Copper pipes are a great, safe and effective way to run water through your home, office or structure.

It's when the water is no longer kept flowing smoothly through the pipes and starts to leak out is when you'll need a good quality repair.

Usually when working with copper piping if you do spring a leak, chances are it will be a pin hole leak. Of course, these leaks are a lot better than a full gushing of water out of your pipes, but it's still a leak that can cause extensive damage if not taken care of in time.

Finding the exact spot on the copper pipe where the pin point leak is can sometimes be a little tricky. Where you see the water dripping may not be exactly where the pipe has the whole in it. The leak itself may be well above the where the water is dripping. Look carefully and you'll trace back to where the pipe is actually leaking from.

Fortunately there are a lot of great companies that make easy to use and easy to apply, push type copper pipe fittings that repair the size of copper pipe you have installed in your structure. You'll want to purchase a good pipe cutter if you don't already own one. These pipe cutters look like a C-clamp with a steel cutting wheel on the end of the clamp. Turn off the water pressure and then start your cut.

The cutting blade will make an exact cut with the use of the pipe cutter. You'll want to slip the pipe cutter over one end of the leak then cut through the pipe and then repeat the cutting below the leak. You'll put the pipe cutter over the pipe itself and tighten the wheel slightly and turn, then tighten the wheel slightly as not to bend the pipe but cut it and then turn until the pipe is cut completely through. If you are in a position where you can't turn the pipe cutter in a complete circle, it will still cut the pipe with a quarter turn of the pipe cutter.

After your pipe is cut, push on the pipe repair fitting onto one end of the copper pipe, then push the other end of the copper pipe into the other end of the pipe repair fitting and your pipe will be repaired.