by Catherine Lear

Created on: May 16, 2009   Last Updated: February 24, 2011

Many people would like to repair some of their own plumbing problems, they see the financial benefits that come with repairing some off the less hard plumbing work in their home. And into days world of high call out costs and the hourly rate that some plumbers charge who can blame them. However to repair plumbing work you will have to have some knowlage of the material that plumbers use to do these repairs. Teflon tape is one such material that any plumber and any would be plumber must have in his or her toolbox

Contrary to belief teflon tape is not the last line of defence to a plumber or a pipe fitter that has a leak, plumbers and pipe fitters use this tape on many of their screwed fittings when they are fitting some but not all their of their pipe work, there are far better items on the market than Teflon tape to stop a leak. In fact there is only one way to stop a leak and that is by turning of the water, gas, oil and draining the system and redoing the pipe work with a better seal

Teflon tape is a good product on that there is no doubt but you have to use it properly. The normal use for Teflon tape is that you wrap it around the threads normally on low pressure water or on small pipes that carry oil to your home heating boiler or furnace. If you have water pipes with a greater pressure of 3bar then you will most likely to have many leaks on the threads of any pipe work that has Teflon tape wrapped around the threads.

You can use it on any gas pipe work, but the Teflon tape that you should use for gas is a little bit thicker than the normal Teflon tape and in Great Britain, it is called one wrap. The name gives it away as to what you must do when use it for gas work you just wrap it around the thread once.

You can buy Teflon tape at any good hardware store you can buy it in one roll or you can buy it in a ten roll pack. It comes in only one size and it is a quarter of an inch wide and the proper name for Teflon tape is polytetrafluoethylene try saying that when you have been down the bar for a few drinks, so plumbers call it PTFE tape for short,

Never try to seal a pipe that is leaking by just wrapping Teflon tape around the spot were the leak is, it will do no good what so ever the only use of Teflon tape is for threaded joints. That is why I said at the beginning that Teflon tape is not the last form of defence for a plumber or home owner that has a leak. It gives a false sense of security to say otherwise.

I made this mistake when I had a small leak I thought that by wrapping the tape around the small little leak that it would stop the leak imagine my surprise when it only got worse; the reason that I had used this Teflon tape was because I thought that it would stop the leak and as there were no instructions that came with the purchase of the tape I only made it worse.

If in any doubt or if you are in the unfortunate position as having a water leak of how to mend the leak call out a plumber, if you have a gas leak do not try to mend it yourself even if you have the Teflon tape call out a qualified person and let them fix the gas leak. By not doing the job properly you might make things worse gas is an explosive and you don't need me to tell you what an explosion can do.

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