Customer Reviews for Oatey H-20 1.7 oz. Lead-Free Water Soluble Solder Flux Paste

Works exactly as expected.

This was the first time I've ever sweated potable water pipes. I was a little worried about using this flux after reading some reviews but the capillary action was good. I didn't have any leaks and my sweating is just as good as a professional's.

Very good product. Works as advertised.

works perfect for joining copper pipes

I got it to hot on my first try, but it worked out great in the end of my little project

Really good

This flux is runny and corrosive. When left on copper, it turns green. I unintentionally got some on brass fittings and they are pitted. I threw it away and purchased the other type.

Used it to make cooper pipe joints

Works as advertised.

Reasonably priced, worked very well for the purpose of it was designed for.

I learned how to solder copper tubing with this flux, so I have no frame of reference for how older formulations worked. This flux has worked well for me and I wouldn't hesitate to buy it again. Any time I have gotten a poor joint, it has been from water I didn't realize was still in the line or overheating the fitting. That's all operator error. I always stir the flux before using it and use a fresh acid brush to keep it from getting contaminated. My only complaint is the flux taste lingers in the water for several days after finishing a job. It takes about a week for the taste to go away.

the lead is not drawn to the joint and I wasted hrs to figure out what is wrong. Replaced with another type of flux which worked, good luck with this junk

Ditto other negative teviews — wasted time, $$, and fittings. Don’t bother with this stuff!!

When you need to solder copper pipes and fittings, a good flux is the key to a professional-looking result. I have used a variety of different brands of flux and some are better than others; but this H-20 brand water soluble flux is among the best. It is a thin consistency to make application easy and when heat is applied it quickly melts to clean the copper surface. When the solder is applied, you'll see a professional job really does depend on the flux!

I figure I would try this Oatey H-20 1Water-soluble solder paste flux on my home project. The first thing when opening the container of how water the product is. When sweating the fitting it just did not flow well. I had several leaks, so I had to take them apart again and went back to the old faithful Oatey 5 paste. The lid is hard to get back on tight so I worry it will open when I take it to job to job.

I really dislike this product. There are some things that should not be changed and soldering flux is one of them. I opened the container on a warm day and found that this flux was thin and runny. Some of it spilled out when I opened the plastic container and it made a mess. I tried soldering with it but I found the consistency of the flux to be thin and I didn't like the coverage. It did work though for one quick fitting. The biggest problem is the container. I tried putting the lid back on but it would not seal because the air inside with the flux would not compress enough to seal the lid. I had to push it on the best I could and then cool it to shrink the air inside to seat the lid. I can't carry around something that I can't close and if this lid pops open then this thin material run all over everything in the toolbox. It is not like the secure metal tins that traditional flux comes in. I will stick with the older stuff.

Not sure what to say about this flux. It works the way ti should. 1.70 oz is perfect for any do it yourselfer. Containers is good and seals fine. Does not come with a brush only the flux. This is used to sweat copper pipes and fitting. This will work on most metals. It will not work on aluminum and stainless steel. I would wear gloves and goggles when dealing with this.

First off the consistency of this product seems to be different than the other ones by Oatley. One of which we had purchased a few years ago. This it didn't seem to apply correctly or as expected. So we ended up using the old product that had been sitting around for years. Maybe if we had tried to fuss around with this product it would have been ok, but it wasnt worth the fuss.

One of my hobbies is refurbishing old stereo equipment. Particularly high end audiophile equipment from the 1980s to present. It's amazing what you can find on craigs list. And my best deals always have an issue to be fixed. I needed a flux that would be easy to apply. CHECK. And would help the solder to flow evenly. CHECK. And doesn't impede the electrical flow. CHECK

If you use Oatey No. 95 flux, you will make perfect welds every time. I used this three times on the same joint. I kept having to cut out the leaky fittings and splice in more pipe. Thirty years of plumbing experience did not help me. If I had this experience as a first-timer, I'd never try it again and Home Depot would not have sold me hundreds of dollars in copper fittings over the years. Home Depot: please remove this from your shelves.

Not sure why Oatey put their name on this crap.. This stuff looks like something my wife would moisturize with... it's Creamy and useless. I average 95% sweat rate as an amateur, but with this stuff my success has dropped to 15%. I ran out of my Oatey 95 and this is what home depot had in its place. Needless to say HD brought the 95 back.. Save yourself hours of frustration and go somewhere else to get good flux if you can't find the Oatey 95 or equivalent. Don't waste your $$'s or time with this stuff. This product will cost you a lot more than $4.00 its not worth.

Stinks to high heaven!!! Solder won't flow as expected. Leaves a LOT of black residue of the joint which makes it look VERY unprofessional. Yech!

This product should be removed from shelves. Im experiended with plumbing work and had problems with it. One of my employess is a hard working person with low experience level( young person) , he wasnt able to make anyting correctly with this paste. Im not blame my guy Im blame product... so stay away from this paste - this product will bring problems , frustration watse time and money.

I ran close to 40 ft of copper in my 1840s home with this stuff, and it worked well. Even joining into much older piping I have no leaks. I used type L copper which seemed to need more heat than type M to solder, and the flux seemed to boil sooner than the solder would melt. The burned appearance wiped off and left clean joints. Plus it won't eat into the piping like acid flux will.

Total waste of $. I was questioning my sanity with 20+ years of plumbing experience and could not get this flux to work. Numerous destroyed fittings, straight up frustration. Walked down to fathers house and borrowed a container of regular flux....yep worked as it should every time. I do not understand why this is still being sold! Waste of time and money.

I would love to see even a professional plumber use this product. I was starting to wonder if I had forgot how to solder after wasting an hour of time and a half dozen or so fittings. I went back and bought some plain flux that was not water-soluble and that worked great. I do not see how anyone uses this

The purpose of flux is to make good sweat fittings easy. In direct heat turns it to a black ash making a quality fit nearly impossible.

Flux would not draw solder into joint. Heated fitting all the way to red hot with testing of solder all along the heating process at different intervals. Just would not pull the solder in. Just have a nice pile of solder on the basement floor.

I tried some sweating copper fitting to 1/2" pipe at the bench with some no name flux that I had from somewhere. solder pretty much all went on the floor. visited HDepot and talked to a guy there that has given me good advice in the past and he recommended this red label flux. also some suggestions on sweating. clean the surfaces well; coat fully with flux; assemble and do the soldering soon; heat the fitting about midpoint of the enclosed pipe (not on the edge where the solder is to go); if fitting is horizontal heat the bottom half; when hot enough apply the solder at the top; clean the pipe with water wet rag after it cools. This flux worked well for me. A trick that I came across worked pretty well. Oatey also sells a tinning flux; it's dark gray and contains some finely dispersed metal. I put a dab of that at the spot that I intend to start the solder flow; the suspended gray metal spreads and tins the copper at about the temperature that solder melts. this gives you a temperature gauge at the spot that you melt the solder. I believe that the tinning flux is primarily intended to tin wire but this temperature sensor trick works pretty well. and for four bucks... I gave it four stars because I don't have enough experience to say that there isn't something better out there