All the cold water piping from the tank to outlets in our 1970s property is 17mm OD grey plastic piping. Grateful for any suggestions on how to adapt this to copper. I would strip everything out and start again but the existing is neatly buried in walls or the concrete floor.
That's an unusual size! What sort of fittings are currently used? Can you upload a photo of a bit of pipe with a fitting somewhere on-line, and post a link to it here?
It wasn't an unusual size at the time (seventies) ... indeed my BCO more or less insisted that such pipes were used for cold services. {when the existing lead pipery was being removed and replaced. IIRC, the pipes were made by 'IMI ~ Yorkshire" under the trade name 'Poly-York"
-[I may have this wrong]. The pipe was meant to be solvent-welded with in-line joints made with a female-female union. I had grey pipes (large) and black (small) diameters equivalent to 22mm and 15mm copper. {Once again this may have been a vagary of supply]. Unions, elbows, tap and tank connectors were all available. Connection onto the cold-water main was via a tap-connector. When I needed to modify the design , I could no longer source the bits. I discovered that a push-fit connector actually went over the 17mm OD ... after which it's an exercise in connecting to the resultant copper pipe.
Apparently, as the hot water (adjacent) pipes had to be copper the plumbing trade didn't find using a parallel plastic circuit either cost nor time saving and the product went off the market.
I hope to banish the final circuits of it from my house over the next twelvemonth ... when I get a round tuit.
In message , Brian Sharrock writes
It is exactly as you describe. You mention using push-fit connectors - any specific manufacturer or will any do?
I must have missed out on that - because both my previous and current (where I've lived since 1977) houses were built in the 1960's - presumably before this plastic stuff came into use.
My previous house did have some stainless steel pipe because it was built at a time when copper was scarce - but that was the same size as imperial copper 1/2" and 3/4" pipe.
More recently, I have used Acorn/Hep2O/Speedfit plastic pipe - but that has the same ODs as metric copper pipe - so 17mm still seems a bit of an oddity.
FWIW ... CAVEAT ... NO RESPONSIBILITY ASSUMED NOR IMPLIED :) Observation indicates that I used 'Pushfit' which just happened to be what B&Q stocked - this is after I'd tried going from 'Plumber Supply Merchants(various) and had spotty yoof-experience people regarding me as 'mental' for even enquiring about the product. HTH.
I had a 'complete' cold water system - rising main to storage tank then tank connectors to bath/shower/toilets on separate feeds. The rising main has been converted to copper; as has the bathroom feeds - now just the toilet feed needs to be replaced. The round tuit I'm anticipating will include a heat-store which will eliminate the cold-water storage tank and the final few metre lengths of Poly-YorK(?). BTW, the plastic is (IIRC) ABS.
Ta, Brian, I hadn't heard of it either, now noted for future reference.
IF (big if) it is ABS, then you could get an ABS to BSP adaptor. ABS is used for some commercial pipe systems, mainly chilled water. You'd need to get bits from a commercial pipefitting suppliers (e.g., BSS). The main manufacturers are Durapipe and Georg Fischer. The pipe comes in metric and imperial sizes; if there isn't a 17mm OD pipe fitting, you'd have to find a man with a lathe to machine out a suitable fitting. The pipe is solvent welded to the fitting and cannot be dismantled after joining. You have to get the right solvent cement. Instructions & catalogues can probably be found on the web.
Another (slightly kludgey) method would be the universal transition fittings designed for use on MDPE pipe. (see BES order code 13544 for example). These take typically 25mm MDPE in one end and a range of all sorts up the other (lead, steel, copper, plastic) in a range of sizes. You would then need to convert back from the MDPE to copper - but that is straightforward.
It's definitely ABS (as are/were the unions)
I turfed out a length of piping from the attic today consisting of a tank-connector, lengths of piping, elbows, and unions. One of the problems was that the pipe (tubes) couldn't be bent so unions and elbows,
90 deg and 45 deg, seemed needed every few inches! The ABS was solvent-welded in a process involving;- light scouring (to remove the sheen), chemical liquid cleaner, then painting with solvent which 'melted' the surface - the pipe was then pushed into the union and the junction 'held' for a few seconds until 'set', All this is easy on a work-bench - but almost impossible under floors or lying on raftes in the attic.
I seem to remember the word 'Ketone' - but that might be something else!
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