sealing multi fittings?

[maple flats]

As I keep walking my lines I find lots of leaks at the multi fittings. Most are fully tightened at the clamp (teeth fully tightened, no more travel left.) Does this mean I need new gaskets or do you use wire bag ties to further tighten the fittings?

[venus_amos]

Maybe you can stop leaks by installing 2 wires ties matched together on each side of multi-raccord. My friend do that, it's good for next 2-3 years. The best thing to do, is to change the raccord for a best one.

[Typical8]

Keep putting the wire ties to it. Sometimes it takes alot of them till you get that one tie at the right angle and snake goes away.

[JoeJ]

Dave,

I know that we all make mistakes in this hobby, but some are much bigger mistakes than others. When I set up my gravity tubing 8 years ago (now vacuum for 6 years), I was not told how to install the saddles. So, I drilled the hole in the pipeline and popped in the saddle, tightened the straps and was ready to go. How ever, when I switched to a vacuum system, I found lots of mistakes including the leaking saddle problem. After the second season on vacuum, I found many of the saddles were seriously leaking. I took a few apart to discovered that the gaskets were wrinkled. I went through my whole woods (850 taps) and 98% of the improperly installed saddles had wrinkled gaskets. I went to D&G, got new gaskets and 2 straps for each saddle, leaking saddle problem solved. It would have been really nice if at least one person at one of the dealers had passed on the correct installation information. DRILL THE HOLE, PUT THE GASKET IN THE HOLE, POP ON THE REST OF THE SADDLE, TIGHTEN THE STRAPS.

I think that I have now graduated from the sixth grade in the Maple Sugaring School of Hard Knocks. I can't wait for next year's challenges

Joe

[Thad Blaisdell]

Ohhhhh.... the simplest answer is always the right one.... As you stated your rachet on the bottom is all the way closed. What you need to do is make some shims. I am guessing these are on 1" pipe, am I right? Take another piece of pipe say 2-3" long. split it 4 ways, Take those pieces and put one under the bottom of each saddle. That will tighten them up.

Good luck

[Snow Hill Farm]

I also found that using one of those clamp on tools designed to drill straight, clean holes helps. The first ones I did were without it (and they leaked) and it's almost impossible to keep the drill perfectly straight.

[3rdgen.maple]

I did not do it on mine but I was told by the dealer that you are suppose to put a slime coat of food grade grease on the gasket to help the seal. Mine are all tight and after pinching the clamps down I wire tied them as well to get that extra little bit of grip.

[maple flats]

I'll try wire ties (wire bag ties like are used to hang line from support wire). My leakers are on 3/4" tubing. In fact all of my branch and main lines are 3/4. My dry line is 1". I only have500 on one line and 50 on a second coming from another direction. I may also try a shim as Thad suggested.
Of all the leaks I found, all but 2 were the saddles. I had 2 that I had to track up laterals to fix.

[wiam]

I had some leaking the other day and cut the end off where it bottoms and sqeezed it in further.

William

[adk1]

just curious here, seems like alot of problems with the saddles. I was planning on using them with 3/4" black waterpipe. any problems?

What would be the second best option?

[Dave Y]

There is a video lapierre has on you tube on how to correctly install a saddle, I have made the same mistake all of you have. The gentleman in the video uses silicone on the gasket before installing the fitting this will seal up the saddle. Now before you all start hollering about food grade silicone, I have been told that all silicone is food grade once it is cured. I plan on reinstalling all my saddles this summer and sealing them with silicone.

[Brian]

Make sure you use a hook connector in the tubing to take the pressure off the saddle. This is the main reason for them leaking.