In this article/video, I'll show you 7 plumbing tricks you must absolutely know if you work at home or on the field.

Step 1: The Magic Bread

If ever you are trying to solder a fitting with water dripping from the pipe, here’s an old plumber’s trick that’ll get you outta trouble. Grab a piece of white bread and shove it down as far as you can inside the pipe, it’ll stop the leak while you solder the fitting and will eventually dissolve inside the pipe.

Step 2: Piggyback Valve

If you have a shut-off valve such as this one that doesn’t stop leaking when you close it and you don’t feel like replacing it? Here’s a neat little plumbing trick that’ll fix your problem! Get yourself a 3/8” inline shut off valve and piggy back it onto the old one and reinstall your supply line, it’s that simple.

Step 3: A Hairy Drain?

This and this, equal’s problems. We all know that hair is the number one culprit for a clogged shower drain and here’s an easy way to remove them. Get yourself a zip tie and make some slits every inch or so using a sharp utility knife, this will make it super easy to remove all the hair that’s stuck in your drain, neat huh?

Step 4: Smelly Drain?

If you have a floor drain somewhere in the house that isn't used much and often smells like sewer gases, here’s a quick fix that anybody could do at home. Grab some vegetable oil and pour a good amount of it in the drain. Unlike water, vegetable oil doesn’t evaporate so you should be good for a while if you use this trick.

Step 5: Low Pressure

If your showerhead has less pressure in it than it used to, here’s a simple fix that you could do using a house-hold ingredient that’ll restore the pressure. Grab a plastic bag, fill it with white distilled vinegar and place it over the shower head with an elastic to keep it on as such for about a day. The vinegar will dissolve any mineral deposits that formed inside the head, and should give you back your original pressure.

Step 6: Sticky Sticker No More!

And lastly, when soldering copper pipe, this could often occur. Instead of trying to remove the stubborn sticker by hand, heat it up till the paper burns off and use some flux to remove any residual glue, now that’s a headache saver.

Step 7: Run a Nut...

And lastly, if you’re tired of having this happen to you when cutting all-thread rod, run a nut on before cutting it and once you’re done, just unscrew it off and it’ll rethread the part that you cut back to normal.