how to drain a hot water pipe

[grahamrichardnorth]

I need to install a 22mm tee to my new en-suite but I have no way of draining the 22mm pipe completely. Anyone have any good ideas on how to do this?

There are no compression joints to losen...

Thanks.

G

[andrewpreece]

Two ways, first is you cut the pipe in half at its lowest point, drain it, then install a compression coupler so next time you'll be able to drain it without all this palaver.

Second way, a bit unreliable, is to open the pipe up back along somewhere, then open the relevant tap, fit some kind of rubber pipe to it, then blow like hell into the end. Very hard. Possibly until you see stars*. This may shift the pooled water so you are able to desolder the present solder fitting which is at the moment proving impossible to desolder because of the pooled water ( am I guessing your problem correctly? ).

• If you have a heart attack or burst a blood vessel, don't blame me! ;-)

Andy.

[Set Square]

This is presumably a hot water feed from the airing cupboard to an existing bathroom and/or kitchen, and you wish to tee into it?

Is there an isolating valve in the feed pipe from the cold header tank to the bottom of the hot cylinder? If so, turn that off and then open all (up and down) hot taps. That should pretty much drain the pipes, but may leave a small amount at any low points.

I would suggest using a copper push-fit tee such as

In order to fit *any* tee, you'll need a bit of end float in the pipe once you've cut it. Decide where the tee is the go, and clean up the existing pipe in this region with wire wool. Mark the short length of pipe which needs to be cut out to accommodate the tee. In the centre of this section, as low as possible, drill a small hole - about 1/8" diameter and catch any water which comes out in a suitable container. [A foil take-away food container is ideal. If there is more than one containerful, put a finger over the hole while you empty it into a larger bowl.]

When no more water comes out, cut out the section of pipe containing the hole using a ratchet-type pipe cutter such as

- which can be used in a confined space. *Do not* use a hacksaw. Then you can fit the tee, and take a supply to your en-suite.

[nick smith]

Or...

Partly cut the pipe with a wet and dry vacuum underneath to catch the drips, when stopped cut all the way through, then apply full vacuum to each cut end to SUCK all the water through out of the pipe. Also removes airlocks by sucking them through

Nick

[Capitol]

Wet & Dry vacuum cleaner, to suck water out of the pipe.

Regards Capitol

[John Stumbles]

I would suggest not but rather using a compression fitting, because if you have to bend and strain at the pipes to get them apart enough to get them into the fitting there's a real chance of buggering the O rings of a push-fit. Also with compression if it's very tight to get the fitting in then you can get away with cutting back the pipes a bit further than you should and tightening it all up so the fitting is positioned with equal amounts of each bit of pipe pushed into it. OTOH if the pipe you're teeing into is neatly positioned in the middle of 3 run side by side then you're stymied as you can't tighten the nuts on the compression fitting.

[Dave]

Strap wrench, chain wrench will do this on a compression fitting. All you have to do before hand, is compress the olives on a dummy pipe fitting and then fit them in situ, using a strap wrench to tighten them up :-)

HTH

Dave

[nick smith]

as I suggested previously...............

Nick

[Chris McBrien]

Providing you are able to cut the 22mm pipe without flooding the place. Now use a length of that transparent polythene pipe, as used in Wine making. Now poke this down the 22mm. pipe as far as you need to and suck on the end and allow it to syphon out the residual water or perhaps blow it out.

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