Is sealing PVC fixtures with caulk code compliant?

Recently had a pro come in to fix a leak, and he replaced brass fittings with PVC. As he was finishing up, I saw he had a caulk gun, and asked what he was caulking. He says he goes "above and beyond" with the caulk.

Turns out he tried to seal the PVC fittings with caulk. I'm not a plummer, but this seemed really fishy to me, as caulk has a relatively short life span. I figured they'd leak again within 3-5 years, turns out they leaked within 3 days.

My question is, is sealing PVC fittings with caulk not code compliant, or did he just do a lousy job.

TIA

We never use that glue and primer on PVC!! He did a very bad job

Was it a fitting protruding from a wall? Or was it a fitting connected to pipe and other fittings? Do you have a pic of what he caulked?

Its the drain trap for the tub. He caulked where that fitting joins with the rest of the plumbing. The leak is coming from one of the caulked joints.

You do not caulk or seal the slip joints on plastic slip joint traps. It renders them useless for cleaning out the trap. The seal is made by compressing the washer with the threaded nut connections. This sounds like a hack to me and I don't like saying that. But I've worked with people that do sub par work and try to cover up shoddy work.

I'm with ^^^^ this guy. I have never seen anyone use caulk like this. Where did you find him?

ABS?! There should be no reason to caulk that. He did a poor glue job and tried to cover it up with caulking. Did he replace the trap? If he didn't and just put caulk on the joint then he just ripped you off.

I agree. This guy was just trying to cover his mistakes.

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Thanks for the replies. Yes he replaced the trap and all the fittings. I don't think he could find the leak, so he replaced everything in there, including the drain, stopper, and stopper pull, as well as all the pipe. Was on the job for 3 hours.

Anyway, got another guy out to fix it and he said the first guy stripped the nut, and tried to cover it up with the caulk. Showed me the old parts, true enough.

I imagine he figured it wouldn't leak for 6 months or so, and he'd get away with it, or that the homeowner wasn't and idiot and wouldn't call him out on it.

Thanks for the follow up.