B&Q - My part in its downfall...

[Richard Conway]

I was replacing our leaking hot water cylinder this weekend - what a joyous job it is!

Anyway, I needed a small piece of 28mm pipe to repair a very badly soldered (yorkshire) joint on an old gravity hot water circuit (will change to fully pumped at some point - but thats a job for another day!)

The soldered joint was quite something - the pipe had been cut at a very bad angle and must have slipped before it was soldered so that about half of the pipe was in the joint by a couple of mm and the other half was not quite in. The pipe went nowhere near the solder ring. I assume that when it was soldered, enough ran down the inside of the joint to create a watertight seal with the pipe - but offered no mechanical protection at all. It had obviously lived happily for years in this state, but when we started clanging about with the pipework it came undone.

The biggest problem was that the joint was boxed in halfway down a wall and we had no idea that there was a problem, so we happily sat in the loft and turned on the supply to the f&e tank and waited for the system to fill up so we could check that the connections to the coil in the new cylinder were sound (obviously the holes weren't in the same place so we had to piss about all day changing the pipework). We suddenly heard a scream from below as SWMBO walked into the living room to see water dripping through the ceiling!

Anyway, I digress. Back to B&Q. We were lucky enough to catch it, as this was about 3:30pm yesterday and it shuts at 4pm. I rushed in with time to spare and grabbed the only bit of 28mm piping I could find - 3 bloody metres of it! We only needed a bit! Anyway, looked at the price

- £15.98 - horrified! So, I took it to the checkout knowing I didn't really have much choice, and the young girl on the checkout looked up at it, grabbed a ring binder full of bar codes (there wasn't one on the pipe) and asked, "Is that 3 metres of 22mm?"

Well, who was I to argue over a few mm? Ended up paying £7.48 which was still too much but I felt happy anyway!

Had to bend the bloody thing to get it in the car - so if anyone wants

2.8m of 28mm copper pipe with a bloody big bend at one end, let me know.

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

You must be the only DIY'er I know thats doesn't have a few pieces of copper pipe in his toolbox, mind you 2.8m is going to be hard putting it in your toolbox. :-)

-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

[Richard Conway]

I'm only a young lad - my tool box is still in its infancy! Besides,

28mm is fairly uncommon - I do have plenty of bits of 15mm around and the odd bit of 22mm.

The ironic thing was the we needed a bit earlier and we went and raided my grandfather's celler (all sorts in there if you can find it!) We found the only bit of 28mm that he had, which was literally about 4 inches long and just enough for what we needed (or so we though!)

[John Schmitt]

With November approaching, an idea does occur to me. As a youngster in the North of England, it was the must-have toy, a tack-cannon. In this case a short length of 1/2" copper fixed down to a small chunk of 2x4, bent over at one end and with an appropriately placed hole pierced near the bend. A banger was dissected and the powder loaded, a piece of cotton wool, a handful of tacks and another wad completed the project. a bit of powder in the touch hole and a match meant that the neighborhood could be terrorised. This was in the days when bangers were proper bangers, easily capable of dealing with the grumpy old man at the end of the street's milk bottles. Now I am somewhat more mature, I can understand why he was grumpy. I understand bangers are now not for sale. In any case the kid around the corner completely overtrumped us all. Digging in his father's garden, he unearthed a cache of weaponry from WWII. There was a service revolver, ammo and a half dozen grenades. Fortunately the park was empty and there was a 6" thick sandstone wall between him and the grenade when it went off. The local plod took it all away, and the kid around the corner recieved a proper slippering.

John Schmitt

[John Laird]

If he'd had it a while, it was probably 1 1/4".

[Richard Conway]

1" surely - although I'm sure it wasn't as it fitted into a 28mm compression joint with no probs, and as far as I'm aware at this size the two ain't compatible.

[Chris Bacon]

How very dishonest of you.

[John Laird]

Hmm, I certainly did mean 1". I thought it was 22mm that had no near equivalent, but that 1/2"/15mm and 1"/28mm were reasonably interchangeable.

[Dave]

Old 1/2" bore is near enough the same as 15mm OD Old 3/4" bore is nearly but not quite, hence the need for an adaptor to successfully solder it, the same as 22mm OD

Dave

[Richard Conway]

Maybe you are right - all I know is that it appears that all the connections on the cylinder were imperial - I wish somebody would make a decision on which it was to be and make everything the same!

[zymurgy]

One more grunt when tightening a compression fitting, so I err, found ;-)

P.

[Dave]

Yeah, well they do sell 3/4" olives but as you've found an extra half a grunt or so works well - soldering is a different matter tho...

Dave

[Andrew Gabriel]

I needed about 5 lengths of 28mm x 3m to replace the gas pipe through my house some years ago. It was cheaper to buy a bundle of 10 lengths, and the remaining 4 or 5 have been in the loft ever since. I was thinking about using the excess to make heated shelves in the airing cupboard at one time, but eventually went for a different scheme (dehumidifier, as mentioned in another thread recently).

[<me9]

Copper? We used lead hammered flat at one end. Less recoil.

[Mike Tomlinson]

In article , Chris Bacon writes

Oh, give us a break from the holier-than-thou attitude. B&Q's prices are a rip-off anyway, so Richard probably paid about the going price in the local plumber's merchant.

[chris French]

In message , Mike Tomlinson writes

I'm not sure it was meant to be, but whatever.

and the local plumbers merchants was open on Sunday afternoon I assume.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like:

Steel gas pipe for a barrel, with a proper wooden stock knocked up in the shed at the bottom of the garden. Banger fuse re-used as a fuse and the projectile was a marble.

Jumpers for goalposts...

[david lang]

Hells teeth, I always knew it was rough up north! The most offensive weapon we had down sarf was the apple grenade. Scout around the local market after closing time to find grotty cooking apples. Insert 3 penny banger, light, wait & throw.

We did use rocket bazookas. Length of pipe about 2" dia and 3' long with a rocket inside.

Southern softies huh.

Dave

[Richard Conway]

I did consider going slightly further and cutting the 4" I needed off the end and taking it back. Unless I was unlucky enough for there to be another 3m length at the CS desk I'm sure nobody would have noticed! (might have noticed the bend we put in it to get it in the car though)

[John Schmitt]

My father grew up in Kentucky. When he was younger, well before I was around, the local kids made N***** Chasers (offensive word to black people, but still condidered PC in that neck of the woods) which were rockets with their sticks removed. Horizontal launching towards a crowded bus shelter caused appropriate consternation.

John Schmitt