Three Ways To Remove An Olive From Copper Pipe

Video Description

In today’s video, I’m showing three ways how to remove compression olives from pipes. As plumbers we come across this all the time where we have to remove a valve or take something apart and you have to get the olive away from the copper pipe and I’m showing you three ways on exactly how I do it. Because most of the time the fittings are on pipework that is still in situ what you wanna do is minimalise the amount of force that you put onto the rest of the pipework which is the reason I strongly don’t recommend you using a hammer or a pair of spanners and hitting the olive The methods that I use have the least amount of strain on the pipework so you don’t cause a leak further back or forward on the line. The first method will be using a para grips now this is my go to method if the compression fitting has been done up properly and not over tightened then you should be able to pour the olive off this way so you just use a pair of grips on the nut and squeeze against the end of the pipe and sometimes you have to go all the way round and do it in multiple spots but the olive should pull forward and then you can slide the back and then twist the rest of the olive off. I would always recommend trying this route first if it doesn’t work then go ahead and use the second method. The second method would be to use a olive cutter now mine is from a brand coat Monument which I’ll link below but in theory what the stairs is it clamps over the top of the olive and the two pressure points cut through the sites you have to make sure that you don’t do this on an angle or squeeze too much as you can end up catching the pipe on the way through and that will either stop the nut from coming off and you have to use a file to file a flat or it could leave the pipe damaged so when you put a new connection on there will be a void or a small gap underneath it . The final method would be to use a olive pillar which is from again the brand Monument sometimes this is the only option that you have especially when you’re taking off nuts and olives when you can’t push and nut too far back please be careful when you are using this method as you do run the risk of misshapen the pipe if the previous plumber or engineer before has over tightened the nut. What happens is is when the nut and olive pull forward depending on how much it has been squeezed onto the pipe it will misshapen that diameter to be smaller so when you go to put a new connection on it won’t seal. I hope these three ways are giving you a better idea on how to remove your olives from copper pipe. If you’d like today’s Plumbing video please give it a like dropper comment down below subscribe if you and I see you on the next one.  Tools in video: Knipex cobra 150s https://amzn.to/4dmXuOA Monument olive cutter https://amzn.to/3SHFm8C Monument olive puller https://amzn.to/4jW9Uzs