I need to add a new radiator to my house (hallway has none and it's cold!)
I plan to tap into the CH Flow and Return pipes which already run underneath there, and plan to use solder ring connections.
My question is this, the access panel for my crawl space is at the opposite side of the house, so I have to go down beneath the floor and haul myself along through the rubble to the place where the pipes will go.
How safe is it to use a blow torch in this confined space? (About 18 inches of verticle space benathe the floors). Apart from the obvious need to not set the house on fire, I'm more interested in the fumes given off by the blow lamp. What can I do about those?
I'd rather not use 'speedfix' or compression if I can avoid it, just for peice of mind.
can't see what all the fuss is with pushfit, used correctly there's nothing wrong with it nor is there anything to be ashmed of. purists may argue differently but refusing to use pushfit over copper end feed is ludditism of the highest order.
It'll be fine. It's not, or rather shouldn't be, a source of carbon monoxide, and you won't need it on for long, anyway. Take care that hot flux or solder doesn't drip on you.
Is there no way you can get at the job from above ? e.g. cutting a piece of floorboard ? Working beneath the job in a confined space is certain to be more difficult and prone to accident, e.g. touching hot pipework / blowtorch, hot solder dripping onto you etc. I've been under our floor with a similar space recently to run some electric cables and it can be difficult to breath even without a blowtorch stealing the oxygen and warming the air around.
I've done plenty of this and it hasn't been a problem. I have only lit the blowlamp when I need to use it, which means it will only operate upright as the preheat coil doesn't get a chance to get to operating temperature, but that's the only way up I need to use it under the floor. It was not so much the fumes I was worried about as knocking it over -- much of the underfloor space in my house seems to have been used as the dumping area for a previously removed smashed up floor together with wood shavings presumably left from when the house was built, and I was concerned about setting it alight. I took a 1kg dry powder extinguisher with me under the floor too. It might be a good idea to have someone else in the house too to keep an eye out incase you get into some difficulty.
The other thing is remembering to take everything with you when go down there. It's annoying to spend 5 minutes wriggling from one end of the house to the other on your belly (through the small holes someone else has fortunately already knocked through the sleeper walls) only to find you've forgotten the solder or flux or steel wool, and you've got to go all the way back again!
One place I did notice the effect of the fumes was when soldering in the back of a kitchen cupboard. It wasn't the effect they had on me, but that they caused the 20 or so spiders in the cupboard (the harvester things with long legs) to all come running out at the same instant, all straight into my face. Fortunately I don't have a problem with spiders, but even so, it's not really what you want to happen when you have a lighted blowlamp in hand.
The fumes from a blowlamp are really no different to the fumes from a gas hob in the kitchen. And the floor void is hopefully ventilated, anyway.
But it's the one place I'd use my Antex Pipemaster electric pipe heater. It's too painfully slow for other stuff, but ideal for this sort of location if you're not too experienced. You might find one in a hire shop, as they're costly at around 45 quid.
At the risk of upsetting the Arachnid rights lobby, I can't think of a better time to be attacked by spiders than when I had a lighted blowlamp in hand.
Have you been round to my house? That's exactly what it's like! And now that spring has sprung I'm expecting to come across loads of spiders etc down there. Last time I was down was January when it was too cold for spiders.
The recent rain and mild weather will soon have the place crawling with them again no doubt.
I've not seen any spiders under my floor. There are plenty of derelict webs, but I rather suspect the owners were just occasional visitors over the last 100 years and died of starvation as they didn't catch any food.
1) clean out lots of rubble to make getting accross the space easier
2) make a comfotable working space - this is key, if you are in pain when you work, you will mess it up, and its dangerous
3) get some good light in place
4) take all the tools down the hole I needed
5) use heatproff mats to protect the wood
6) keep the flame on for as little as possible, without being stupid about it, you are only going to run the flame for a short time, so not much air will be used up.
last and most important, if its a dangerous job, make sure sombody else is arround in case all goes wrong. I work a lot on my own, and when SHMBO is arround I do all the dangerous stuff
If I wack myself with a hammer, it hurts, if I slip with a chainsaw I need sombody to call the air ambulance :-) My neighbours are so far away, they would not hear the screams, and sheep can't go get help - useless animals.
You will be fine. As long as its not hermetically sealed. You will produce fumes faster than a few soldered joints with a torch will.
Anyway teh first signs of anoxia and CO2 overdose is feeling dizzy and headachy, so just watch out for feeling rough, and if you do, break for a cuppa.
In fact, do that anyway. wortkng in 15" of rubble infested space you will need it.
Or if really paranoid use a fan. Coal miners work in less than 15" sometimes. Forced air keeps them alive.
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