Can't tell what the female pipe is, but it's about 1' long and comes out of my water meter box. Definitely some kind of metal. The grey looks to be a 6" grey pvc nipple that is attached to a 3/4"-1" transition that connects to 1" with a slip couple just street the transition



Here's the whole setup.



I had to cut out the last slip couple because of a leak. There's a compression fitting on it now, but I had some trouble getting it on and aligned so it compressed right and didn't leak. It seems to be ok now, but I'm very hesitant to bury it or even leave it. I'd like a more permanent solution with a full slip joint, but I need to take out the Frankenstein mess here. How would I get the grey nipple out? Would I need to just get some channel locks on it and unscrew it?

The female pipe is probably connected to your water meter coupling. If it were me, I would probably cut the 1" PVC, remove the whole mess, add a 1" to 3/4" reduceer slip coupling, then install a single piece of 3/4" PVC with a female adapter to the water meter coupling. This, of course, assumes your meter is a standard 5/8" / 3/4" residential meter and not a 1" meter that is reduced for this portion of the system.

Ryan the Temp said:

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The female pipe is probably connected to your water meter coupling. If it were me, I would probably cut the 1" PVC, remove the whole mess, add a 1" to 3/4" reduceer slip coupling, then install a single piece of 3/4" PVC with a female adapter to the water meter coupling. This, of course, assumes your meter is a standard 5/8" / 3/4" residential meter and not a 1" meter that is reduced for this portion of the system.

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The female pipe is indeed connected to the water meter coupling. Meter seems to be standard residential.

That's basically what I'm thinking. Are you saying take it all the way back to the meter?

Depends on what condition it's in. If you think it's good to reuse, then just connect to it. My thought was to have any threaded connections at that end completely inside your meter box, if there's enough room.

This is it at the meter





It seems like it's fine. If i went back to the meter, would I take off just that pipe, or the fitting attracted directly to the meter?

I would replace it all the way to the meter, including a new meter coupling, just for good measure. The cost is worth knowing it's all brand new and there are fewer points of failure buried in the ground. If you're in Houston any time soon, I have a brand new meter coupling you can have for free.

I'm in SA, but thanks for the offer and advice. Anything I need to know about the meter coupling?

I'm also tempted to just use pex and wrap the fittings to make it flexible and more freeze resistant. Thoughts?

I'm late to the party but the nipple has to be cut out. Based on the work I see, there is almost no chance the nipple and couplings are reverse threaded, so that means it was all installed in a linear fashion and glued together at some point.

If it's me, I would remove every piece of pvc up to a decent metal threaded fitting and replace all of the pvc with brand new pvc. I'd go with a pvc threaded fitting on one end into your box, and the. Find a clean portion of old pvc and attach to that with a glue on coupler. For your threaded fitting I use rector seal no. 5. I'm generous with it and I swear to god you can almost thread it hand right and it won't leak. Don't do that, you should do it hand tight and give it another half turn or so until it's snug.

As for pex…..meh…that connection is buried and in SA, even the February freeze won't freeze that connection underground. I'd stick to pvc sch 40.

It's not far underground. Coming out of the meter it's 6 inches or less. I guess it did ok during February of 21 though, so I guess i shouldn't worry. Mainly I'd want PEX because I can bend it and make connections easier. Also less worry with it getting cracked by roots because this line runs right next to a tree and this is the second leak in 2-3 months that's been wrapped in roots. It's also not well aligned here, which may be why the original coupling started leaking.

After some reading and youtubing, apparently the way it is set up is actually a preferred way of doing it. The female to female metal nipple provides a metal female to male PVC connection. That's better than female PVC to male metal because the female PVC is more likely to split. The schedule 80 nipple is also a better choice than a fitting because it has thicker walls. From there it's just a transition to the main pipe.

I've already cut out the leaking coupling and put on a compression fitting to stop the leak. I'd like a more permanent solution though. Since it's already cut, should I be able to just twist that nipple out? I'd kind of like to redo everything from the nipple to where the compression fitting is and just do a full slip repair there.

You can get a PEX meter coupling to go all the way to the meter, if you want. It's purely my personal preference not to have threaded connections buried. There are solvent slip to brass PEX crimp fittings available to transition from PVC to PEX, so you could feasibly do it without any threaded fittings in the ground.

You are totally right in the fittings. The female pvc can crack. I didn't notice that close which was what. Pex is fine and I think you can do that underground. I'd just be worried about the connections and how they are secured. Will they rot? Stainless won't but I don't know how it does underground. The out of whack alognment is probably why the compression fitting is on it.

I do not like compression couplers but I have used them at our ranch and there are some that have been buried for over ten years. They make galvanized ones as well. I try to only use them where I have open access to them but I've never had them give me trouble. Still don't like them buried but they have been ok. I'm with you there.

I put the compression fitting on. There was a slip couple at that point that had started to leak. I just happened to have the compression fitting and needed the leak taken care of quickly. Now that it's stopped, I've got time to decide on what to do next as a permanent fix.

PEX fittings are fine if buried, but you have to wrap them in a silicone tape. I'm ok with that if I'm only doing two.

You're a better person than I am. I only fix permanently, because I know what happens when I fix it good enough to do it better later. Two weeks from now, I bury that compression fitting. LOL.

I do have a business trip I have to leave for on Sunday morning...


Better get it done Saturday!