Re: Plumbing DIY SOS kit

[Dave Plowman (News]

A pipe bender for 15 and 22mm copper tube. End feed solder fittings. Learn those skills and you'll be happy with every job.

[Dave Plowman (News]

You obviously turn things off and drain down before fitting. Once they are fitted you can take your time with the rest of the job, without the inconvenience of either.

End feed are cheaper and neater. Compression where you can't use end feed.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Spare ceramic tiles are also useful as heat shields.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Screwfix prices - solder ring are over 3 times the price of end feed. Of course you also need a reel of solder.

[Dave Liquorice]

particularly if

Older property meaning 70's or so.

15 mm no problem. 3/4" pipe in a 22 mm fitting needs a special olive.

[alan_m]

Pipe bender if you are going to fit your own plumbing (but not essential) and possibly vastly overkill if only required for the odd emergency repair on existing plumbing.

End feed solder fittings are possible overkill for a quick soldered repair. Yorkshire fittings with the integral ring of solder are easier to fit for the novice - but not without practice. I would tend to use one or two off compression fittings for a repair, especially in areas where cosmetics are not vital. Any soldered fitting needs to be COMPLETELY dry of water whereas compression does not.

[alan_m]

Don't forget a pot of flux if going down the soldering route

[alan_m]

End feed are only neater with some skill - I'll bet that any novice will apply 10x too much solder - just to make sure!

[No Name]

A LED torch, dental mirror and a dental toothpick are useful for inspecting soldered joints for a continuous "ring" of visible solder, confirming that the joint has reflowed all the way round and that you did not have any cold or oxidised spots.

(its my form of quality control before refilling said pipework to avoid weeping joints.)

Its actually worthwhile practicing on off cuts of coppper tube and elbows and Tees, particularly on 22 mm pipework as thats harder to get heated evenly when compared to 15 mm tube.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Wipe excess off with a damp cloth - until you get the hang of it. Pal of mine who earned his living doing plumbing - among other things - always used solder ring types - and added solder. Irish - to be sure to be sure.

[RJH]

Agreed on the skills - I'd much prefer to solder and work in copper. But I am where I am and use plastic, and it works side-by-side with my mainly copper system. If/when I get the time I'll learn soldering.

It was reported on this NG, about 10 years back, that plastic fittings will fail as a matter of course. 10 years was the undisputed maximum life (if properly fitted/supported - plastic does need more fixing in the right places) then IIRC. Not sure if that needs to be revised.

[Andy Burns]

Indoors, I've always used copper, but for building a new house, I think I'll use plastic to have no joints within walls/ceilings, any room requiring water will have a "service wall" probably with manifolds incorporating a bank of isolation valves to individual outlets, e.g.

JG now guarantees their pushfit for 50 years.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Not a kit, but make sure the stopcock is known and works completely. Also any other taps in the part of the system you are working on. There are it seems a plethora of 'Unique locations plumbers of the past thought it a good idea to put them. My least favourite is behind a false wall, made of plasterboard and through the ages painted and papered so you cannot see its fake. Brian

[Dave Liquorice]

Won't work on even slowly running water. Though if the water is running one perhaps ought to be more concerned about finding a valve to stop it running than doing a repair...

[Dave Liquorice]

Much prefer end fed, though I'd like to move onto no fitting at all and just flare one of the pipes. Saw a gadget that fitted into a drill to do that on one of those random FB videos that pop up...

Depends a bit on access and if there is room to wrnagle two spanners.

The fitting normally is, the pipework however... B-)

The killer is water that gets replaced when wicked out or boiled away. Snag with boiling a drop of water away is that any steam produced may blow the solder out of the joint..

[Dave Liquorice]

priceless if

Or in our case in the grass verge buried under 6" of grass roots and soil 20 yds down the road and the bottom foot full of accumulated soil(*). There is a concrete "water" marker post against the drytone wall, which is hidden by the verge grass in summer...

(*) Reminds me I ought to go and uncover it and check it's still clear.

[Dave Plowman (News]

If you have the normal car tools (for DIY) you can operate it with a socket set.

[Theo]

Very true. I imagine a lot of people don't attempt things that are not intrinsically difficult, because they're worried they can't handle them if something goes wrong.

I'm happy to collate answers into an article, although I'm probably not the best one to know what I'm talking about :)

Part of the thinking with an SOS kit is that you don't know what the next job is going to entail, so how to be prepared. It might also be the case that you're asked to help out with someone else's system, in which case it's hard to predict what they will have in advance. What's been focusing my mind is the various lockdowns that have meant that 'getting a man in' isn't as straightforward is it once was.

Thanks John (as ever), that's a really useful list :)

Theo

[Dave Plowman (News]

One trick I use. Soldering can be impossible if any water lies in a pipe. Blow through the pipe with a compressor etc leaving a suitable bleed like a tap or whatever open for the air to exit. If you're quick, that often works where you have a small dribble.

I have an HVLP spray set and the air supply for that is ideal - even has a

1/2" tap connector thread on it. A vacuum cleaner that can blow also would be ideal too. Although they're not common these days.

[charles]

not when it's 2ft down.