'sweat joints' on water heater

[Chris-man]

Dear Samurai,  Today I plumbed the 1/2 "  copper pipe to my new water heater. The joints between elbows and such didnt 'flow and fill' as readily as I expected. If I pressurize it and there are leaks, have I created a real mess with water now in all the pipe?  What should I do?  How would you procede from here?  does solder need to be FED 'all the way around' on every joint ?                   Thank you for your advising.

 

[LearningTech]

Likely it was too cold. Solder  flows towards the source of heat.

 If pipes are clean and heated proper, flux applied, then solder applied opposite side of heat, then it should flow into where it needs.

 I would join a few pipes together outside of the house in a circle or something and pressurize it there to see if you do good joints 1st.

since you have done it already. You can redo it all after getting practice, or get a pro, or use another method of joining( shark bite) or pressureise it up with air, or some other non destructive medium, 

or just let water in and see what you get and hope for the best.

get a pro if all of the above did not make sense

[Chris-man]

Dear Learning Tech,   Hey, thanks for your advising--Yes, Ive properly cleaned and fluxed the joints but applying the solder to the 'opposite-from-heat' makes good sense and it does seem that at least some of thethe joints did not get hot enough. One more question: can I simply 'reheat' the joints I consider to be weak, and, can a joint become 'too hot' and thus not join properly?     thanks alot for your help 

[LearningTech]

It is possible to be too hot, but not super easy, just dont be cherry red.

as long as the copper is clean ( no soot/ contamination) they you can reheat and it will flow. 

 When it is too hot you anneal the copper and weaken it. But even weak (annealed copper joint is well above pressures experienced in the home.