Multimaster and SDS in perfect harmony

This weekend's fun, or how to hack lumps out of a wall so that no one notices!

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(adapt, correct, hack about etc as usual!)

Reply to
John Rumm
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Now do that in a rubble stone wall rather than nice uniform and soft block. B-)

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Yup I was rather pleased to find that was a new block wall... I have done it before in a hard brick one, but I don't think I fancy it in rubble and stone!

Reply to
John Rumm

Wow...

How did you did you make the final solder joint to the incoming pipes John?

If you took the valve off, how did you maintain alighnment of the stub pipe?

Reply to
Tim Watts

The old shower was an Aqualisa. Derren Brown eat your heart out .....

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

How about a couple of chrome dome headed mirror screws in those two holes? Most people would not even wonder why they were there.

Bob

Reply to
Bob Minchin

90% of people wouldn't even give a toss about the filled holes anyway, tbh.
Reply to
Adrian

Amidst my feelings of inadequacy it occurs to me your subconscious possibly made you leave those 2 screw holes ready to mount the discrete plate tastefully engraved on the lines of "Retrofitted by John Rumm - the impossible we do today...."

Reply to
Robin

Nice.

And I learned about "cranked gouging chisels"

Reply to
Huge

Nice job - but there must have been some nail-biting moments!

It would have been so much easier if you had removed a few tiles, and fitted new ones after the new valve was in. Presumably, the reason for not doing that was that you didn't have any spare matching tiles? That being the case, did you have a contingency plan in case you broke any of the tiles which you were tunnelling behind?

Reply to
Roger Mills

Damn, you are good ;-)

Reply to
John Rumm

or just the caps even... yup not a bad idea...

Reply to
John Rumm

Just a tad annoyed that I had carefully marked out the plate so that it would cover them all - alas however you can't choose the plate position relative to the valve, and other factors dictated where that had to go.

Reply to
John Rumm

Indeed - the previous owners did actually leave a few spare tiles for different things, but none of those alas. I could not see anything the same on trip to a tile place either.

Was hoping not to break any ;-)

(I guess a section of mirror tile, cut in around the valve would work though)

Reply to
John Rumm

With difficulty! ;-)

(to be fair though the whole job got easier when I realised that the H & C stickers they had applied to the valve did not match the H & C embossed in the casting of the valve, so at least I did not have to swap over the hot and cold connections in the chase as I had originally anticipated - that would have left the valve captive with a pipe running over the front of it)

I started with a short stub of pipe to go into the compression end of the 15mm to union adaptor, then an elbow and street elbow, followed by straight section of pipe to bring me back to under the inlet position. Soldered that up and mounted it on the valve - then offered it into place. Trimmed the return pipe length and ditted the elbow and cut the length of pipe up to the inlet. Then soldered all that as well, except the final elbow. I then offered it up in place, and removed the valve, but kept the pipe position propped in place, and soldered the final connection to the inlet. (there was a small amount of front to back movement available though the wall).

The next side was then a repeat of the first so that I ended up with a matching pair of drops, with excursions out into the hidden chase, and back again:

| | __| | / __/ / / \ \__|| \___ ||

The valve could then be slid between the union nuts, and the washers slid in. I could just get the quick grips on the nuts to snug the unions up.

(then remove the whole lot and repeat a second time when you realise you forgot to do up one of the compression nuts - and there is no way you are getting a spanner onto that!)

The top connection I did last, once the valve was fixed in. I had to make the final solder joint to the elbow with the valve in place because there was not space to pre assemble and then route it through the path required to get the outlet socket poking out the wall.

Although I have not tried it, the valve should be removable by undoing the two union nuts and the top compression nut and pulling it down and out.

One final annoyance was that I found the tap at the top is not a conventional tap, but a quarter turn cartridge... Although I think that can be replaced without dismounting the rest of the valve.

Reply to
John Rumm

I learnt that it would be nice if you could get a back to front one, for cutting against the front surface rather than the back!

Reply to
John Rumm

In article , John Rumm writes

I know you like a challenge :-)

Personally, I'd have dug out enough for a joggle on one of the supply pipes and put in an external bar mixer. Any mess left I'd have covered with a facia plate on the tiles, purchased or fab'd from stainless. I'd have been happy to just fill the odd remaining screw hole with grout.

Reply to
fred

Yup that was an option, although I would needed to have covered quite an area of mess then...

I will probably use a bar mixer for the new one I am about to install upstairs - but that will be built from scratch, so no need to alter existing stuff.

Reply to
John Rumm

As it happens I thought that (but only cos I repalced an Aqualisa Aquastream here a few years ago)

Nice job John :-)

Reply to
chris French

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