So I came back from a business trip and found the basement carpet was soaked. Apparently the frost-free exterior faucet on the back wall had developed a leak, so when my wife used the hose in the back yard, it leaked down the exterior wall (inside) and got to the carpet. Surprisingly, and thankfully, the drywall was 100% dry.

Now, the moron who owned the house before me drywalled the basement ceiling. Looks great, but totally 100% annoying for ANYTHING. I cut an access panel where the hose was. Perfect. I can reach the shutoff, and, the faucet connection where it meets the PEX.

I bought a new frost-free faucet, a 1/2" female to 1/2" PEX "Sharkbite" connector, and went to work.

I used 3 wraps of teflon tape on the threads and secured the 1/2" threaded connection as tight as I could with a wrench. The problem was, it only seemed to go about 1/2 way down the threads and not nearly fully down. I thought "OK, just bottomed out, should be fine". I then installed the unit and connected the PEX to the Sharkbite end of the coupler (non-removable without a special tool).

IT LEAKS!

Fuck.

So I akwardly disconnect the threaded side (in-ceiling... limited working space), re-do the teflon tape with 4-5 wraps, and reinstall. It took ALL my might to get it as tight as I did, and it still has a very slow leak (probably 1-2 drops an hour?).

What are the other options here? Should I try a paste/liquid style pipe dope instead of the tape? Should I try without any sealant, just to see how far down the threads that the coupling will go?

I need this fixed ASAP!!!!!

Thanks everyone!

I was going to say plumbers tape . I would check to see how far the connector goes down without any tape or anything on there. Also, are you sure you got the connection on straight? It should go down an little further than half way. If all of that checks out, maybe look for the paste that hardens, especially if you don't plan on removing anything in the future.

I stopped at home depot again and all of the connections are the same as mine. So I picked up some of the non-hardening pipe dope, went home and unscrewed the connection, cleaned the threads, applied copious amounts of the paste, and wrenched that fucker on really tight. Gave it an hour to set as per the tube instructions, and voila... No more leak! I let the tap run for 30 minutes and no leaks at all!

I won't use Teflon tape again - the paste works much better!

Glad it worked out. I've had success with both the tape and the non-hardening pipe joint compound. Tape is good for tight fits; PJC works best if there are larger gaps in the connection.