Communal Rising main water pipe

[Pipeman222]

Hi all.

Doing a house renovation here at my flat that I owed for about 20 years have decided finally that time to spend some money on myself and live normally.

Basically knocked out larder cupboards and walls making a kitchen diner finally got permission from the freeholders that took about 1 year alone.

Behind one of the Larder cupboards there is as follows 4 pipes on the wall going up and down
These are down services from the the roof of the block of flats a water tank used to be attached next to where this main is.

There is one pipe this is what the problem is about 60 cm away from those pipes in other words in the actual kitchen its 28m copper and above it there is a join to about 35m copper.

At first we believed this was the down service but after realising it appears to be the water that is pumping up through all the flats into their water tanks and then into the main water tank on the roof. SoI have a water pipe in my property that does not serve me there is no stopcock at all within my property yet I am told I am responsible for it.

We want to re-route this pipe back to the wall.
Contacted Thames Water and they seemed quite confused about this pipe but did indeed find it on thier system.

What would be the best way to tackle this they told me that you could possibly try to turn this feed off from the ground but surely it's getting pumped up due to gravity? So would you not need to turn the pump off as well where would that be? Other option would be to freeze or to use an Aladdin clamp and basically to re-route the pipe back to the wall is there any issue removing this pipe I'm presuming the water will still be able to travel up the bends being about 60 cm back to the wall all and then out again 60 cm in?

Obviously for the duration of time there'll be no water being pumped up to the main storage tank I presume this will not affect the properties with the water tank in the house because the main tank upstairs has about 10000 l. And we only need 1h.

Happy to take pictures but meanwhile just wanted to pick everyone's brains and I was wondering if anyone has experienced this sort of job and are there any worries at all?

I'm pretty worried about cutting the pipe using an aladin clamp and freezing it because if something goes wrong there is no stopcock within my property to turn it off and water damage could be totally catastrophic

 

[WC1]

Pipeman: I am following this with genuine interest but am finding you hard to follow. Please double check your writing after posting and use the 'edit' button (on your post) if you need to make corrections.

It looks like you are on a mobile device that is auto-correcting what you are typing and I am struggling at times to understand what you mean.

It looks like Google translate or similar.

 

[Pipeman222]

Pipeman: I am following this with genuine interest but am finding you hard to follow. Please double check your writing after posting and use the 'edit' button (on your post) if you need to make corrections.

It looks like you are on a mobile device that is auto-correcting what you are typing and I am struggling at times to understand what you mean.

I'm sorry and you're absolutely right I'm on a device and I've been really busy at work I've been using voice recognition

Basically I went to the loft of the building we turned off 2 gate large valves then we went back down to my flat in the middle floor and we turned the left dead legs area hope you're following me.

During the time of about half an hour I made a contraction that was taken left dead legs area to the drain for 20-minutes the water was going at a heavy pace
However and this part is the most important upstairs and below me everyone had a no water in the bathroom we have isolated their water tank area.

Which led us to be very confused until the previous plumber came to the house and said this is the water going up and that's why you had water so that means this is the water going up into the tank on the loft. So I know this is not the down service because we had turned down service off successfully.

The only question I have is why did they not have water so quickly when they have a water tank full of water I don't actually know what the water tank does obviously I'm not a plumber.

I'm going to send some more pictures and maybe a video if possible

 

[Pipeman222]

More photos

 

[Pipeman222]

Here is the video the top section above the join is thicker below the join is 28mm copper it's difficult for you to tell on a video or a picture but above is actually thicker.
Behind are more pipes three of them go directly down through my property one of them has been soldered and kinked this potentially could be also alive but it's not in the way so I'm not too bothered about it and it hasn't been used in probably 30 years just staying like that it's the least of my worries but take a look.

 

[Pipeman222]

Here is the video the top section above the join is thicker below the join is 28mm copper it's difficult for you to tell on a video or a picture but above is actually thicker.
Behind are more pipes three of them go directly down through my property one of them has been soldered and picked this potentially could be also alive but it's not in the way so I'm not too bothered about it and it hasn't been used in probably 30 years just staying like that it's the least of my worries but take a look.

Here is a picture of that pipe on the right which is not a problem and not really the reason for this but it's good for you just to have a look at it it maybe that was the old pipe from the down service no idea why it's kinked like that
Least of my worrie as it can be boxed in and has probably been that way for 30y.

 

[Pipeman222]

I was looking at the pipe size the bigger pipe drops from the ceiling into the tee marked in blue it then would have fed your flat via the branch with the stop valve on, it then reduces down marked in red this would normally denote the supply comes from above it wouldn't increase in size going up , either way once the main is identified and isolated it can be rerouted I would be asking for confirmation they are fully insured and a method statement of what and how they intend to tackle the job before committing
Regards kop

So regarding the post which was quite scary regarding once you opened the stopcock again downstairs and the power of water flushing up the dirt and damages everyone's tank's which will potentially be a claim of over probably £100000 provided the person has public liability insurance should they try to flip liability onto me me we are covered and obviously just proceed with works would you say this is sensible?

Also I can see a lot of you out of London but is there anyone you can recommend to do this I actually even called Pimlico Plumbers and they said they don't touch anything communal.

The other guy that came seems convinced this is coming from the ground feeding the actual tank you guys not think this is accurate don't forget the water tank will need to get water somehow the tank on the roof the big tank its massive.

I'm probably happy to use him but I also want to hear from everyone else and if anyone can recommend anyone who has done this before and is very experienced please let me know and I right in thinking that insurance company will cover us?
The last thing I want is to do the rerouting and then have to sell the flat to pay them!

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Commercial plumber but make sure the building owners / management are happy for you to mess around with there system/ shut everyone’s water down for a day

 

[king of pipes]

This is a commercial job and I would be using a company who specialises in that type of work. It should work something like this,
1- A surveyor visits your property to access what work needs to be done and if its achievable what materials, tooling and labour is needed ? What work needs to be done to gain control of the water isolation. If chlorination and flush of the system is needed ? A Lab test sample taken and a report produced once work is complete?
2 - Identify how this building is supplied with water ? who is responsible for the supply? access to the isolation of said supply?
3 - Contact would be made with all the People affected by this work ? The building services manager , The water company this would include a site visit by them and check isolation is possible by the external stopcock ?, The tenants effected by the work involved their and contact details ?
4 - A detailed estimate produced of the work to be done and a projected costing for that work
5 - A risk assessment and method statement put in place ? - details of how and when this work will take place.
6 - Once this has been done a period of time will be needed for these plans to be finalised and any concerns addressed.
7 - Once this is all in place then the work can go ahead
So as you see there's alot of work to be done before you even touch the pipework and any short cuts taken you are leaving yourself wide open for prosecution if something goes drastically wrong . Regards kop

 

[Ric2013]

I'm struggling with this up/down issue.

A number of us seem to be basing the 'it must be a pipe coming down' theory on the size of the pipe. I'm happy to accept that it reduces as it falls if you say it does. Being an old building, it's entirely possible a pipe has been repurposed and the direction of flow reversed and it's likely that the narrowest bore for a former gravity distributing pipe is more than sufficient for a mains or pumped pressure pipe going up.

There are better ways of checking the direction of flow than the pipe size. For one, if you are able to use that stopcock that isolates the left branch you could test the pressure against your mains or pumped pressure on that floor of the building and compare it with the metres head you would have from the loft cistern to your floor. This would certainly be a start.

 

[Pipeman222]

This is a commercial job and I would be using a company who specialises in that type of work. It should work something like this,
1- A surveyor visits your property to access what work needs to be done and if its achievable what materials, tooling and labour is needed ? What work needs to be done to gain control of the water isolation. If chlorination and flush of the system is needed ? A Lab test sample taken and a report produced once work is complete?
2 - Identify how this building is supplied with water ? who is responsible for the supply? access to the isolation of said supply?
3 - Contact would be made with all the People affected by this work ? The building services manager , The water company this would include a site visit by them and check isolation is possible by the external stopcock ?, The tenants effected by the work involved their and contact details ?
4 - A detailed estimate produced of the work to be done and a projected costing for that work
5 - A risk assessment and method statement put in place ? - details of how and when this work will take place.
6 - Once this has been done a period of time will be needed for these plans to be finalised and any concerns addressed.
7 - Once this is all in place then the work can go ahead
So as you see there's alot of work to be done before you even touch the pipework and any short cuts taken you are leaving yourself wide open for prosecution if something goes drastically wrong . Regards kop

Meanwhile my house is a building site and we can't fit the kitchen. Living out of my bedroom.
Here's what I think is probably plausible I make sure the person is heavily insured I get them to write down what they going to do this is a good idea but it's going to take about 1 year the only thing I care about is obviously liability switching over to myself but if the plumber is insured and he does the job then I am surely covered for any potential issues?

 

[Pipeman222]

I'm struggling with this up/down issue.

A number of us seem to be basing the 'it must be a pipe coming down' theory on the size of the pipe. I'm happy to accept that it reduces as it falls if you say it does. Being an old building, it's entirely possible a pipe has been repurposed and the direction of flow reversed and it's likely that the narrowest bore for a former gravity distributing pipe is more than sufficient for a mains or pumped pressure pipe going up.

There are better ways of checking the direction of flow than the pipe size. For one, if you are able to use that stopcock that isolates the left branch you could test the pressure against your mains or pumped pressure on that floor of the building and compare it with the metres head you would have from the loft cistern to your floor. This would certainly be a start.

I've examined the building basically there's about six of these pipes going in a line and they go through every single flat onto the loft the pipe is 28 m so it's not massive but theres alot of them.
They had to pass up the house because every time they go up a floor they fill a water tank which was sat right next to it. In the loft you have 6 stop cocks on the joists they all lead into the tank then gate valves that allow water to go down and in the tank.

remember the most important thing downstairs upstairs the whole building had no water in the bathroom basically everyone who had a water tank but I continued to have water going through that pipe and it was going at some pace. Remember we went to the loft and we turned the valves

We were confused until another plumber came over and said this is the water going up hence why I continued to have water.

Today we went downstairs and we walked 13 Steps from the lift directly to the little Thames Water hole and every flat seems to have one on the pavement area.

We opened it up and indeed we see a valve
This valve is directly in line with that pipe outside my property in line with the whole buildings pipe

I'm not a plumber but I do think we have found the source.

Now here's my most important question I don't want to turn it and start anything unless I know for a fact with the plumbers public liability should the crap hit the fan he is liable so all this talk about rubbish going up the pipe and destroying the water tanks or 10'000 l of water crashing down and causing maybe 5m of damage do I make sure he's got public liability and do the work some people are saying don't worry some people are really making me worry.


I think we found the valve now I just want to make sure the person doing it is properly insured perhaps we should just do the work that's what the insurance is for ?

 

[Ric2013]

so all this talk about rubbish going up the pipe and destroying the water tanks

Not destroying them. Just a risk of potential debris from the pipe going into the tank. Provided the plumber flushes the modified pipe through correctly such that any contaminated water does not go into the tank, this shouldn't be a problem.

Regaring living from a bedroom, I lived through a period when I had a ladder to go upstairs and no ground floor (I had a soil floor in one room and floor joists without boards in the other), so I've lived through this. You have my sympathy, but do be reassured: it will end eventually.

 

[Pipeman222]

Not destroying them. Just a risk of potential debris from the pipe going into the tank. Provided the plumber flushes the modified pipe through correctly such that any contaminated water does not go into the tank, this shouldn't be a problem.

Regaring living from a bedroom, I lived through a period when I had a ladder to go upstairs and no ground floor (I had a soil floor in one room and floor joists without boards in the other), so I've lived through this. You have my sympathy, but do be reassured: it will end eventually.

Yeah absolutely don't worry I am quite hard skinned but it is an inconvenience.
Basically do I just make sure he is insured correctly he is going to be touching everything he's going to be turning everything and I get a method statement from him and we just do the work? I am responsible for the pipe it's technically mine

 

[king of pipes]

Meanwhile my house is a building site and we can't fit the kitchen. Living out of my bedroom.
Here's what I think is probably plausible I make sure the person is heavily insured I get them to write down what they going to do this is a good idea but it's going to take about 1 year the only thing I care about is obviously liability switching over to myself but if the plumber is insured and he does the job then I am surely covered for any potential issues?

Sorry but it doesn't work that way everyone is out to cover their own arse and avoid being sued should something got drastically wrong , end of the day it's your choice go with whom you feel comfortable with . I understand your frustration but you asked for advice we give it to you foc , if you choose to ignore it then as the saying goes expect the best but prepare for the worst because if they can lay blame even the slightest thing on you then there's a claim I wish you every success and I'm sure it will work out 😊 kop

 

[Chuck]

Here's what I think is probably plausible I make sure the person is heavily insured I get them to write down what they going to do this is a good idea but it's going to take about 1 year the only thing I care about is obviously liability switching over to myself but if the plumber is insured and he does the job then I am surely covered for any potential issues?

About two hundred years ago someone wrote "A man who is is own lawyer has a fool for a client." and it's still so very true today.

King of Pipes knows what he's talking about. This is a job for commercial professionals.

 

[Ric2013]

In fairness, I'd be confused if I were the OP. KOP has given good advice (which won't take anywhere near a year), but what actually differentiates a firm that specialises in these from a firm that doesn't, and how does the OP know if the firm is any good? What trade membership/approval scheme or qualifications should the OP be looking for? What questions should he ask the prospective contractor?

If the OP chooses a reliable and trusted firm with a reputation to lose and that is insured for this kind of work, although the OP may be liable, it would seem likely that any counterclaim against the firm would be settled should there be an issue. It is an interesting question though - if a plumber working on a customer's house and burns down the street, who do the neighbours sue - the customer or the plumber?

The water undertaker may not be interested in a formal site visit - they may just send some guy under subcontract to label the isolator and that would be it. The building services manager may not be very au fait with this either otherwise the best course would probably be for the building manager to instruct the work and charge the OP.

I think the surveyor is a good start, so what does the OP need to look for in a surveyor? RICS? I'm just a bit unclear on how the OP would go from #28 into practical action.

 

[ShaunCorbs]

In fairness, I'd be confused if I were the OP. KOP has given good advice (which won't take anywhere near a year), but what actually differentiates a firm that specialises in these from a firm that doesn't, and how does the OP know if the firm is any good? What trade membership/approval scheme or qualifications should the OP be looking for? What questions should he ask the prospective contractor?

If the OP chooses a reliable and trusted firm with a reputation to lose and that is insured for this kind of work, although the OP may be liable, it would seem likely that any counterclaim against the firm would be settled should there be an issue. It is an interesting question though - if a plumber working on a customer's house and burns down the street, who do the neighbours sue - the customer or the plumber?

The water undertaker may not be interested in a formal site visit - they may just send some guy under subcontract to label the isolator and that would be it. The building services manager may not be very au fait with this either otherwise the best course would probably be for the building manager to instruct the work and charge the OP.

I think the surveyor is a good start, so what does the OP need to look for in a surveyor? RICS? I'm just a bit unclear on how the OP would go from #28 into practical action.

It actually could take a while as you need to get approval from the other properties to turn the main off to the whole place for a day then you have to provide temporary toilets etc

 

[Ric2013]

It actually could take a while as you need to get approval from the other properties to turn the main off to the whole place for a day then you have to provide temporary toilets etc

True, I suppose it depends how many other properties are involved and how helpful/obstructive the neighbours are feeling.

 

[king of pipes]

Post the job on a mybuilder.com they provide access to fully vetted tradesmen including plumbers and the work is fully insured if you choose my builder plus, kop

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Post the job on a mybuilder.com they provide access to fully vetted tradesmen including plumbers and the work is fully insured if you choose my builder plus, kop

Not for commercial works mate