By Mark Jachniewicz
Winter is coming and it’s about time to drain the plumbing in various summer homes.
I’ve found the threaded drain plugs on ball valves are always a pain to get off. Those who have dropped one know that it is difficult to find once it has inevitably rolled into oblivion. Fed up with the hassle, I finally broke down and came up with a simple solution by soldering a looped piece of copper wire (No. 12) on the cap.
The loop of wire now makes it easy to tighten or untighten with arthritic fingers. If you make a hook on the pipe with the same wire, you can hang the cap right there and it won’t get lost.
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I used silver solder and a Weller soldering gun. Make sure you remove the rubber plug before starting this!
