Freezing plastic pipe

[bathroomboy]

I have froze pipes with aerosol pipe freezers many times, I now have at my disposal a Rothenburger Rofrost electric freezer, supplied by my company, great bit of kit, only problem is I have tried to freeze Hep20 twice and there is a lot of this in the building I work in, I have so far been unsuccessful, it works great on copper, but doesn't seem to want to freeze on plastic, even though it was in the specs it would. Any ideas anyone?

 

[SimonG]

Takes a lot longer.

 

[hammers4spanner]

Just use on of those pipe squish things

 

[ShaunCorbs]

Depending on pressure and where your working cut and slam a coupling on with a lever valve and your done

 

[WaterTight]

If length long enough you can just cut and bend it in half and tape two halves together.

 

[bathroomboy]

Takes a lot longer.

Had it on over 35 mins the other day and it didn't freeze, this also a hospital type environment, can't have water blowing off everywhere

 

[bathroomboy]

You mean like a clamp, will this not damage the pipe? never used this method, seen it on mdpe to change a stop valve but not hep20 or speedfit.

 

[tolly]

I presume you made sure the water wasnt moving while you were trying to freeze it...i.e secondary return or someone running a tap etc.

 

[tolly]

You mean like a clamp, will this not damage the pipe? never used this method, seen it on mdpe to change a stop valve but not hep20 or speedfit.

I dont think any pushfit manu's like squeeze off tools used on there pipe, but its up to you i suppose.

 

[REDSAW]

wet the pipe first

 

[hammers4spanner]

Never had a problem squishing any plastic pipe.

 

[bathroomboy]

wet the pipe first

Thanks, I put the paste on that was supplied with the kit, but will try wetting it first, also there was definitely no flow in the pipe I was trying to freeze, thanks for the replies so far.

 

[bathroomboy]

Never had a problem squishing any plastic pipe.

What do use to squash the pipe? I have some G clamps. does the pipe need warming up first?

 

[bathroomboy]

I presume you made sure the water wasnt moving while you were trying to freeze it...i.e secondary return or someone running a tap etc.

Deffo no Flow

 

[quality]

wrap the pipe with wet loo roll first

 

[REDSAW]

Never had a problem squishing any plastic pipe.

is that with pressure in?

 

[bathroomboy]

wrap the pipe with wet loo roll first

Thanks will try that

 

[quality]

A paper towel is better but there is always loo roll around, even if its the emergency one out off the van

 

[macackau]

Yep. Even on copper I use a bit of wet blue roll and if it's a humid/hot day I try and do it first thing in the morning and wrap a dry towel round the lot to help the freezing process.

On another note I once froze two pipe tails to a rad in a packed office, for some stupid reason when I took the knackered TRV valve off I decided to switch off the pipe freezer and shortly afterwards created an indoor water feature. To this day I still don't know why I switched the machine off

 

[bathroomboy]

lol