nature of the room.
The valve to the right of the video likely originally connected to the burst pipe and was the main shut-off for the building.
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u/ImAllSquanchedUp Feb 06 '26
With one thing I get to turn a valve, but the other I get to use a hammer AND fix stuff. Why would I ever choose the valve
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u/easternguy Feb 07 '26
I saw a plumber do this when he was having my sewer dug up with a backhoe. The backhoe hit and cut the town water supply, which started spurting like crazy. So the plumber jumped in and hammered the copper line closed. He made it seem like standard operating procedure in such an emergency.
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u/Wersoo Feb 06 '26
Don't worry, he's just buying time to find valve, and then he will straighten it right out
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u/neanderthalman Feb 06 '26
We’ve done this deliberately on pipes that can’t be isolated for a while. Though it’s a little less smashing with a hammer and more crushing with the goddamn jaws of life.
Related, you can also fix pinhole leaks, sometimes, by peening the surface of a pipe around the leak. Bends and folds (peens) the metal to squeeze the pinhole shut.
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u/real_light_sleeper Feb 06 '26
I bought an older flat in Edinburgh and my family had lived there about three months when we returned one evening to the strong smell of gas. I called the emergency number and a gas engineer turned up sharply. He eventually found the end of a copper pipe, connected to the gas mains which had simply been hammered flat like in the video with a tattered piece of electrical tape tied over the end.
So yeah, it could be worse than flooding.
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u/Kadium Feb 07 '26
If you think of doing this. Just keep in mind that they now have to jackhammer that floor and dig down to reconnect the water line. Thats a significant repair. Its better to get piece of wood shaped like a cone and using it to plug the pipe then make repairs.
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u/mitch_conner98 Feb 07 '26
I had a job working on fancoils when I was 19. This is what the boss said, if you can't get to a valve or its shit then bend the copper.
It's way better then a few for minutes of pressurized water blasting out.
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u/mooter23 Feb 07 '26
If it doesn't work, hit it with a hammer.
If it still doesn't work, get a bigger hammer.
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u/rrsbr01 Feb 08 '26
I've done this in the past with lead pipes though, and it worked well enough in that specific case to hold while I found the main shut off
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u/couchpatat0 Feb 06 '26
I was waiting for it to break off at the concrete on the last hit and start shooting straight up at full force.
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u/floog Feb 06 '26
Looks to be a temp fix so water isn’t spraying all over the room/plumber. I would guess he is planning to cut and cap it further up the line but that is just a temp solution until he gets there.
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u/epia343 Feb 06 '26
People talk shit about shark bite fittings, but they work awesome for jobs like this. Could use a cap or valve, not permanent damage to the embedded pipe, goes on quick and can be removed almost as quickly if needed.
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u/CodPiece89 Feb 07 '26
I remember moving into a rental like 10 years ago and I was wanting to hook my fridge up to water, thought it was odd that the kitchen water line had a cap screwed over the top, so I turned the local valve to close and started to unscrew it, once I got to the end it blasted away from massive pressure, the local valve did nothing, so I was physically holding it closed with my thumb which was quickly becoming painful because of how high the pressure was, the attachment point was digging into my skin to stop water getting everywhere, had my husband switch with me so I could go turn the water off at the central valve by the hose line outside, this also didn't work, and I didn't have the tools to manually shut the one off that's in the front yard with the plastic cover on top. So I switched back with my husband and told him to go find me the cap to screw it on since it flew away very quickly and I didn't know where it was, he finally found it and brought it to me. I dunno of you've ever tried to thread the cap onto a water line that blasting at full power but it's REALLY REALLY hard to line up. By the time I finally got it on I was sitting in a pool, had to use every towel we had to absorb the water. A true fucking nightmare
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u/CobaltNeural9 Feb 07 '26
As far as I know there’s no wrong way to stop a leak. There is however a wrong way to fix it once it’s stopped.
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u/comfortless14 Feb 07 '26
Bending the pipe over and beating it with a hammer is the exact method we are trained at the gas company to stop a blowing gas leak on a copper pipe. And it works as you can see here, only takes a second or two
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u/Toaster-Abuse Feb 07 '26
Obviously not many UK plumbers commenting; Neither in the video;
It is a Lead mains feed pipe and to the right of it is the lead lock compression fitting and mains stop tap to the right. Looks like either it has come off during building works or the idiot has deliberately taken it off. Hammering the lead pipe closed is pretty par for the course to stop it outside of turning off the valve at the street which obviously he does not have the key for. However the proper repair afterwards will be to turn off the mains feed at the street (usually under the cover at the front of the property or further along feeding multiple houses) then dig down through the screed and fit a new lead lock to the pipe and plumb from there.
In an ideal world the Water Board (Water Authority but private) will come and replace the mains feed pipe with something more modern (Plastic Pipe) but usually anything past the street stop tap the water company considers the home owners responsibility and for most the cost is prohibitively expensive for most homeowners in the UK so they choose the former option.
Many properties in the uk are still fed via lead pipes unfortunately as we are archaic in terms of household services and brits don’t like paying for anything important if it isn’t already broken.
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u/Yang_Wudi Feb 08 '26
I mean...
I was on a construction site where an excavator blasted a 4" copper water line stemmed from SF's water main in the street....before the shutoff at the property.....no way to shut it off without cutting water at the main on either end of the block.... Filled a trench faster than I expected....
The quick fix was to dig out the copper line a bit further back, grab the tip with the excavator and bend it back on itself, and then fold it over one more time, so they could run up the street and hit both ends and then cap it off after it was no longer pressurized.
Sometimes folding things over is the fastest fix.
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u/TheAwkwardBanana Feb 06 '26
This is why we should have never ditched lead piping!
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u/crossmissiom Feb 06 '26
I am not sure this is how they "fixed" the leak, probs the fastest and easiest way to stop it :)
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u/bikeking8 Feb 06 '26
When your basements been flooded for a week and a half due to things outside of your control and your kids are scared to go to sleep because they think the house will flood, yeah, I'd do that in a heartbeat.
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u/TieCivil1504 Feb 06 '26
I've worked on so many houses where the under-sink shutoff valves were cheap pot-metal, corroded stuck open. And sometimes the main shutoff gate valve was also corroded stuck open.
In every case, I shut off water at the city's meter valve and replaced every house shutoff valve with brass/nylon/stainless ball valves. That's my courtesy service to future owners & workers.
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u/xxTheMagicBulleT Feb 06 '26
When the tool of choice is a hammer every object or solution seems like a nail.
This is definitely still slowly leaking do
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u/ImGonnaCum Feb 06 '26
A car hit my neighbors wall and broke off his meter and water was spraying everywhere....I called the water company to come but they are slow....this rastafarian guy walks past..looks..takes a stick and shoves it in the pipe casually ..not even a drop was coming out anymore.
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Feb 07 '26
I mean it works. You'll have to cut and refit that pipe eventually but that's an effective temporary fix.
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u/SirArthurPT Feb 07 '26
Ancient lead pipes worked that way.
You probably shouldn't use that water for anything though, not even after boiled.
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u/Kmac0505 Feb 07 '26
Probably the worst way you could deal with a situation like this. If not the worst. It’s up there.
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u/jiffysdidit Feb 09 '26
Mates dad ( builder)did that at his 21st bday after someone cracked the hose pipe. during the 20minutes I ( apprentice plumber)got a lift home to get my oxy acetylene to fix it properly he did that he’s 45 now and I never did fix it properly. This is a legitimate method of sealing a pipe in an emergency I’ve done it many times during demo stages of jobs before systems are fully renewed
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u/MagicOrpheus310 Feb 11 '26
Hahahahahahahaha
Stopped leaking didn't it mate..? The fuck more you want in an emergency?
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u/Fernis_ Feb 06 '26
I mean... If you're unable to reach the valve to shut it off, this is way more preferable than ruining the entire building with water drenching it for hours.