I think I have made a major mistake with respect to rerouting some water pipes due to some bad advice. As an old staircase cover was needing to be replaced I had the pipe rerouted along inside the gap between where the staircase is and the replacement plasterboard. It then follows a metre channel in the wall and then goes in to the kitchen (and up into the above neighbours flat who shares the supply).
There are several soldered joints that are going to be embedded in the wall because of the route and actually two compression joints that will be covered by plasterboard. It is all copper.
Can anyone give me some advice before it is too late. i.e. is this safe and am I breaking any rules and what are the implications in terms of selling in the future?!
Don't think there are any regulations broken, but if your copper pipe should certainly not be in contact with cement/mortar, as this attacks the copper over time. The pipe should be sleeved in something appropriate.
The wisdom of burying pipework inaccessibly, especially compression fittings, is perhaps questionable - many do it and reckon it's fine, but I'm not one of them! But that's a personal decision to consider, rather than a regulation.
I think I need to have the compression fittings replaced with soldered joints for my own peace of mind.
I've seen mentions of putting 22 mm plastic pipe around the 15 mm copper and also some kind of taping. If the pipe is already connected up, I suppose a slit is put in the plastic and it's placed around. At the moment the channel is not deep enough behind the pipe to get anything around it - the hole where it goes into the kitchen is just big enough for the pipe itself as well. Of course, the pipes are already in place so I'm wondering how the hell anyone's going to be able to 'get round the back' of it without damaging the pipe! Is there a way to do this carefully?
I've just been reading about protecting the channelled in pipe from corrosion. The channel is in an internal wall brickwork with mortar and I presume if the pipe stays in there, it will be plastered over.
I have read about corrosion of copper pipes but it's not clear to me whether this will be a problem in this situation because it's mainly talking about concrete. Is there a problem in my situation?
1=2E corrosion due to contact with cement (definitely) and perhaps plaster. Solution is to wrap the pipe in DENSO tape. Denso is sold by Plumber's merchants and comes in 10m long rolls of various widths & maybe 2mm thick. It is quite sticky stuff best put on with throwaway plastic gloves. Instructions are on the roll wrapper. It is put on in double thickness by overlapping each band 55% with the previous one.
When handling pipe covered by Denso I usually put a piece of Duck tape around it to keep my hands clean.
Last roll I bought was 100mm wide & cost =A38 something. 'Original Denso' is widely available in Plumber's merchants is only good up to
55deg C. Hotter than that & ordinary Deenso leeches into & discolours the wall. Officially you should use 'Denso Hotline' on hot water pipes (which run at 60deg C). Hotline is good for 55 to 110 deg C, but unavailability except in large boxes ex manufacturer, indicates not many people use it.
2=2E access to all Cu joints - soldered and compression both have an uncertain life: Vibration and oxidisation are 2 problems. Wherever possible easy access covers should be provided to all joints.
3=2E Frost. If by covering up the pipes against an outside wall you have put them outside the heated envelope of your home then the water regs require proper insulation & stop & drain taps to allow the affected section to be isolated to prevent freezing.
If it were mine, my choice would be to smooth the channel sides with a skim of plaster and then cover the channel with thin plywood screwed to the wall (or perhaps some other flat material such as aluminium.)
Thanks for all the pointers. I think I have really made a big mistake.
The idea about providing access to the channel sounds good but the trouble is, it's not just that. It follows just underneath a staircase (with joints both solder and compression), to be covered by plasterboard and similarly across a hallway (again, joints). Again the idea was to have plasterboard put up. I don't think it's going to be feasible to provide any access in this situation. I'm thinking I'm going to have to have it all put back again. Any ideas how to salvage this mess? Of course, I can't do this myself, so it's not really d-i-y and I appreciate people not having a go at me for posting, but I did cause the problem in the first place.
Personally, I wouldn't worry about any of it. The copper will only corrode if its in contact with cement. Plaster / plasterboard will not be a problem.
The compression joints are hugely unlikely to fail if done properly. Is water running in the pipes now? If there are no leaks (check with a bit of cheapo toilet paper - it shows up the smallest of leaks in my experience) then I can't see it leaking unless you get some stuctural movement. And if the movement is that bad, you might as well knock the whole house down, so a leaky pipe will be the least of your worries. Compression in an inaccessible location is certainly not ideal, but I wouldn't go pulling bits of plaster away to fix it if it's all finished now.
emma snipped-for-privacy@fastmail.fm wrote: > I think I have made a major mistake with respect to rerouting some > water pipes due to some bad advice.
Doubt if what you've done would be picked on by any purchaser's survey when you sell. And unless you plan to be around a long time in the house unlijely to bother you.
Personally I wouldn't go to any great lengths to change it. If any of it looks as if it could get cold by being too near an outside wall or a draught then cover it woth insulation before covering with p/board. Pipe insulation all along might pay regardless.
Before you cover it with plasterboard take plenty of photos woth a digital camera so you can see in future where everything is. Save the photos twice to DVD/CD so you have a backup.
You may be misunderstanding the corrosion issue. That only happens when you bury the copper in mortar or plaster not if you simply cover it woth a sheet of plasterboard.
if you mean mortar or plaster slapped all round them and physically buried in it, I'd avoid that by covering the joint with Duck tape (if no denso available) and surrounding the immediate area of the jointy with polystyrene or some other inert stuff. Again if no denso available, you could cover the bare pipe runs with duck tape as a second best option before burying in mortar or plaster.
I would not worry about it too much. IME a correctly made joint (compression, soldered, or pushfit) will stay that way unless fiddled with in some way.
Leave it as it is. If you are going to be covering any bits in mortar then protect those with tape first otherwise don't worry about it. Just think of how many other hidden pipes most people have in their houses under floors and in walls that never give any problem.
I'm trying not to worry about it but I don't want to have to tear down the thing again. None of the replacing the plasterboard work or plastering over the channel has been done so far because I had to sack the people who were going to do it as the first bit of work they did was terrible.
There are no leaks currently although the person who did it had to come back to tighten up two of the compression joints as they were leaking a little - it's been up for about a month now - he said this was normal. Luckily, the sacking meant I could see what was happening first with the joints!
The run of pipe up the staircase is attached to what I think is called the stringer - the vertical wooden sections on the wall. Is this safe enough? No point asking any of the people who suggested this whole thing to me in the first place because they're quite happy to do any old thing. The work has been literally giving me sleepless nights.
I will try and think of a way to provide some access and certainly get the channelled in one protected properly.
It's all internal. It's a mid terrace so should be alright I think.
I definitely will do this. Although it might give someone in the future the heebies!
On the subject, I haven't actually told the upstairs neighbour who probably 'owns' the staircase the pipe is partially attached to. It's a shared water supply as well. Just thinking about what I've done here ...
There's one little bit of channelling-in which could be plastered over. I'm thinking of trying to get around embedding it i.e. leaving the pipe in some space and hopefully allowing access to it.
Pipework that's going to be buried is certainly required (by a British Standard, IIRC, but I couldn't tell you offhand which one) to be done in such a way that it's renewable. In the case of plastic pipe this is usually acheived by running it in a sleeve so it can be pulled out and a new length threaded in (e.g. if someone drills into it). Obviously with copper this is harder to arrange.
Like many standards and regulations this is probably more honoured in the breach.
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