Copper Sleeves on plastic pipe?

[raferguson]

I have not done much if any plumbing on my 2005 Sunnybrook, which I am of course happy about. Now I am trying to replace a drain valve. In the course of removing the old drain valve, I realized that the collars clamping the ends of the pipes were copper sleeves, with nothing to grab onto. I ended up using die grinders to remove them, but that generated a lot of heat, and probably damaged the plastic pipe, although I tried spraying them with water occasionally to cool them down. I do not know how the sleeves were put on originally, perhaps slipped onto the pipe before the connector was inserted.

Is there a reasonable way to remove those copper sleeves? Should I just cut the pipe and then splice in a new piece of pipe? What is the best way to cut this plastic pipe? I cut one with a hacksaw, but it left a lot of debris. Being almost 20 years old, I assume that the plastic is less flexible than it used to be. For the repair, I have the metal clamp on sleeves, which can be easily cut off if needed.

I do not have much experience with plastic pipe, as the houses I have lived in have had copper pipe, and I have not had to work on my RV plumbing before.

 

[Rich W.]

Sounds like you are working with Pex which is easy to work with but yes you have to cut the crimped on rings, or cut the pipe at the fitting and then try to salvage the fitting if you want to re-use it. You’ll only loose about a half inch of pipe so usually that’s not an issue.
Homepage | SharkBite.
Those copper rings are crimped in place but if its in tight quarters you’ll have a hard time getting a crimper in there, unless you use an electric (expensive) crimper. Fortunately there are Sharkbite fittings which cost more but don’t require crimping and are just push to connect - very easy.