Leak outside where pvc connects to copper

My main water line is pvc which connects to the copper line about 6 inches before going into the house. It appears to have some kind of fitting inside the pvc line that goes into a female copper (not sure how it's connected internally) there was a hose clamp on the pvc line at the connector piece. I'm assuming the pvc line lost its shape and it's now leaking. Looking for suggestions on a repair.

 

Can you post a picture so we can see what your looking at?

 

Here are instructions to post pictures.

 

I would think your outside line is more likely polyethylene (PE) rather than PVC. This is much more common in my area, and in more recent construction. In this use, the PE pipe is connected with a clamp on connector that then adapts to the interior piping. This is much more like what you've described than connecting PVC with a clamp ring.

 

That's what I thought also. Here's how I did mine. I think it's fairly common.

 

Well I just noticed that I forgot about your real question. If you have a leak out of the poly pipe where the insert is inserted in the pipe, you might try to put another band clamp right at the very end of the pipe – if there is room there.

If not you could try to tighten the band clamps that are already there to see if that helps. If that doesn’t help you could add a band clamp at some other place on the fitting if there is room.

If nothing works I think you would have to cut the black poly pipe back in order to get back to a good place to reinsert the fitting. But that is probably unlikely unless you have excess pipe. But that is possible however, because the pipe should have been laid in an S-shape, so there could be a few extra inches you could pull up to the point of the original connection, so you could cut a few inches off of the black poly pipe. But maybe not.

If not then worst case you could do a patch job using barb coupling and patch in a new piece of poly that you can work with (see pic below). If you do wind up having to push a fitting into the black poly, don’t be discouraged. When you first try it seems impossible – but it’s not. The trick is you heat the end of the pipe up – not too hot so as not to damage the pipe. Just a little at a time and you will be able to push the fitting in while the end is heated.

 

The pic in the last post had the brass fitting turned facing the wrong way. The insert was facing away from the black poly pipe. Probably apparent but just wanted to correct that.