Laminate floor & access to stopcock

[dezza]

Hi

I wish to lay laminate flooring in my conservatory, however our main water stopcock is located in the middle of the room (which we can't move). My plan is to create some sort of access panel (approx

12x12cm) which I can get to in case of emergency.

Has anyone done anything similar or know of a product which serves this purpose?

Many thanks.

Dezza.

[Lobster]

Surely the answer is to cut the panel from the floor, with a fine-toothed saw, to make it minimally visible; you don't want any other 'product'. Two edges of the panel can coincide with edges of the laminate board (assume you're using some form of planking?), the other two will be perpendicular cuts.

What will this laminate lie on - is it flat on a solid floor or something? I'm trying to envisage how you have a stop c*ck in the middle of the floor...

David

[dezza]

Thanks David

It seems a bit daft i know but the stop c*ck was initially outside but now the conservatory is placed over it (wasn't moved - balls up on my part).

The tap in a foot deep hole which currently sits under 2" chipboard & insulation (access hole has been cut), i will be placing electric underfloor heating and flexible screed over the top. E.g.

surface Laminate ________ Heating ___| |___ Chipboard ----| |------ | | stopcock ___oo___

I will be using locking laminate panels so i cant see a way of cutting a small section out and easily extracting it (because it's locked in).

Cheers.

Derrick.

[Roger Mills]

So why can't you just abandon that stopcock and fit another one in a more sensible place?

[PJ]

Well done that man! Edward de Bono would be proud of you. A much simpler solution.

[John Rumm]

It would seem more sensible to simply re-router the mains supply outside the conservatory and just forget about that one under the floor.

If you must go this route, then these are made for this type of job:

[The Medway Handyman]

Fit one of these somewhere else - they work 8 metres away apparently

[dezza]

Nice one... that's the sort of thing i'm after.

Unfortunately the stopcock outside it the main isolation tap before it gets into the house (i dont know the technical term) and will be a

*hit to move at this stage.

Thanks for your help.

[dezza]

The routabout fixing has a 25cm diameter... have you seen a smaller version about?

Cheers.

Dezza.

[John Rumm]

No, but you could achieve a smaller cutout with a circle jig... You could then use a bevel cutter to trim the edge and to make a matching bit of infill (unlike the usual use of the jig, you probably will not want to flip the laminate over to plug the hole!)

[Stuart Noble]

If you had a flooring offcut, it wouldn't matter how much you lost in the cut

[dezza]

Thanks for the advice chaps... appreciated.

[John Laird]

apparently

link, thanks. I too have a stopcock in a stupid place and it would be handy to be able to turn off the supply without emptying a cupboard and pulling back flooring to get at the small hatch (3 hacked bits of floorboard, to be more precise).

Screwfix have the most reasonable prices, and as someone pointed out in an earlier thread, the standard ("non-remote" model, according to SF) unit has 4m of operating cable anyway.

-- "Permission for lip to wobble, Sir?"