We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Tim Decker saying something like:
I've used plenty of pushfit with no problems, but if it's actually inaccessible I've tried to avoid fittings at all in that space. If a fitting is unavoidable, I'd use solder fit.
I do both...
Thanks: I've attempted to do that now. Maybe you'd like to check that what I've written clarifies the point?
Yes, you can do that. That's probably the best way. You can seal the bezels to the wall as well or instead.
Looks good to me! ;-)
David
Matt, he still has to be kidding.
The pipe is OK, it is the pushfit fittings. Use plastic pipe with "good" quality brass compression fittings like Conex. Even then I have seen Speedfit pipe expand so much it pulled itself out of the fitting and large leak emerged. Problems with plastic are legendary and professionals avoid and only use when necessary. New builds use it to stop the Pikeys stealing the copper.
Failures tend to catastrophic with a whole open end pouring out and ceilings coming down.
Use copper with soldered joints and plastic on;only when it is easy, like threading through. "Don't use pushfit fittings", brass or plastic. Plastic also looks awful when surface mounted.
In short, avoid, and use only when you "need" to.
It is not that fast to install as the pipe needs more clips than copper. There should be no stress on the fittings. Also testing of the pipes takes time too.
I know of a few sites where Hep2O is used and the average failure is one fitting per house on testing the first fix. Some have none others more. Even after weeks and after second fix, a fitting will fail when the owner is living in the house or on second fix. Grab rings have failed without any reason. The expansion of the pipe puts great stress on the joints, so lots off slack in the pipe run is advisable. Failures tend to be more with hot pipes rather than cold.
or perhaps because of squinty roughly cut pipe ends.
Nonsense. The only thing that is adviseable is clipping in accordance with the manufacturers recommendations. The stress bit is complete bollocks too. Yes there is expansion on heating but stress cannot increase dramatically because of the inherent flexibility of the installation.. That's just physics.
Jim A
Well I talked with the boss of the plumbing firm that fitted all 192 houses on my estate, all done with Osma Gold push fit and plastic about failure rate. (he was back to inspect a rising main at the neighbours that had a pin hole leak flooding their kitchen). His opinions and advice were:
- Failure rate is 0%, he has never seen a correcly installed Osma Gold fitting fail in service.
- Failure rate of correctly installed copper joints is 0%.
- Failure of incorrectly fitted Osma Gold is during first pressurisation.
- Failure of incorrectly soldered copper is many years after installation when the excess flux washes or corrodes away and joint leaks.
- Most common leak in the 192 properties was in tap connector compression fittings usually due to limited access whilst fitting.
- All "customer visible" pipe work must be copper (ie in cupboards, connecting to toilets etc), as plastic is prone to physical damage.
- All his workers keep the Osma Gold fittings in their shipping bags until needed.
- Correct cutting tool must be used.
- Silicone grease as per manufacturers instructions must be used.
I extensively replumbed my kitchen whilst the kitchen ceiling was down and despite massive replumbing of cold, hot and CH pipwork had not one issue. The hint about use either the pipe marks or use a marker pen to make your own marks to gauge push fit depth is the most useful. Also using the correct cutting tool makes the job trivially easy.
Not heard about that Ian? Any more info please?
Making sure that there is adequate lubrication before insertion is important. Some fittings such as JG do have some silicone grease around the O-ring. Otherwise you can buy bottles of the liquid variety from Wickes and others.
Oooh Errr Missus :-)
Fnarr! Fnarr! Warf! Warf!
What - not a hacksaw?
I wrote: "Grab rings have failed without any reason."
Your experince of plastic pipe is clearly limited.
As I said, "Your experince of plastic pipe is clearly limited."
Your logic is flawed. All you can say is that grab rings have failed without you understanding the reason. There's always a reason why something fails, but you may not always understand what it is.
Fogot to say failure of pushfit was always incorrectly pushed in, which is why I mentioned the tip about marker pen. The pumbers that did my house didn't bother messing around with a marker pen, they always cut at a pipe mark and inserted to a pipe mark (well every single joint I have seen), leading to some interesting if not tight bends and kinks of the plastic pipe. Looks a tad undtidy ie 4 pipes with right angle bends all in different positions rather than neatly lined up and straight runs with bends and "waves", but then is in ceiling so tidyness was probably not a criteria.
I got the bit about silicone grease from watching the fitters, they always greased the ends of the Osmagold pipe before pushing in (I had previously replumbed using Hep2O and never did this).
The fitters always used the 10m/25m coils of pipe as the 3m lengths always end up scuffed and damaged either in the plumbing suppliers or during transport. When pushing/fitting pipe in the building I always tape the pipe free end with insulation tape to prevent damage.
Hep2O
One other thing plastic shouldn't be used in bolier connection to hot tank and to loft tank (spec says within 1 metre of bolier ?) in case boiler faults and boils over as pipe is generally rated to 90°C.
Also remember earth bonding if you "break" a section of copper with a pastic section, the favourite here being adding a shower pump.
The fitters don't care why these things fail for no apparent reason. They know it fails and causes leaks, expense and stress all around to rectify.
You experience largely agrees with mine. I use a speedfit 'button' or the plastic protector supplied on the reel when pushing the stuff under floors.
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