Tristan, seeing as you seem to know about plumbing, do you have any ideas how to remove the compression rings off the end of the copper pipes, after removing the old stopcock?

To explain : today we turned off the mains from outside and successfully removed the old indoor stopcock. Then we discovered that the compression rings from the compression joints are seized onto the copper pipes - i guess that is to be expected. But they must be removed because the new stopcock has different threads, and can't use the old stopcock's compression nuts that are stuck on there behind the compression rings. Is it possible to remove the rings without damaging the pipe? Access is restricted, can't get in there with a hacksaw or a copper pipe cutter.

I'm thinking maybe a grinderette / angle grinder will be the only way i can cut off the copper pipes, in order to get a clean end to install the new stopcock with its compression joints. The bad thing is that the lower end of it is soooooo close to the wider mains pipe that comes in from outside - it would be nice if the compression ring could be removed instead of cutting off any more of that precious remaining copper pipe.

We've abandoned this job for today and re-installed the old broken stopcock so we have water again.

Hmmmm, any chance you could post a pic or two of the offending bits? I think you mean what I'd call an 'olive'.

The obvious solutions are heat (or freezing), or splitting the olive with a hacksaw, and opening it up to get it off. But as you say, access isn't easy.

Hmmmmm... As I don't really know how much room you have I'll suggest this. Get a pair of mole grips, and put them around the pipe, but loose (i.e. not gripping the pipe, but small enough so it won't slide over the 'olive'. Then tap (or hit) the mole grips with a hammer so it pushes on the olive and slides it off the end.

A pic would help if possible, as I can't be certain I've understood you. Neither of us are plumbers, and as such we'll end up using different terminologies.

Edit: If you can get a grinder (say a Dremel or equivalent) to the pipe, grinding off one side of the 'olive'/compression ring, and opening it up til it falls off might work. Again, pics so I/we can judge available space will help.

Plumbing jargon... never knew there was such a thing...
Seems that Scawen indeed knows about everything - Racing, Plumbing, Bikes, The Future etc. etc.

Good luck with the plumbing

Yes, you understood me right. But i can't post pictures atm because my camera batteries are flat - these NI-MH rechargeable batteries don't last long for some reason.

Thanks for the advice - good idea about the mole wrench. It sounds like you think that olive (metal compression seal) should really be able to slide off, even though it has been compressed onto the other pipe. In that case i guess i'll try the mole wrench idea next time, and resort to the grinder if that fails. I'll just have to be very careful not to grind into the copper pipe that needs to remain undamaged.

hi. when I bought my house, it was made in 1940s...

I had to replace most of the plumbing myself..... It had all black iron pipe
and galvanized.... but copper? compression rings?
Uhhh. when I put in the new sink I replaced all that with new pipes and I found a pea trap that was made out of flexible rubber instead of metal or PVC

Copper...rings... I guess the plumbing is a bit different over there than here
Could you get away with going with PVC instead of copper? Does it get too
cold for PVC in the U.K.? If not, I recommend going with that as it's cheaper than copper and well... here the water is Hard, it would eat up the copper almost as fast as steel.
if it's small diameter tubing, like for hooking up an icemaker in a refigerator,
Couldn't you get away with using flexible plastic tubing with brass fittings?

I know a little about plumbing too, but when I read your post concerning your
kitchen ordeal, it kinda sounds a little alien to me
Oh well good luck

Tristan's idea is similar to this job specific bit of kit:
http://www.tool-up.co.uk/shop/diy/MON2031.html

But as he said, they should just slide off

Quote from axus :

Seems that Scawen indeed knows about everything - Racing, Plumbing, Bikes, The Future etc. etc.

I would assert that the 2nd and 4th one rather behove the "try and error"-principle
But hey, you dont need to know how to do things right to do things right illepall

However, tristan's idea to use something like a Dremel is really good if you have the space to apply it, as you can slowly remove material and see how it's processing. Also, you will not want to have some rusty dust or splinters left in and around the pipe, and you can achieve this nicely with a Dremel. Very powerful tool, just hijacked it from my father a few days ago and it helped a lot to get clean holes into my PC case in order to lay the tubes and cables through there.
But I'm wondering what happens if some of those splinters fall into the main pipe - any chance to avoid this or get rid of them? Turn on the water and let it blow out all the dirt?
Thus it could be better to cautiously crop the end rather than sawing it off, but as you said there is no space left to apply something like a wire cutter.

Maybe you should grind off a bit and then try to break it?

I've just spoken to my Dad (Chartered Mechanical Engineer of 40 professional years experience in the motor industry, and a similar amount of home plumbing experience, albeit not professional), and he has not said many helpful things:

The compression fittings (his term too, so you were right Scawen!) will almost certainly have damaged to underlying pipe, as the fittings are designed to press into the pipe and give a good water tight seal. If you are VERY lucky you might be okay.

The options are (and I'm assuming you have copper pipes, not plastic ones like in a modern 'built to a budget' house) to cut off the old bit of pipe and fit a new section of pipe using either more compression fittings or a Yorkshire extension (i.e. presoldered pipe that you fit in place and heat until the solder melts).

The other option, and perhaps best, is to reuse the original nuts and fittings but finding a new stopcock with the same threads.

Surely their MUST be a proper plumber (I don't like to use the term professional like I did above, as it is a trade, not a profession, but thats another story) here, who knows more than me and my Dad.

OK I spoke to my Dad (Dad's know about all these things don't they)

He agrees that you will have to replace a bit of pipe, the compression rings have been compressed onto the pipe, so they won't come off (that's how they make the water-tight seal). Even if you could cut it off, it only takes one slight score on the pipe and the new compression ring won't seal.


Edit: you know when I first saw the thread title I thought it was a pisstake

Quote from tristancliffe :

Hmmmmm... As I don't really know how much room you have I'll suggest this. Get a pair of mole grips, and put them around the pipe, but loose (i.e. not gripping the pipe, but small enough so it won't slide over the 'olive'. Then tap (or hit) the mole grips with a hammer so it pushes on the olive and slides it off the end.

Don't do this!!!

You'll likely fracture a joint at another place in the pipe. These things are designed to sit for years and _never move_. Not to have people hit on them in random ways.

You've already probably got this fixed, however:

As has been suggested already, cut out the offending section (A small wheel based pipe cutter is best for this) and replace it. If you're soldering (honestly, this is the easiest option) remember to get all the water you can out of as long a section of pipe as you can. A thin tube and a wet / dry vac works wonders for this.

Use pre-soldered straight couplers. Sand the ends of the tube until it's clean copper (Wire wool works best for this), apply flux to the pipe (make sure it's water soluble flux if this is your drinking water supply) place the coupler over the pipe and the new section of pipe. Be sure you've measured everything up beforehand, and pre-assembled the other side of the stopcock. You need to then "gently force" the pipes into an assembled position. Don't yank it - That way lies employing a professional to fix what's now causing the nice fountain over your wife's kitchen floor.

Once everything's in place, just heat the joint until you see solder (very slightly) showing on the ends of the coupler. Make sure both sides of the joint are molten. Don't heat the copper too much, however - Red is bad

Once the joint is done, let it cool slowly. Don't turn the water on until you can touch it comfortably is a good guideline. This lets the joint be much less brittle than if you were to suddenly quench it.

You don't need a big torch to do this job - Standard propane works well, as long as the pipe has no water near it. You may find a "soldering mat" useful. This stops the torch flame from burning anything around the joint that you might care about. All of the bits you need are at B&Q, or any other home maintanance type store.

Some cats also are not intimidated by torches. Be careful

Don't be tempted to use plastic pipe to do this repair - Yes, it's much easier, however, you loose a major portion of your equipotential wiring in your house (Earth wiring, in common parlance). An earth strap would have to be _very_ substantial to fix this. And I'm pretty sure it would violate the IEEE wiring rules.

If in doubt, hire a professional - If everything goes pear-shaped, they (hopefully) have insurance to cover damages.

Good luck!

Cheers,

Allan.

Hurrah, someone with plumbing sense!!!

Hitting it with a hammer would be a last resort, but as I don't have pics, or any great idea of what the layout of pipes and stuff is I mentioned it anyway.

Edit: Can I just say Scawen that I really like the new 'lots of posts' Scawen. Keeping us up-to-date with LFS related stuff is great. I consider this LFS related, cos if your kitchen was sorted faster you can do more programming and make LFS even better

The last resort would be handgrenades

Contact this guy - He'll fix it, apparently..

http://www.misterfix-it.com/

Or just listen to tristan, as he seems to be our resident Mr fix-it, or is that Mr bodge-it?

I never bodge! My repairs are always good quality, whether they be to a car's voltage regulator or the water system of a 'friends' house.

Now, the route to that repair might not be straightforward. I might not have exactly the right tools, or may not fully understand initially how something works, but in the case I would endevour to find out. I can't think of the last time I bodged something (other than my steering wheel in a time of need )

I'm sure you didn't mean anything by it Loon, but I'm quite protective of my hatred of bodging...

Quote from tristancliffe :

I'm sure you didn't mean anything by it Loon, but I'm quite protective of my hatred of bodging...

Obviously.. On both counts..

THANKS again guys!

Special thanks to Dibblah : very good advice - it can be hard to find good plumbing advice. I will probably go and get a blowtorch, a pipe bending spring, some flux, wire wool and a soldering mat. Also trade in some of the compression joints i've bought and get some pre-soldered ones instead. Sounds easier / more reliable this way... and more fun!

I'm tempted to reorganise it a bit as well. I'm attaching a photo of how it is and my impression of how it should be re-done.

Notice how i'll get a lot more space for the stopcock - the old one is in such a small space at the moment so after cutting off the old ones and extending the pipes, there wouldn't really be enough space for the stopcock. My proposed re-done version also has an extended cold tube which is to make it easier to attach a garden tap as well. By the way, the earth lead should be attached above the stopcock but it's just temporarily fitted to the central heating pipe, to give me some reasonable access to the stopcock.

It's more fun this way than hiring a professional. I'd obviously hire a professional for a big job - for example the new combi boiler here was fitted three years ago by a real plumber who used to live over the road but has moved away. But seeing as it's just cold water pipes, i prefer to do it myself. Nice for my brain to do something else for a change, as i'm only slowly getting back into programming at the moment. I'll be doing the kitchen, with Geraldine. I'm a reasonably experienced chippy so that's no problem. We did the top half of the kitchen about 6 years ago. The doors and drawer fronts for the bottom have just been waiting for the job to be finished ever since. But plumbing is new for me... and there's more plumbing to be done under the new sink of course, when i get to that point!

In an ideal world, you should really be replacing that lead incoming water main. We wouldn't want you going prematurely senile.

Hmm..... i was wondering about that - and if anyone would spot that here.

But how far does that go? All the way out to the street? And how dangerous is it really? The water here is very hard, everything is always getting limescale, so does that mean the lead pipe gets a nice safe internal covering of limescale? Or is it really giving me a slow death?

EDIT : a bit of internet research seems to indicate that lead pipes are more of a problem in soft water areas... i think for now i'll just carry on as before and not worry too much about the lead pipes. It's a separate job anyway so there's no need to do it all at once.

Yeah, we've got one too which I'm in the process of replacing before I finish building an extension on top of it.
The water board are only obliged to replace any lead pipe up to your property boundary, so it certainly goes that far. If you've got an external stopcock out by the road then its easier to replace it up to there, otherwise the water board will have to come and replace their bit and put a new meter in for you to connect to.
Its got to be in a 750mm deep trench minimum as well, so leave it till you fancy doing some serious digging.

Quote from colcob :

We wouldn't want you going prematurely senile.

Arguably he already is. Trying (and succeeding) to make a brilliant driving sim almost single handedly (programming-wise), and telling his sims community about his kitchen repairs. I'd say he'll need medication within 10 years

Glad to know the advice here is helping (although not mine <cries>. In my defence, I did say I wasn't a plumber and that other peoples advice would be well received). Hope you get it fixed soon, and can then have a nice drink of water

Just to let you know - i finished this on Wednesday. Thanks to Dibblah's advice, i got the blowtorch, water soluble flux, etc. and used the pre-soldered joints. I was able to hacksaw and break off the old olive from the lower pipe, so the new stopcock goes straight onto that one, no need to extend that one, and there's plenty of space for another new one to be fitted in the distant future! I kind of diverted from the proposed plan because there was some difficult bending needed - and this way there are less T-junctions to slow down the water flow.

Also added the new bit for the outside tap and got a nice 400 mm long 14 mm diameter masonry drill which went through the wall amazingly easily! Thanks for your help everyone, and we'll get onto the rest of the kitchen at some point in the next few weeks.

Anyway here are the pictures - before, during and after.

Scawen the plumber!

Quote from Scawen :

Just to let you know - i finished this on Wednesday...

Great work. So now it's Saturday, which means it's been done for 3 days now. So then we would expect a new patch, what, on Monday? That should be enough time, LOL!! J/K'ing. While you were working on the kitchen plumbing, I was ripping out the bathroom shower walls to repair leaky faucets and crumbling wallboard.

try do it like this

Work