Copper 'street' fittings

Yes. The male end goes into the fitting that needs adjustment (either solder or compression). You don't use them to change pipe size in the middle of a run, only at the end, where there is a fitting of the wrong size that can swallow the "pipe" sized end of the reducer. Indeed, in my experience, they are much more useful than femalefemale.

Christian.

The message from "marbles" contains these words:

You can get a mandrel tool which expands the end of a pipe so the street fitting plugs into it.

However, in the case of BQ it's probably 'cos some arse in head office has noticed they're marginally cheaper so is flogging them while not understanding what the difference is.

Just another fitting, used where the fitter finds it useful.

Only in that you're buying fittings in B&Q. Try

HTH

John

and they're open on Sundays? ;-)

Thanks for the replies: I fear it's that head office idiot who's behind it....

No one said what 'street' means or refers to in this context. Anyone know?

If you have one of those then you don't actually need a fitting at all in many cases. Just stick the unexpanded pipe end into the socket created by the tool.

marbles wrote: > No one said what 'street' means or refers to in this context. Anyone

It means that one end of the fitting is a pipe size male to fit directly into another (normal female) fitting, so you can have two (or more) fittings joined together without adding little stubs of pipe to connect them together.

Interesting point - I've known that an elbow with a male and female end is referred to as a street elbow, but not where the term comes from.

I'm surprised at B&Q stocking them - you don't tend to need them that often.

Yes, but that surely is only for use for manipulative joints using soft (Table Y) tube, not normal Table X tube.

And why "street"?

You can use them on table X after annealing it. But that is a bit of a fiddle.

When water mains were first run to houses the iron pipe has a tee for each house. The tee was usually facing upwards and an M&F elbow fitted directly on the tee, which could be turned to the appropriate house. So an M&F elbow became a street elbow.

Quite believable - had it come from someone who could be trusted.

Thinking on it's probably rubbish since it would mean an internal and external thread on the same elbow - and I've not seen this on any old barrel work. Unless a *real* expert can confirm it.

Yes, steel/iron street elbows exist.

Richard Cranium, this is encouraging. The pills the warden gave you must be working.

Richard Cranium is now replying to himself. Sad isn't it.