DIY Fountain!!

[Richard]

All

I had a pipe sticking out of my lawn at the back of my garden just near my stone wall. It's about 5ft in height and I think it used to feed an outdoor toilet or something. Anyway I was cutting the lawn earlier and managed to knock it and soon after saw water coming out of the grass!!! I had always thought it would of been disconnected. I turned off the mains outside and dug around the pipe and found a corroded tap buried and a split in the pipe.

The problem I have is that the pipe is an old lead one and it is 21mm in diameter it also has thick walls of about 3mm. I tried to put a

22mm end stop on it which held for a while with some PTFE tape but the pressure build up caused it to blow off the end quite spectacularly. At the moment I have a great water feature but I need some help stopping it!

Can anyone identify this kind of pipe and where I can get an end stop for it from?

Good job I'm not on a water meter!

Cheers

Richard

[Bob Eager]

Quick fix...go to the plumbers merchant, tell them the size of the pipe, and ask for a Johnson coupling. This fits a range of sizes (within limits) and you can put a bit of end-stopped 22mm copper in the other end.

Advantage is that you need nothing but grips and a spanner, so it can be done while water is flowing.

(it's basically a tube with threaded ends, with caps with a hole in. And two tapered rubber sleeves that go over the pipe and fit tapered cavities in the end of the tube). Vaguely like the things you get on plastic waste pipes but much beefier and with a much deeper taper. Ideal for unidentified lead!

[Richard]

very much

Richard

[PeterK]

In my youth I was taught how to solder lead and AFAIK the crucial thing is to get the correct grade of solder - low melting point. I don't think doing in a hole on the garden is a good place to start to learn. A quick search finds "Talbot Grippa is a universal fitting that connects onto a wide variety of existing lead, galvanised iron and copper pipe with just one set of internal components. The range consists of three fittings which together suit all metal pipes with an outside diameter of 15mm (3/8") to 34mm (3/4") including the different weights of lead pipe " see

.

If their claims of its simplicity are true then it looks like a stop end or new garden tap can be installed with little effort. I presume there is no trace of the start of this pipe in your house - where I'd want to isolate it.

PeterK

[nightjar]

Big hammer and something to use as an anvil - a big flat stone or a large block of wood will do. Flatten the pipe really well over about a foot. Fold it back on itself about 3" and hammer flat again. Fold that tightly around the end and hammer flat again. Finally fold again around the first bend and hammer flat once more. That held a water pipe in our kitchen in London for at least ten years. Don't know if it failed after we left, but ten years isn't bad for a temporary fix.

Colin Bignell

[Robert Laws]

if they ever do fit a meter it might be worth checking whether it comes off the main upstream or downstream of the meter.

Robert

[Rick Hughes]

Even quicker fix ... flatten end of lead pipe with hammer, bend it over and flatten again .... used to be fairly common way of temp stopping off lead pipes. When I learnt my lead jointing ... an accepted permanent fix was to solder an old penny across the end of the pipe , piece of moleskin, some tallow, blowlamp and plumbers solder. .... but namby pamby plumbers of today probably have a quick fit plastic thingy to do the job at 20 times the price !

If I were wanting to do it now .. I'd bell the end of the pipe to flare it open a bit, tap in a piece of 22mm copper do a quick neat copper to lead joint .. the flare will help form a cup for the solder, wipe it smooth. Then stop off or put a tap or whatever on the copper end.

[Bob Eager]

I only mentioned that because someone else had tried that solution and failed....!

[tony sayer]

In article , Rick Hughes writes

Well some 20 years ago when I was desperate to cap off a 22 mm tee junction I found that a pound coin was a very good fit and a few weeks ago I had to alter that pipe work and removed the coin and cleaned it up and its still usable!...

[John Stumbles]

Yeah but it's not worth now as much as it was then.

:-)