Plastic pipe in 60s flat, metric or imperial?

[usenet]

Is plastic pipe (HW and CW) in a flat built in the 1960s likely to be metric or imperial?

If it's imperial how can I connect to it as inserts are not available for imperial size pipes (I presume). The original system was all glued.

[fred]

In article , [e-mail] writes

I've replaced some that prob came from that era & it was imperial.

No inserts in mine & it was just sealed with O-rings & held with grippy washers. Could it be that only MDPE needs stiffeners & that earlier PVC & Polyprop doesn't? BES do universal transition fittings to MPDE only (I think) so you'd have to use an adaptor set to copper as well, messy & pricey. There must be a better way but here's the link anyway:

[usenet]

Yes, I have a nasty suspicion it may be imperial, I seem to remember having found it was when I did some plumbing there many years ago.

walled I think (I'm not there to check so I can't even measure it at the moment). I think the last plumber who did some work there has used compression fittings on it which seem to have stayed watertight.

Since I'm chopping back the plastic even further I can maybe re-use those same compression fittings (with new olives).

The standard of plumbing (and everything else) as originally installed was truly awful so the more I can get rid of the happier I will be. All the central heating has been re-done now (not by me) and the kitchen has been re-wired. The remaining bad bits are the rest of the wiring (the fittings are the bad bit) and the plumbing in the bathroom which I'm about to replace.

[Hepworth Plumbing Products Tea]

A number of plastics pipe systems were available in the 1960's and early

70's, ranging from solvent weld CPVC to black nylon and polyethylene. They were mainly designed for hot and cold water supply, and were not suitable for central heating, although some CH systems were installed with such pipe and failed prematurely.

If the system is solvent welded it is likely to be CPVC (Chlorinated polyvinyl Chloride). Hunter Plastics

sold a system called Genova for many years which was a fairly thick walled pipe, creamy in colour and sized to American ASTM imperial sizes. Transition to other materials from this is rather difficult without the correct adaptors. This product is no longer available from Hunter. Marshall Tufflex were also recently selling a similar CPVC system.

There is a section on this webpage

with some pictures of the Genova system. Some of the information regarding other products (e.g. Hep2O and Acorn) on the page is very old and out of date.

The Hepworth Plumbing Products Team

-- Tel: [phone] |Hepworth Plumbing Products Fax: [phone] |Edlington Lane, Edlington Email: [e-mail] |Doncaster, UK

|DN12 1BY

[usenet]

Hmm, while I could believe it's PVC of some sort it's certainly not creamy in colour, it's either dark brown or black.

Thanks for the information.

[Nick Finnigan]

I'd go for imperial, and I think someone mentioned LDPE as a likely material. Can you make out any writing on it?

That's what I did with mine. Not easy to get the inserts out to re-use, but 22mm compression seems to fit.

[Simon Avery]

Hello [e-mail]

I would guess imperial, but...

Can you cut off a short section? If so, lug that down to your local plumbing centre and ask for an adapter from that to a more workable standard - say 15 or 22mm copper. If it's the thick walled black stuff, then it probably won't need an insert, but be guided by them.

Once you've converted to copper for a few inches, you can continue in whatever style you want.